48. Wild

Wild

A Wild Wolf would rather be caught dead than caught out complaining about the weather. But this shitey cold rain was taking the absolute piss out of me as I tore off toward the lake side of the house, full-on mocking me for losing it on Dublin.

It wasn't just the cold rain biting at my skin. Shame clawed at my gut, gnawing at me with every step. Seriously, Wild? Couldn't even manage a few minutes of pretend civility for her sake? Are you truly no fuckin' better than your father?

Clearly, I wasn't.

I thought fulfilling my part in the prophecy would free me from the ticking bomb of history rattling around inside my DNA. But all it did was unlock the door to memories I'd buried deep, dragging them to the surface like drowned corpses.

Nearly twenty years had passed since that day, but the images hit me like fresh punches as I stormed off along the lake path.

Sea and me walking into the residence beside my father, our catch of foxes and rabbits swinging from our hands …

"Wild!"

The smell of the place as we entered. Like my mother, but twisted. Mixed with something foreign. City stone, cliff dirt, and sea.

"Wild!"

My father's face, hard as a gravestone, before he ordered Sea and me, "Stay here."

The crushing weight in my chest as I watched him disappear up the stairs.

The thunder of violence breaking loose above.

"Wild!"

Suddenly, Flower was in front of me again, blocking my path in one of those puffy coats only the City Wolves and tourists wore. Dublin had probably bought it for her.

My human side sneered at the City King's gift, but my wolf, the primal protector, growled that it wasn't enough to keep her warm in the cold November rain — no Guns N' Roses intended.

"Go back inside." My voice was broken rubble inside my chest. Alright, maybe some Guns N' Roses intended. "Tell Dublin to get a fire going for ye."

"No, not until we talk about what happened back there!"

I could feel her words pressing against the wall I'd built in our mate bond, testing the cracks, trying to break through.

"Ye don't understand," I bit out. "Ye couldn't comprehend in yer pacifist cult mind how close I came to doing Dublin true violence. Ye don't want to be out here with me right now." I pointed back to the house, now barely visible through the rain. "Again, I'm telling ye — "

"And I'm telling you no!" she shouted, her voice rising above the howling wind.

Then she was back inside my mind, quietly insisting, "We need to talk about whatever triggered you into acting like that when we returned to the house."

A mean laugh slipped out before I could stop it. "Dublin didn't tell you about it on your little breakfast date?"

"He said I needed to ask you." Frustration rippled through her side of the mate bond, and she folded her arms. "So that's what I'm doing. I'm asking you."

She squared her shoulders, her eyes locking on mine for battle.

One I refused to fight.

"I can't do this with ye."

I tried to move past her, but she wasn't having it. She got back in front of me and shoved at my chest.

"Why can't you do this with me?" she demanded over our mate bond, shoving again. "What's the Terrible Belfast Mess?"

Another shove.

"Why did you guide me through the most intense experience of my life only to turn into a snarling asshole the next morning when my heat was over? Like reverse Beauty and the Beast!"

Another hard hit. From her hands and her words.

"Why are you keeping your side of the bond muted?"

She tried to shove me again, but this time, I grabbed her hands and roared, "What do ye want from me?"

A flicker of fear flared through our bond. But she didn't retreat. She stood her ground, drew herself up, and jutted her chin. "I'm not going back in that house. Not until you answer my questions."

Bitterness twisted in my throat, so thick I could hardly swallow it. "So, ye want me to tell ye my tragic little backstory, then?"

I dropped her hands to point back at Belfast House. "Ye won't go back inside until I tell ye this was where everything fell apart? The last time I ever saw my parents together before my mother left me and me da to start another family?"

"Wait, what?"The stubborn anger fizzled into confusion."Are you saying that your mom left you to start another family, even though she was already married and mated?"

"Wolf mated," I corrected. "Una was wolf-mated to my father and just my father. She was the prize my grandfather allowed him to choose for himself alone after he took over as the Wild King. But only my father was happy about his choice."

Yer father chose me. Pointed at me like I was a piece of jewelry at the traveling market. I would never, ever have chosen him.

My mother's acid-laced answer to the one question I'd asked her about their unhappy marriage echoed in my head as I told my new prophesied mate, "He loved her — that's why he chose her to mother the next king of the Wild Wolves. But she hated him."

Even worse than Flower hated me. I didn't say that bit out loud, but now that I was no longer so singularly focused on the prophecy, the parallels to my mother's story began seeping through like moonlight in a thick forest of memories.

"Anyhow, it was one of those marriages that corroded like iron left out in the rain with every year that passed. Then, one year, my father decided it would be a good idea to bring my mother along with us to the quarterly meeting. I can still remember the fight they had about it. Her telling him she wouldn't even know what to do or say at a meeting like that. Him insisting that it was time she took her role as queen of the Wild Wolves seriously. He didn't know…"

A cold wind blew through me that had nothing to do with the actual elements. "He didn't know he was setting in place the destruction of his marriage."