Page 81 of An Empress of Earth & Darkness

“I promise,” she whispered as she squeezed his hands. “Does that mean you are not coming?”

Murk hesitated.

“Father, it’s the Wolven Moon.”

“Leave it, Waylen,” Roman finally waded in. “There will be other mating moons. Your ego is just hurt that Emara picked Bry over you to be her guard.”

Breighly looked over to Waylen, who was shaking his head. His glare finally landed on her. “If you walk out that door, you are choosing the witches and hunters over your own pack’s ancient traditions, no matter what moon you walk under. It’s the supermoon, a fucking wolven supermoon. It’s not like the witches are going to run with you when it’s full in respect to your Light God. It’s an honour to Vanadey.”

She let go of her father’s hands. “I know what moon it is, Waylen. I am not stupid. I just didn’t realise we were all divided.” Breighly shot him a violent look that she was rather proud of. “Do we not support all Light factions? Is it not everyone’s goal to keep the Dark Army at bay?”

Waylen bared his teeth. “You know you can’t be both a guard and a wolf. It doesn’t work that way. Eventually, you will need to choose.”

She turned away from her father, leaving him at her back. “I will be whatever I choose to be. If I want to run with the wolves, I will run with the wolves. If I want to hunt with the hunters, I will damned well carve out the hearts of the Dark Army. If I want to use my skills to guard an empress of our magic community, I will guard her with my life. And as a beta of the pack, you are not going to tell me otherwise. Stay in your place, Waylen.”

His face screwed up horribly. “You know, you are just like her.”

“Waylen,” their father warned, “do not go there. You both need to let me think without wittering on.”

Breighly froze, her skin crawling.

“She always left too.” Waylen’s chest heaved, and his clenched fists tightened the muscles in his forearm. It took her back to when he was angry as a child, the foul mood ruining entire days.

Breighly’s hands began shaking at his declaration. She forced them steady. “I am nothing like her.”

“You are exactly like her,” Waylen spat. “She ran from the pack too, always searching for something more, something better than us. We weren’t enough for her and we are not enough for you. I thought you would turn out different, but you must forget that you and Roman both sat on the porch for days waiting for her to come back. She couldn’t care about traditions either, eh?”

Pain drove through Breighly’s heart, punching her in the gut, slamming her into an oblivion of trauma.

Even though it hurt to hear them, Waylen’s words were the truth. They hadn’t been enough for their mother. They’d tried to be everything she could have wanted, but they couldn’t make her enough flower bracelets, couldn’t clean their rooms enough, couldn’t give enough hugs or words to make her stay.

“Waylen, that’s enough,” Murk warned again, and Breighly couldn’t ignore the upset in his voice. “I mean it.”

Their mother had been his mate, his wife, and he had never met another since her.

Waylen pointed his finger at Breighly. “No. She needs to hear this, Father; you have protected your little princess enough. You let her do whatever the fuck she wants with no consequences, running around Huntswood like a fucking party girl and now fighting with the hunters like she doesn’t have the blood of wolves in her heart. But she does, and so do you. And you are selfish, just like her. You do not deserve the pack.”

“I am not like her.” Anger, shame, and heartache broke through Breighly’s body. “I am nothing like her.”

“And when you scowl like that”—Waylen pointed at Breighly again, sharp and aggressive,—“you even look like her.”

Breighly shook her head, feeling her legs tremble. “I look like her as much as you do. As much as Roman. As much as Eli. I am no more her than you are.”

They all had her fair hair and skin. But only Breighly and Waylen had gotten the badness her traits offered; Roman was good through and through. And Eli…well, he was an angel. But Breighly and Waylen had that hardness that had only penetrated their souls deeper when their mother never returned. They had their father’s kindness, but, by the Gods, when cornered, they were every part the brutal, selfish wolf their mother was.

“You have gone too far, Waylen,” Murk growled in a calm, scary way that left everyone wondering what he would do next. “I think you better take a run to cool off and tire out that mouth of yours.”

Waylen finished his whiskey in one swig and began to move towards the door. “Well, if there is one blessing that graced this family, it is that I am glad Eli isn’t here to watch you turn into a woman that he resented so much. He would be ashamed to call you sister.”

“Shit,” Roman whispered under his breath. “You always need to go for the jugular. It’s so uncalled for, brother.”

Waylen only glanced at him before dragging his eyes back to Breighly.

For all Breighly knew, her heart had been gouged out, pulled through her spine, and was now lying on the floor.

Murk let out a roar. “You were told to leave it alone. Go for a run and don’t come home until your poisoned tongue is clean of insults.” He moved towards the beta intimidatingly.

A lump worked its way into her chest and up her throat as a sharp pain stabbed her heart. She looked at her papa. “I am not doing what she did. I am not rejecting my pack because I want to pave my own path. I am just—”

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