He laughed harshly. “I feel really sorry for your life, then. Oh, and if you tell anyone that I’m out fighting, I’m going to deny it, and if you try to stop me, you’ll never see me again. I’m not quitting until Lash is dead.”
As her heart pounded, she shook her head. “So why tell me at all?”
He frowned a little. Then shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Well, aren’t I lucky,” she said in a low voice. “I get to keep a secret that my son is suicidal. Howfortunateam I. And you might keep in mind that Lash is immortal. You’re going to die trying to eradicate him, not ‘kill’ him. That term’s reserved for the living.”
“Or maybe I’ll do it,” L.W. shot back. “Maybe I’ll end the motherfucker. What I know for sure is that trying is a hell of a lot easier to live with than sitting on my ass under house arrest because I’m toospecialto get out there and do something. I’m no more important than anybody else.”
“You’re the heir to the throne!”
“And that doesn’t mean shit to me.”
“Your father didn’t volunteer for this legacy, either,” she snapped. “But he recognized the species needed a trueleader, not some vigilante who’s full of misdirected anger.”
“I amnotmisdirected. Unless you’ve been keeping something else from everybody for thirty years,Mom. You got any other lies you want me to sit on? Or just the one.”
“How can you…say that.” She swallowed through a tight throat. “To me.”
“Do I need to remind you what you did all that time.”
“I kept everything going. For you.”
“I neveraskedyou to do that. And don’t be so noble about bullshitting the entire species. It’s not the flex you think it is.”
All she could do was blink some more. And then she heard herself say, “Who do you really hate? You need to ask yourself that question…except what do I know, right? I just brought you into this world and did my best to try to keep you alive when you’d let me.”
“Don’t try to guilt me. It’s not going to work—and fine, you want to play introspection? I’ll give it a shot, if you’ll ask yourself why this family gets a special pass.”
“Special pass? Is that what you think we’ve had?Really?”
“Everyone else is out there in the field.” He swung his heavy, tattooed arm toward the front door of the modern mansion. “All of the Brothers, all of the fighters. And their families shit themselves every night because the risks are real and the consequences can be permanent. But you get a pass because you mated the King. Youarelucky because yourmate isn’t allowed to go out into the field.”
Try telling Wrath that, she thought bitterly.
And then she thought about the definition of luck.
“We are cursed, L.W.” She could only shake her head at him. “Not only does the Lessening Society want your father dead, but so does half the aristocracy. And while we’re at it, your sire was so fuckingluckythat he got to watch his parents get slaughtered in front of him—because of the throne. At least yours have lived long enough for you to shut them out.”
There was a tense stretch of silence.
“So why do you want me to sit on that old chair. If you love me so much.” When she didn’t respond, he cocked an eyebrow, just as Wrath did. “You have a comeback for that? No? I didn’t think so.”
As he went to turn away, she said sharply, “You promised me. No fighting.”
L.W. paused. Then he glanced over his shoulder. “I lied. Guess I got that from you, huh.”
In utter devastation, she watched him walk off down a hall. And when her breath hitched, she covered her mouth in case she let that scream out after all.
Blindly pivoting away, she started for the door she’d come through, and when she stepped outside, she just stood on thestoop and breathed for a while. When she finally had a little composure, she turned back to the shut door.
It was already closed.
She had no memory of doing that.
Maybe L.W. had come back and shut it on her.
God knew he’d been closing her out of his life for decades.
