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“Then we have to do what we can to get her back,” Uma said, standing.
I looked at her. “I can’t let her get hurt.”
“We’ll have to figure something out,” Uma said. “But you don’t deserve this, and neither does she.”
I nodded. If ever the fae was right, it was now.
“We need to rest,” I said. As much as I hated waiting, we had to regain our strength, to eat and sleep and get ready for a fight. Because it was going to happen. I would fight to the death for Kinley.
I assigned rooms to Uma and Dagger, keeping them close to me. The few staff members who had come in the middle of the night to help out were in the next rooms. I wanted to keep them close. Hell, I wanted to keep every pack member and staff member in the city close so that I wouldn’t lose anyone else, but that wasn’t possible.
When I was sure everyone was taken care of, I went to my room, but I couldn’t sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I heard Kinley’s screams, begging me to help her, and I felt the magic again that held her back. The fire that crackled as it ate up my house, the sound of the monsters and the darkness that had taken over. All of it rushed back at me and hit me in the face over and over again.
Finally, I got up and walked to the window, looking out over the immaculate garden. My city house had neighbors—other affluent shifters who lived around me. I was in the middle of the city, and I felt claustrophobic when I wasn’t in the mountains.
“Alpha,” Dagger said softly behind me, and when I turned to look at him, he stood in the door to my room. He wore pajama pants and nothing else, his dark hair messy.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, my back up immediately.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I just couldn’t sleep.”
“Me either,” I said.
Dagger silently crossed the room, so we stood at the window together.
“It’s all gone,” I said.
“We can rebuild.”
“It’s everything Hauser left behind.”
“It’s not,” Dagger said and glanced at me. “You’reeverything he left behind. You’re a good alpha, Braxton.”
I shook my head slowly. “With a demon hunting me and killing off my people to get to me? I have the reverse Midas touch, Dagger. Instead of gold, everything I touch turns to rust.”
“That’s not true.”
“This has to end,” I said grimly. “Once and for all. I have to get her back, and we have to finish this.”
“You know what it means, don’t you?” Dagger asked.
I nodded. “I’m going to have to face my demons, face my past. I’ve been running my whole life, but I can’t keep running. It just means I end up alone, and I can’t do that. Since Kinley came along… I’ve always wanted what my parents had. I’ve always wanted that fated bond. I used to look up to my dad, until he fucked it up and got my mom killed. I can’t let that happen. If I let Niam win, I’m the one who fucks up, and if Kinley suffers, then it’s on me.”
“I’ll be at your side every step of the way, no matter which way this goes,” Dagger said. “And if we all die in the end, then so be it.”
“You’re so loyal,” I said to Dagger. “You’ve been there for me from the beginning, even though I shouldn’t have been alpha by blood.”
“You earned it fair and square,” Dagger said. “I don’t follow you because I was with Hauser and that’s what he wanted me to do, Braxton,” Dagger said softly. “I follow you because you are the rightful alpha. You lay down your life over and over again for every fucking pack member we have.”
I frowned at him. “I haven’t done that.”
“Yes, you have. You’ve cut yourself down, isolated yourself, pushed everyone away for as long as you’ve been alive so that they wouldn’t get hurt. If that isn’t laying yourself down, then I don’t know what is.”
I looked out of the window again. A new determination filled me. I’d always thought it was pathetic that I kept running and hiding, but Dagger was putting it in a different light. I was sick and tired of this life, of the continuous panic that someone would get hurt, that something would go wrong. It was time to end this.
I couldn’t let anyone else get hurt, and the last thing I would allow was that the darkness became filled with Kinley’s screams instead.
