All three of them—everyone except Madam Beckett—were left visibly stunned by the suggestion.
For a moment, Soren could only part his trembling lips without sound. His timid eyes shifted behind his glasses toward Clyde, and what met him there was not command, not authority, but a devastation so raw it made his breath catch.
"I… I don't think—" Soren murmured, words faltering before they could fully form.
How could Madam Beckett force him forward like this?
It was not that he did not want to help. It was simply that the moment had come too suddenly, too cruelly, as though no one had allowed his heart the time to prepare for what his body was being asked to offer.
"Soren."
Clyde's voice cut through his thoughts at once, low and strained enough that it stopped everything inside him.
Soren lifted his gaze fully then, and saw the Alpha struggling even to continue.
Clyde's lips parted as though more words should have followed, yet none came.
