Chapter 83 The pack is breaking
DAINE
“Why did you keep it from them?” Hale's head bent at my desk.
“When did we agree to make that public?” I pushed the door gently shut.
His hand shook a little as he filled a large glass with whiskey. Enough alcohol to collapse a mortal.
“They are not the public.”
His eyes finally met mine as he walked around my desk with that easy stride, elegant despite the open jacket and the absence of a neck tie.
“They are ours.”
I barely held myself from pointing out that I had only known his fairy for one week. A woman who contemplated participating in her grandmother's ritual to end our marriage pact just this evening.
“It’s your story to tell, Mon amor.” I stepped away from the door, making my way to the desk. “It’s not my place.”
Settling into one of the dual visitor's seats, I caught the tormented look on his face.
Pain bloomed beneath my ribs.
A little over two hundred years now, and he still hadn't let it go.
Wherever there was a threat to the pack, rare occurrences he couldn't prevent, he took it as a personal failure.
Now, he threw his head back and half emptied the glass of whiskey. “You have yet to ask me what happened. Why I was not at her side when the skin walker nearly killed her.”
I scoffed. “She wouldn’t have died.”
The sight of her in fighting mode this evening had been a surprise.
My fragile doll was anything but fragile. And that wolf…
“And I like to believe you had your reasons.”
“Do you now?” one corner of his mouth lifted, “Or perhaps you have given up on me. Your incompetent Alpha.”
I groaned low in my throat.
He apparently needed an outlet. But the only one I was willing to give right now was a firm spanking, pad his bottom raw till he was really hot and anxious to take my dick.
Squeezing my eyes tight, I stood up.
My body was still pulsing with endorphins from having to roast a creature alive for the first time in over one year.
“Why weren’t you there, Hale?” I decided to humor him. “Keep her safe, was that so difficult?”
“I should have. I failed.”
I popped my knuckles. “And why did you fail?” I kept my voice low and disappointed, feeding into his need to atone.
“The Luna is dead.”
That gave me a pause. “Rosamund’s wife?”
“Of course, Rosamund’s wife.” he snapped, threw his head back and finished the glass of whiskey. “It all happened in a flash. We were playing chess. Octavia and Mia were at the table, but their men had moved to the salon. It was supposed to be an easy night, you know.“
He pushed his hand through that silver hair, a haunted look in his eyes.
“We had begun the meeting with tension in the air, the usual confrontations, barbed insults between witches and the vampires. But as the night progressed, everyone seemed to ease up, and I, too, realized at one point I had stopped thinking about all the ways I could castrate that Fentone boy if he whispered in the fairy's ear one more time.
I listened with rapt attention. All this was news to me.
Between Finn and that Berlin dream, I had been too consumed to observe the meeting from here. The one time I did, I heard Donna telling her granddaughter she had found a way to break our marriage pact.
“For one evening, the leaders of all seven districts were at ease with one another, joking, feasting and placing bets on whether the Luna would beat the Mayor at chess before the moon was out.” He drew in a shaky breath. “It almost felt like home, you know.”
Those midnight blue eyes were staring right into mine.
“It felt like before… before him again.”
I gave a brisk nod, sinking my hands in my pocket. He might not appreciate my hug now.
“The sight of my pack like that lit something alive in me. And then… she just fell. Blood came from everywhere, her nose, mouth, down her thighs. Everywhere that had an opening.”
He spun around and punched my desk. There was a round dent when he pulled his fist back.
“The blood didn't smell right, look right, and Ageir was howling. But Rosamund showed up and accused his Beta of poisoning. And then everyone was fighting when we should have been saving his wife.”
“What?”
He turned back around with a smile that did not reach his eyes. “My pack is breaking from within. Rosamund claims the Grunders threw a party to murder his wife.”
Humans. They would always be a puzzle to me.
That puppet had summoned everyone, organized a meeting that was more or less a Grunder-trial. The agenda had been to discuss the cage breakout and make a spectacle of his Beta's daughter.
My wife!
I grabbed Hale by the shoulder and squeezed. “Listen, this has nothing to do with you. Nothing.”
“Wh…”
“Listen!” I barked. “It’s that blue-skinned demon. He is walking overtime to find Nymphaea. It's puzzling how he hasn't realized that she and Finn are the same person. But he hasn't.”
I had Hale's attention now.
“He knows she’s in this city, and most likely has narrowed her location down to our district. These other incidents are an attempt to keep us distracted.”
“What?” Hale's eye narrowed into slits. “I just told you we lost a pack member.”
“Will you wake her from the dead?” My voice was cold, deliberately so, to pull him out of this self-loathing rut.
“I thought so.” I winced. “Tonight, we'll send out the instructions for all district numbers to begin Soulfray rituals in their homes.”
His chest expanded in a much-needed inhale.
“It might not flush out every single one of the skin walkers. But the Ashbounds would handle the rest. And while they do that, no one is allowed to walk the city alone anymore. Everyone must walk in twos.”
I finally let my voice soften, let my eyes show their true emotion. “I’m so sorry, Mon amour.”
His guilt and self-loathing was gone, and in its place was wrath.
I liked wrath.
“Come here.” I yanked him close, and caught his lip between my teeth as my hands worked at his belt.