Page 71 of Pack Rage
Chapter 34
No Father of Mine
FINNICK
Flor’s eerie howl gave me time to shake off the stunned Enforcers who had me hemmed in, but I knew not to wait even a second longer to act. I vaulted myself over the one who’d tried to stop me with his now-broken arm, as I shouted my challenge.
My father’s reaction was predictable. Scorn, and dismissal. “What did you say, boy?”
“I said, I challenge you, Father. You’re not fit to lead the Council, or any pack. Bradley was no traitor. You, on the other hand…” The words stuck in my throat, and our gazes clashed. He tried to force me to drop mine, and for a moment, as his fists flexed and his eyes went a darker shade of green from his wolf, I was tempted to do just that. Crumble under his power and disdain, as I had every time before.
He had always been my worst nightmare, my abuser, and my primary torturer. It was second nature to fear him, to flinch.
As he trembled with suppressed anger, I was back in the lower levels as a child, under those fists—which had seemed incredibly strong, hard, and large—as they beat down on meagain and again. Hearing his voice in my memories.“This is how you get strong, Finnick. You learn to take the pain and transform it. Own it. You have to be hurt again and again, and only then will you conquer that weak part inside you. Only then will you have nothing left but strength.”
I could almost feel it now, the pain that had buried me alive, not only when Father had punished me, but when Mother had come afterward, to run her hands over, and often through, the wounds he’d left. I’d thought it was her attempt to comfort me. I knew better now. They had made me weak, and as he lifted those hands that had tortured me for so long, daring me to come closer in the ring, I knew that familiar, broken piece of me would never be healed.
It had to let go of my deep longing for a father who would love me. Not one who made sure I knew love was the weakness I needed to have torn out of me, one slice, one stab, at a time.
Finn.
Flor’s voice was the faintest whisper in my mind, and I blinked away the remembered pain. Was I hearing her, or imagining her voice? We were bonded, but the magic here was cut off, and our bond wasn’t complete, not in every way.
But maybe… Grigor had given me my birthright. My mother wielded magic, but according to Grigor, I did, too, now. Wolf true mates could pull power from one another. Maybe magical ones could do something similar?
You’re my mate, Finn, and you are strong, and kind. You’re a protector. Protect your pack now, from him.Her soft inner voice, filled with confidence in me, with something that might even be love, had me straightening. It didn’t matter if it was my imagination, or her inside me. She was right. I was strong, and I had lived my whole, broken life as a protector of my little sister.
My father wasn’t strong on his own, not without calling on the pack’s bonds at least. I’d grown taller than him years ago,and bonding with Flor and my brothers, and Grigor, had given me an even deeper core of power. Why was I still afraid of him? It was time to put aside the Finnick I had been—Finnick McDonnell, son of a weak Alpha.
I was Finnick Dimitrivich, brother mate to the most feared of all shifters.
Father flinched as I allowed my wolf to peek out through my eyes, assessing him. “You dare?” he hissed.
The crowd around us was growing quieter again, the drama unfolding here more than they’d believed possible. I was almost certain half of Eastern was laying bets on my death. Why wouldn’t they? I’d laid down for Father like a dog for my whole life, to protect others. Now, I had to do the opposite.
A cold burst of wind whipped through the crowd, and Father’s eyes went wide, his fist clenching twice at his side. His trap, whatever it might be, was about to be sprung.I tensed, but replied firmly. “I do dare, at last. How shall we fight, Father? In skin or fur?”
For some reason, more than one shifter in the crowd coughed, and it sounded like someone stifled a laugh. Father’s eyes cut across the gathering, forcing them to silence, and when he turned back to me, his face was as red as his hair. Was heashamed?
What the hell?
My mind spun. Father almost never shifted into his wolf in public, and hadn’t for years. He wasn’t the most physically imposing shifter in his human form, not a behemoth like Brand, but he was strong. His wolf hadn’t been weak either, or at least I didn’t remember it being so. Though it had been years since I shifted with him, at least five years now.
Why would anyone in our pack dare to laugh at that simple question? I blinked furiously as it dawned on me. I’d assumed he’d taken fur for pack runs during my absence, but maybe hehadn’t. Maybe his wolf had grown weak. I thought of the time I’d walked in on Mother with two lovers, and it clicked. Their infidelities had consequences, it seemed.
“I don’t need my wolf to kill you. You’re a weak fool.” Father stripped off his shirt, then gestured for help. “You two, drag this trash away,” he spat, meaning Bradley.
Flor snarled from where Brand held her in the circle of Enforcers, but the two who came to take the dead Alpha away lifted him respectfully, one of them dropping his eyes to me as well, though he made sure Father didn’t see.
For some reason, he wasn’t paying attention, instead strutting past the gathered Easterners. I was instantly suspicious. He was stalling for time, and I knew why when I saw a dozen shifters sag as he passed them, pulling their power into himself. Shit, he was draining his Enforcers…Wait.It wasn’t just his Enforcers who made up the first line of gathered shifters. As he passed by a second time, more than one young woman in a maid’s uniform was pushed forward. Some of them fell to their knees as he walked in front of them, their energy fully drained. One of them passed out, and was kicked behind the row by a burly guard I knew well from the lower levels.
A small whimper from one of the other maids reached my ears. “She’s dead. He killed her.”
Fuck.Shifters could heal from almost anything, under the full moon. But the moon didn’t reach inside this spell.
I needed Father to get angry with me and start the challenge fight before he could siphon enough power from the gathered pack to defeat me, or before he drained the vulnerable past their ability to heal inside the spell.
“Stalling, Father? Are you afraid?”
