Chapter 14

Rome

Well, shit.

He should have seen that coming. He'd been warned. Now he was driving back to Seren's condo, leaking blood from two badly bandaged bullet wounds.

It was just before eight, and with any luck, Waverly might still be asleep.

With any luck,

he would have been removed from the picture and as he'd stated, Seren, Waverly, and the rest of the people in his life who suffered for knowing him would be free.

It's only the evil who prosper. I should leave before I ruin anyone else's life. Fuck that will and fuck what Lila thought was best. Her judgement was shit. She was irrational and unstable. She should never have left her child to me. I'm not better than she was.

As he turned off the freeway, the last turn that would take him through the city and straight to Seren's warm, cozy little home, he thought about yanking the wheel and going straight. Heading somewhere, anywhere else, changing his name, losing himself, and never looking back.

It would be the right thing.

He didn't have a great track record for making honorable, decent decisions.

He might have saved a man who was like a brother to him, a guy who'd made a few wrong turns and needed that saving, but he'd unleashed his wolf as a killing machine to do it. He could still taste the metallic tang on the back of his tongue. There was blood caked under his fingernails.

Unbidden, he gagged. He nearly vomited right there while he was driving, but choked it back.

The first killings had been born from a grief-induced madness. He'd barely known himself. Alexander Phaethon needed to die in order to protect his family and his pack. All of that started with him drawing the man's attention by killing his son who had run with those Rangers. It was his job to be the end as well as the beginning. But this? The men he'd torn through tonight were the worst kind, but they'd been men, and at one time, they'd had souls. Despite their evil, they had families. They were sons and brothers and husbands and maybe fathers. They were also murderers, men who trafficked women and sold tainted product, men who dealt drugs that ruined other people who had families. Chances were good they would have been eliminated by some rival gang or left to rot in prison eventually, but he was still sick at what he'd done.

Honestly, after he'd come to, he'd never been able to make peace with the death of those wolves he'd slaughtered. Nor Alexander Phaethon. He still felt the grief and the wretched, unrelenting guilt.

He was a strong man physically, and everyone believed in every other way. The key to that belief was to paint an unrelenting depiction of that strength. If the world believed he was nothing but cold brutality, then he was nothing but cold brutality, and that was his power. He made himself out as the worst sort of monster so other monsters wouldn't be tempted to fuck with him.

Where were they, these monsters?

And where was Lila? Buried in the Nightfall Pack's graveyard.

She was there, under the ground, and he was here, alive, tortured and tormented by grief he couldn't set aside, forever changed.

The only luck he'd ever had was the wrong sort altogether, and clearly, it wasn't about to change. Waverly pulled open the door as he edged up to it, trying to hide the limp in his left leg.

"Papa, I was watching for you!"

She knew better than to throw herself at him. She'd only ever calmly held out her arms and let him decide if he was asshole enough to deny a child. He was, but he'd never let her know that. It still felt strange hearing that word from her mouth. Papa. She couldn't very well call him Rome or Guardian, and he wasn't her dad, but Papa was more acceptable. He'd picked it out from one of the countless stories he'd read to her.

"I see that you were."

"I liked the surprise!"

"Oh? That's good." Never give oneself away, especially to a child. He'd shoot himself for a third time before he did anything to jeopardize Waverly's innocence.

"Seren said that you wanted us all to have breakfast together because we missed a few Sundays and we had to catch up. Even though it's not Sunday?"

"No, it's not Sunday, sweetheart. It's Wednesday. Mid-week."

"I guess if we're trying to make up for a Sunday it wouldn't be a Sunday."

"That's right."

She didn't ask to be picked up and carried inside, thank goodness. Instead, she held the door for him like a tiny little adult.

"I woke up early and we had a tea party for breakfast," Waverly babbled.

"That's nice."

"Yeah, and then Seren told me about wolf stuff. Like how it feels to have the wolf inside you after you've shifted."

"She's there inside you already, just waiting to make herself known," he assured her.

I know at least the half that is your mom is wolf, and that's enough for anyone, no matter who your father was.

"Seren said that too." Waverly took his hand as he shut the door behind him.

All he wanted to do was grab Waverly and get back in the car, get his ass home and deal with the bullets. He'd always had a high pain tolerance, but this was pushing the envelope. He was ready to sway on his feet, not to mention that he could feel the blood starting to well up and drip down his thigh despite the tight bandaging.

