Page 122 of Empowering the Wolf's Heart

I shook my head. “You had every right, Little Red. You have every right to reject me right now, and I will do one of two things, should you ask it. I could stay as your protector, never far but always out of sight. Or I could leave, go to the far corners of this world, and you’d never have to see me again.”

“Did you practice that?” she asked, cocking her head.

I blinked. “What?”

She punched my shoulder. I grunted even though it was hardly enough to be called a slap. “You big, self-sacrificing idiot.”

“Do not forget cur.”

She snorted a laugh, her eyes growing wide as snot rained down on my tunic. I could not care less.

“You didn’t lie to me, Shen. You could’ve easily told me your mother forced you, and I never would’ve known. But you told me. You respected me enough to give me the truth. I don’t know how this is going to work out, and I want to take this slow, but I’d like to hear you out and then see where this could go.”

Lycus howled. It was a song of pure joy, teeming with uncontrollable emotion. I nearly cried. She would forever tease my stockings off were she to know of such reactions, but they were there.

I feared having lost her forever because of this. I feared she would never allow someone to watch her back or cry in their arms.

If I had to hand her off for her happiness, I would. Ripping my heart from my chest would hurt worse, but I would do it for her. But I would much prefer to remain hers forever, if she allowed.

“You need sleep,” I whispered, staring at the dark rings beneath her eyes and the sag of her shoulders.

“I won’t be able to sleep until I hear you out,” she replied.

“Want to sit?”

She nodded, turning to find her sister gone. Her brow furrowed in confusion, further highlighting that my worries were not unfounded. Her father and mother had helped Anna into the home behind us, and Alia had completely missed it. She was typically so attuned to her surroundings it was as if she had werewolf senses.

“I am no victim in this,” I began after we had settled. I wiped my sweaty palms on my legs, then I clenched my fists and pressed against my leg to stop it from bouncing and betraying my nerves. My heart pounded a galloping rhythm in my chest that expressed my fear.

“I always had a choice. I made mine. One always likes to say there were other options, and looking back, I can see clearly how I could have made a different decision. How many options were before me…” I paused, palming one of my blades. “But I did not choose those. And because of that, your grandfather is dead.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice soft and nearly knowing. Could she sense how much I wanted her to understand? How much I desired her to tell me it was ok, that I should be able to put the guilt behind me?

“There was a man and a woman. They were a love match, not fated mates. Papa spoke of Mother with glowing eyes and joybefore she changed. Before she became the woman she is today. But Papa always loved her. He never gave up on her.”

“Maybe he should have?” she whispered, her voice so soft it was nearly a sigh on the wind.

I looked away. “Perhaps. I could not say. I always admired him for his loyalty. I cannot say if over time the love grew cold or if Mother resented him for not being her fated mate. We never knew.” I met her eyes, and though I saw the understanding there, but I was unsure I had received forgiveness. We were not yet to the worst of it. “You may wonder why I bring this to light. I was tasked with the death of the Red’s matriarch. I was never there to kill your grandfather. Your grandmother had taken something from me, and I wanted her to feel the pain I’d felt.”

Alia stared at me, her mouth agape.

“You see, it was not because I was forced into it. It was revenge against an innocent man. A man who dearly loved his children and grandchildren. One who rescued while his wife was the evil I was after. He was my first kill, and the one I could never wash from my fingers.” I glanced down at my hands, feeling an unbearable weight crushing my soul. I never let myself go back to that night—the night everything changed—because I knew when I did remember, I would have to face the monster I had become. My fingers were painted red with his blood, the one stain that changed my life and set me beholden to my Alpha. “I went against all I knew to be right, and in so doing, I nearly became a rogue. My Alpha mother stopped my wolf from leaving. I have been beholden to her since. Until you?—”

Until Alia set me free. The granddaughter of the man I murdered.

I set my head in my hands. I could not bear to look at her. “No words can help, Alia. Apologies have no grounds here. This goes beyond such trivial words. But it is all I can offer. I am sorry. I am sorry I chose evil instead of good. I am sorry I killedyour grandfather. I am sorry I took him from you when you needed him most.”

Alia

A broken mansat before me. Hisneedswere wrapped under whatever wall he put in place. He sat, laying out his sins for me to either absolve or condemn. But I was neither elder nor Alpha to him. This was something he had lived with for a very long time. He may be free of his mother, but he was not free of his guilt.

And there was only one who could free him from that.

“What do you expect of me?” I whispered. I tried not to be condemning, but it was there all the same. I was raw. I was hurting. This was breaking me further.

The man I loved had made a horrible decision. He’d taken from me the only man able to protect me from my grandmother. Life would’ve been so much different with him here.

But I also wouldn’t be the person I am today. I may be a bit stabby, a little headstrong—a little?Ran snuck in—and a bit of a broken mess, but I liked who I was becoming. I liked me because I had been through Sixth and back, but I’d never given up and I’d always worked hard. There were things I needed to work on, but my personal identity wasn’t one of those. I likedme.

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