Blood & Wine

40 | Fynley

Did that mean I wouldn't react to it? No.

Because I was slowly losing my mind, too. I was stressed out, restless, and I wanted all this over. Eden pretended like she knew we'd come out victorious, but I had noticed the way her hand shook—had slipped into her dreams a time or two when I first woke up to see she had nightmares about what was happening. I let her pretend for her sake because that was what a good Mate did. That was how she coped.

I turned my head slowly. "In a few days, you will become the Leader of the Rogues. Grow up. Realize you can't act however you want to. The Rogues will look to you when your father is dead or.... Or whatever the fuck happens to him."

We really had no idea. He didn't want Dasher dead, or so we thought, but that could've been a ruse—wrong information fed to werewolves he knew may get caught just to save his ass.

And even if he didn't want Dasher dead—what choice did we have but to kill him? He wouldn't go peacefully.

The wrong thing to say. He bristled even more, and his fists clenched as he turned to me. "I didn't ask for that position."

"None of us asked for this shit," I snapped, my temper a string wound too tight and close to breaking. "I didn't want to be born to an evil ass father trying to take over the world. Eden didn't want to be born with enough magic to become a Coven Mother at her age or have a target on her back—"

"A target she got because you put it there."

I winced. I had put it there, and Goddess, I regretted it. I would go back in time and change it all if that meant she wouldn't have to go through it. "That was something I had to do, and I didn't know she would be affected when it happened."

"You killed children."

"I didn't know you were so invested in the Coven you're only in to appease your dead mother."

This time, he winced. In my anger, I didn't regret my words. I didn't even feel any type of way about them because I wanted Dasher to hurt. Maybe he'd take this seriously. Maybe he would see what was going on, and he'd stop leaning on us so damn much and become the Leader of the Rogues. That was his prophecy.

He swung at me—sloppy and wild, filled with anger. "I'm invested in that Coven because of your Mate. Yes, I joined for protection, but I don't need that shit anymore. I stay because it makes Eden happen—she doesn't have shit else to be happy, now does she?"

I grabbed his fist and pushed him back feet away from me, bracing myself for a fight I wasn't sure I even wanted. "Are you talking about me? Are you saying I don't make her happy?" I demanded.

I saw the way she smiled at me, saw the way she relaxed around me. Still, his words planted a kernel of doubt.

Eden was always doing something for someone else.

"Look at what you come with—a father who wants to kill you shackled to the grandmother that wants to kill her. Even if you do make her happy, why would she want that?" he snarled, eyes burning bright with anger. "You tormented my cousin for months. You made her life hell because she was your Mate. You can say you were protecting her and trying to scare her off, but I know the truth."

"Which is?"

"You were a coward. You've always been a coward. That's why you scared her off—you couldn't stand the idea of her rejecting the bond, so you were mean to her first. You kept Iris around, not because you wanted to protect her, but because you knew she wouldn't leave you. The truth is, Fynley, you don't deserve Eden. Even now, you're cowering behind plans and armies, going from person-to-person because you're terrified of your father. You still haven't admitted the truth: that your father is supposed to be the one lost to his child. Not me."