Blood & Wine

40 | Fynley

Dasher ran a rough hand through his hair. "I want to get back to my Mate," he told me, and his voice was irritated and borderline childish.

I glared at him. "Trust me, I know." I pulled off from the highway, heart heavy. We had managed to get another one hundred werewolves to our cause, but it wouldn't be enough. Four packs had pledged some of their members to us—but only the ones they didn't want. They saw this a new chance to take the Magus territory, the best territory, for themselves. "I would love to be with my Mate, but being with her right now means putting her in danger in a few days."

"Eden can handle herself."

"And Iris can handle herself. Not to mention, she's at the Coven House. We ought to be afraid for whoever comes near them." I only slight meant that. I still worried about Eden, although I knew the reason she hadn't been touched yet was because, one, her grandmother would not allow my father to touch her, and, two, her grandmother knew she was nowhere near powerful enough to attack Eden by herself.

No, I saw right through that plan of theirs. My father would send werewolves at me, and when Eden was distracted, her grandmother would deliver the final blow. Luckily for Eden, while she planned to get as many protections and witches on our side as possible, I planned to protect her as much as I could.

She wouldn't look after herself. Not until everyone was taken care of.

Dasher sighed. "Why aren't we there? This is a fool's—"

"Again, your Mate is fine." I pulled over on side of the road, in what looked like the middle of the field. The smell of werewolves seeped in through my car, though. This pack I was somewhat close to—it was my mother's pack from a long, long time ago. The pack that had wanted to take me in and protect me from my father. The pack that had mourned her loss.

Hopefully they would still want to protect me. Or, at the very least, help me.

Dasher got out, and he had a grumpy expression on his face.

"Do you understand the severity of this?" I asked, crossing my arms as I leaned against my car. I didn't look out at him, only stared out into the distance as I was caught in a memory for a long, long time ago.

From when I was just Fynley, my mother's beloved son, and my dad had moved to Italy to be King, and she hadn't wanted to be Queen. So we left. She took me in the middle of the night and left.

We lived under their protection for four days—until my father threatened to kill them all if she didn't return to him. Not me, but her. She was his Mate, his property, and dammit, but I understood that need for your Mate; I just hated the way he abused the need and the bond to manipulate her feelings.

Of course, the Mating Bond threw people together based off of who would create the strongest child, not emotional or mental compatibility. I had lucked out with Eden, but maybe there had been much more at play than that.

Dasher nodded his head. "Yes. Goddess, Mother Above, and Jesus Christ, I understand how serious this is."

"Then why don't you act like it?"

"What does acting like it entail, cousin? Am I supposed to walk around and give commands? Wouldn't that be stepping on your toes, Alpha? Am I supposed to pretend to be calm and collected so I don't upset anybody else? Please, tell me how I'm supposed to act like this is serious."

The bite in his voice made the Alpha in me tense up. He made sense. Everybody dealt with situations differently, and my cousin had been through so much in the past three months that I couldn't blame him for however he chose to act right now, knowing he'd come face-to-face with the man that was his real father, the man that had ordered his family's death months ago.