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Chapter Thirty-One
“I know about Zee’spast.”
Phoenix’s eyes sharpened on the screen, the blades of his cheekbones going dusky, the only other sign of emotion as the other wolf-hybrid held his gaze through the digital connection. He sat in a nondescript office hundreds of miles away in the Greylock pack’s headquarters.
It was a large, dismal structure that never failed to make Niko long for a breath of fresh air. It should have been torn down to the very foundations after Graves’ death.
Perhaps he’d make it an order.
“What, exactly, do you know, Prime?” Phoenix asked, his tone flat and revealing nothing.
Niko wasn’t in the mood to play games.
“How old was she when you knew?” he asked, bending forward slightly and placing his hands on the console’s counter.
A coldness unlike anything Niko had ever seen came into Phoenix’s eyes, but he said nothing.
Niko held the man’s black ice of a stare and waited. It was a long distance between them but he could force his will even along that stretch since Phoenix had accepted the bond when he’d acknowledged, reluctantly, to follow Niko as his Prime. He was tempted to use it now, so tempted. In fact, the rage inside him whispered he must do it.
But Niko realized there was one thing that could reach him in this icy rage.
Zee.
He thought of her bruised eyes, thought of the words she’d told Colby.
“I have no pack, no family, no home. I’ve been without those things for more than ten years.”
He’d already robbed her of those things once and she still hadn’t been able to rebuild those bonds. He couldn’t cause more harm to this family... to her. Since he’d already done so damage due to his own ignorance, he did something he wouldn’t have imagined even a few weeks ago. He yielded.
“One of my dominant wolves—a female I once had a relationship with—thought to test Zee.” He paused, eyes on Phoenix as he waited for some reaction. The one he received was the one he’d half expected. Sharp, feral amusement, mixed with pride.
“Is she bleeding?” Phoenix asked, only mildly interested.
“I didn’t ask. She’s alive and relatively unharmed which is all that really matters.”
Now Phoenix did show interest. Eyes narrowed to slits, he cocked his head in a fashion that resembled nothing human. Neither was—in any sense of the word. But several of the Day brothers, especially Phoenix, barely held anything beyond a surface resemblance.
Niko had known that but it really drove home now as the oldest of the Days leaned in to peer more closely at the screen. And Niko knew he wasn’t imagining the darkness that cloaked the other man, gathering around him like Death’s shadowy lovers.
“Odd,” Phoenix mused. “You’re not surprised by her reactions.”
“Did you think I would be?” Niko smiled although there was no humor or warmth to it. It was a calculated reaction, much as those strange shadows gathering around the Alpha he faced. “Even ten years ago, I understood the life I would be stepping into when my father turned the role of Prime over to me.”
That had always been the plan—not that his father would die, but that he’d step down and relinquish the role to his son when he felt it was time. But life hadn’t allowed them that choice.
“By taking my place as Prime, those closest to me could become targets. That was something my father never let me forget. And even if I hadn’t known that, strength in a woman has always been a weakness of mine. It’s what made me notice Zee ten years ago.”
“Her strength didn’t keep you from trying to crush her, did it?” Phoenix’s black gaze glinted coldly as the shadows turned his face into a visage from a nightmare.
“No. I’ll never forgive myself for that either.” He inclined his head. “We both know that her strength kept me and everybody else from succeeding.” Niko watched as something red flickered in Phoenix’s eyes and it was a curious enough sight that he started to wonder just what sort of monster lived in the man, side by side with a wolf. “I won’t crush that strength again. But I want an answer—I need that answer. How long has she had to hide herself?”
The shadows fell away from Phoenix little by little until it was simply the Alpha of Greylock standing there, eyes flat and black, jaw locked. “She took you back, didn’t she?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Niko said, not bothering to misunderstand. “But I’m going to crawl and beg until she does.”
Mind spiraling as his enraged fury tried to take hold yet again, Niko recalled what Zee had said, the words Boone had recited to him, spinning through his mind over and over. I got these scars the night I finally stopped fighting. The night I finally gave in. She believed that, he knew. But she wasn’t broken—couldn’t be.
“I need that answer. How long did she have to hide herself? She called herself... broken.”
Phoenix let out a bitter bark of laughter.
“I’m not surprised she feels that way, but Zee’s had that strength in her almost from the time she could walk, you dumb mongrel. Saint suspects she started developing a will of iron so young because she was separated from her mother when she was only a couple months old—her mother was still nursing her, for fuck’s sake. The Leanan Sídhe feel things on a level you and I probably couldn’t comprehend.” Phoenix shoved a hand through his hair, gaze distant. His voice held the echoes of sadness and pain, old, but not forgotten. “When Sam brought Zee to the pack, Zee was still tiny, so tiny. She never cried though. Not when she was hungry, not even when her damn diaper needed changing. But she didn’t smile either. She was desolate. It wasn’t until Saint, Etan and me started sneaking her out of the crib that she really started acting the way a baby should.” He looked away, jaw working as if he held a thousand secrets inside, secrets desperate to break free, but he had to keep them trapped. “It was Saint who did it, really. He was the one who snuck in there the first time, took her out that miserable, empty crib and sat on the floor with her, talking and smiling at her. It took almost a week before she’d do anything but stare. Fuck, she probably would have died if it wasn’t for him.”
Niko could think of nothing to say. A roar of rage built inside but he didn’t dare let it free. If he did, he might never stop.
Phoenix swung his head around, eyes meeting the Prime’s once more. “But you don’t have to worry about her fracturing. She’s too damn stubborn. The earth’s core would fracture before she did. She spent ten years cut off from family and pack and she kept her sanity intact—and I don’t think even you understand how hard that is—the Fae blood should have made her more susceptible to going crazy in that isolation. But she didn’t lose herself, didn’t give in to madness. She might shut down and lock everybody and their cousin out, but she won’t break. She doesn’t know how.”
He ended the call.