"Did I do something to make the wolf not like me?" Waverly looked up at him anxiously, obviously sensing something was wrong.

"No, of course not!"

"It's just, she won't come out."

"She'll come out when she's ready. Some don't shift until they're far older than you. There's plenty of time and it's not something to rush. You've done nothing to make your wolf angry. You're just a little girl, Waverly."

"I did something to make Mama go away."

"No!" He couldn't kneel without puking from the pain, but he cupped Waverly's face gently and turned it up to him. Way, way up, but she met his eyes. Hers were so green and solemn. "No, your mother leaving had nothing to do with you. She left because she needed to. Some wolves have a broken spirit. A wandering spirit. Some get restless. It's hard living in a human world. She had no pack and she was looking for me. She came to find me the only way she could."

"I wish she was still here."

"Me too." If Lila was still alive, he wouldn't be in this position. He'd never have to worry about messing up a child.

The floral, cherry watermelon scent of Seren preceded her into the room. She liked to dress in black and she sported a pair of ripped up jeans and a black tank that outlined her toned body and shapely breasts. "Rome." She nodded at him. She had his envelope in one hand. "You must want to get going." She held it out, nostrils flared wide as she breathed in.

Any wolf would be able to smell the blood on him, but it must be beyond obvious because even in her human form, she knew.

"Yes. I'm going to take Waverly back home."

"Not to Brooke's? You don't need another ride?" Her tone was biting and clipped.

It was no less than deserved. If he'd had any other choice, he wouldn't have come here. He didn't want to be in Seren's debt. He was beginning to understand that she wasn't the only one who had been irrevocably screwed over by that contract. He was changing. He was the one becoming broken. Contained in this woman was the most dangerous force in the world.

Her presence now made his chest squeeze. He was afraid to reach out and take the envelope. Yes, afraid, of such a simple, ridiculous thing.

He knew there could never be another, but then there was Seren, with a completely different power over him.

"We're going to get back home. Her sitter will be there shortly. I already called her and told her we were going to be late. I have to get to work."

"Oh?" One brow shot up in challenge. The envelope never wavered and he finally forced himself to snatch it.

"Yes." There was no scenario where he asked for Seren's help to deal with this. That would involve her near, touching him. Her hands on his wounds.

He'd be at her mercy.

Injured or not.

They'd keep the garage open, but turn one of the back rooms or an office into a makeshift hospital. He wasn't the only one in need of attention. They'd dressed wounds the best they could. How intuitive it had been for Seren to suggest they'd be shot or stabbed. Those men came at them with everything they had, which was only natural in a fight to the death. They were all shifters and they'd be fine, provided they got the bullets out and cleaned up their wounds properly. Brooke wasn't needed. It wasn't anything their own bodies and some OTC painkillers couldn't take care of.

"Rome."

He coughed when he caught Seren giving him an ironclad stare down. "Seren."

She crossed her arms and tossed that mane of bright pink hair over her shoulder, sassing him silently, but her concern was there in her pinched expression.

"Well, we should get going. Thank you so much for spending some time with Waverly while I had to do a few work things this morning."

"Work things," she hissed. "I guess I have my own work things to do shortly." She might have given him one last scorching frown, but then she knelt down and opened her arms to Waverly. "I'll see you Sunday, honey. I had this idea that maybe we could bake cookies." She turned her eyes up to Rome. "I can bring everything we'll need."

"Great. Make them sugarless."

"Cookies? Wow. Should we make them with bran and prunes instead?"

"Sounds good to me."

Waverly giggled. "I like prunes."

"Good! Prunes it is, then."

He'd do his best to find a healthy recipe and have what they needed ahead of time. Waverly was just a kid, but the dentist .

They were as bad as hospitals.

Seren hugged Waverly hard and then walked them to the door. It was getting harder to hide his limp. He'd need dental attention of his own from grinding his teeth against the pain if he didn't get home and then to the garage soon.

Seren studied him, expression for once inscrutable. "Take care of yourselves," she told them.

The pain flared, magnified by the way her eyes probed his body, looking for the source of his wounds.

He nodded, steering Waverly ahead of him, but she turned and waved. "See you Sunday!"

Seren waved back, a little frantically. "T-minus four days until cookies."