Ruin by Lacey Carter Andersen

Author:Lacey Carter Andersen [Andersen, Lacey Carter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Phoenix Press LLC
Published: 2020-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

11

Bron

My phone rings, and I toss the dagger in my hands, planting it firmly in the wooden target. Breathing hard, I pick up my towel from the mat and use it to dry the sweat from the back of my neck as I reach for my phone. When I see the caller ID, my stomach twists into a knot. It says “The Asshole.”

Normally, I’d ignore it, but not when I was waiting to hear about the dark fae situation. So I take a deep breath, and swipe to answer it.

“Hello,” I say, and the word comes out cold and harsh.

“I spoke with your mother.”

“And?” snaps out.

“You’ve never been good with patience.” His voice holds that disgusted tone of his.

“Just fucking say it!”

“I’m your alpha!” he roars. “You will not speak to me like that!”

My free hand is curled into a fist. “And what are you going to do about it? I’m not a boy anymore. You can’t drop me into the forest alone and hunt me in your animal form.”

He’s quiet for a second, but his voice is calmer when he speaks. “If you were a shifter, you’d thank me for those lessons. You’d realize they helped to turn you into a fighter. They taught you how to survive.”

“If you were a real father, you’d realize that your lessons did more harm than good.”

“My delicate little step-son,” he purrs.

I see red, and have to focus on taking slow breaths before I speak again. “What did mother say?”

There’s a long pause. “She said she wouldn’t waste resources on dark fae.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “That’s a mistake. The dark fae are our people, same as the light, and if we ignore their pain, we ignore the pain of our people.”

“They’re supposed to be powerful, so let them protect themselves.”

“That’s one thing you’ll never understand,” I say. “We’re people, not mindless animals, and compassion and empathy is what separates us from them. It’s what makes us better.”

“And you’ll never understand, fae are animals, just the same as any other. When we have weak links in our pack, the best thing we can do is let them fall behind, so we don’t waste resources, so that we don’t put the rest of the pack at risk.”

“There’s no risk. It’s just doing the right thing.”

He makes a sound of disbelief. “Why am I not surprised that you were so focused on protecting the dark fae that you forgot to focus on who might be targeting them? If you were a leader, you would realize that to protect the dark fae would be to put a target on our own backs from their enemies.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“I don’t need to know that for sure. I only need to suspect it as a possibility.”

“You’re a coward,” I say.

Another long pause follows my words. “We’ll see who’s the coward the next time we meet.”

And then the line goes dead.

I let the phone fall from my ear and I open my eyes. I’m not surprised, but even so, it hurts.

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