The Lady of the Valley

TLotV Chapter 41

41.

They were halfway back to where he'd parked his car when a chunk of brick flew unceremoniously at his skull. Derek effortlessly caught it, then glared at it and back at his sister, who had thrown it. "What the hell, Ellie?"

"You're lying to me," she snapped, the fury on her face bare. "You know more than you're saying and you promised to share with me. Why are you lying to me?"

Astrid took a step forward, but Derek blocked her. Heat burned in him and he was so tired of holding it back. "I'm not telling you things because you're untrustworthy. I can't trust you, Ellie. We can't. No one can."

Her eyes widened. She looked actually hurt. "I'm your sister."

"And you've lied to me, manipulated, and brainwashed me. You used me and made me forget who I was, the choices I made. You replaced me with who you wanted me to be." His fangs pushed through his gums, making his last words come out in a near howl. His words escaped him, hot with rage.

Ellie flinched as if what he said had actual weight. There was so much behind it, fear, rage, disappointment, shame, that maybe they did. "I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask you to make me into a monster."

"I didn't make you a monster. My sister was dying at seventeen and I didn't have to let her." Every hair on his arms stood on end. "I wasn't there to protect you because of what was done to me. But I didn't make you a monster. You chose who you wanted to be when I changed you. We all choose whether we want to be a monster or not, Ellie. The Beast is bullshit. It's just an excuse to be a shitty person and you embraced it."

Her eyes sparkled in the streetlight. She was crying now, but he didn't care. He couldn't care because he was so very tired of putting her over himself.

"You hate me," she said.

"No, I love you," he bit back. "But I hate that you've used and manipulated that love for a hundred years."

She stood there, frozen in the night. Derek stomped toward her and grabbed her arms. "You want to know what kind of creature devours souls, Ellie? You want to know what the missing piece is? It's fae. Sarris is some kind of fae, and he's out there killing and eating his own. He's getting stronger. But he's not targeting people who can defend themselves. He's killing kids, barely out of high school, who should have their whole wondrous lives ahead of them. He's killing them just because he can, because he's an angry little narcissistic man, punishing the world for not treating him like he thinks he deserves."

He couldn't stop himself. "He's just like you."

"Oh shit," Ari said from behind him.

Derek looked back, but she, Astrid and Drake were fine. They were just watching his little bit of family drama with wide eyes.

"You think I could do that to a person?" Ellie asked.

"I think you wouldn't do it personally. You'd just compel someone else to do it. And for a long time that person was me."

Ellie took two big steps back and shook her head. Then she blurred and vanished into the night.

Derek closed his eyes and turned his face up toward the moon, hoping the cool air would calm his anger. If he was a werewolf instead of what he was maybe he could have howled out everything he felt instead of chaining it inside. Astrid moved to stand next to him. Even if he couldn't smell her he'd have known it was her. He always seemed to know where she was now.

"Are you okay," she asked.

"I don't know. I just blurted it all out to the one person we didn't want to know. So I guess not," he answered.