MEN SHOULD KEEP THEIR WORD . . .

The male had no reason to blame his mate as he was doing. But for whatever reason it was how his brain was coping with the grief. He never thought he would do this, but he couldn’t stand to look at Macaria. He had never seen her as monster. Not when she began finding her cannibalistic taste, even before she was a vampire. Not when she was sleeping with other wolves. Not when she turned to a vampire and had to feed on the blood of their own kind. But now when he gazed at her and saw those unnaturally red eyes, all he could picture was the one who had killed their daughter. Even though he had no idea which vampire had done the deed, he knew it was one of them. There was nothing else that would leave those type of marks upon Missandei. There was just no other explanation for it. And even though Grey Wind has lost loved ones before, this was his first offspring. And it was…different. Losing his parents, his siblings, had been hard. But it was not as hard as this. This was something he created with his lover. Missandei was not just any wolf…she was the product of him and Macaria. And so it felt like he had lost of piece of himself when she died. A very different feeling than what he had gone through after losing the rest of his family.

Grey Wind was momentarily ignorant to how he was hurting Macaria and the hurt that she was going through. Not only was she feeling very similar feelings to what he was feeling, but she was also being unfairly blamed for what had happened. That would do nothing but make the matter much worse. But Grey Wind was too unaware to notice in the moment. But he should have known better than to think she would somehow accept this blame. Macaria was a strong willed wolf and would not let anyone be rude to her as her mate was currently doing. And the conversation turned from pointing unfair blame to their past. He often forgot that he was to blame for taking Macaria away from her pack and family. No matter how he tried to sugar coat it he had kidnapped her. And there was no other way to look at it. Some would say it was worth it all in the end because the pair would never have fallen in love and be where they were now. And now they were both happy. Well they were until this moment. So was it worth it then? Macaria might not be the strong independent wolf she was now. And Grey Wind might be dead. But was that worth committing a crime as evil as kidnapping? And not only that, but he had scared and threatened her into staying with him. Would he have ever fallen in love with her had she not fallen for him? He was not sure. There was no way to know what would have happened. All he knew was that he didn’t want to have a life without her. And surely that still was true despite the tragedy that had occurred? Wasn’t it?

His mate went on to rant and rage. To express her feelings, not only in this moment, but for what had happened in the past too. They had never really talked about what had happened between them all those years ago. And maybe that was their way of saying the past was the past and they wouldn’t talk about what was or wasn’t right. But now it was all coming up in an explosion of emotion. And this was something that was long overdue. Nothing just went away if you didn’t talk about it. It just festered and grew until it came out in a powerful wave. One that couldn’t be stopped or controlled. By the time she was done she was screaming and crying. And Grey Wind didn’t realize that he had begun crying at some point too. Not only for Missandei and her loss, but for Macaria’s words. They were all true. Everything he had done to her had been unjust and cruel. And he couldn’t go back, he couldn’t change anything that he had done to her. All he could do now was to move on and try to make right all the wrongs he had done. But nothing could ever make up for everything he had stolen from her. Her family, her innocence, her whole life. He had not cared about her or what he was doing to her. All he had cared about originally was himself and that he was okay. And things were going wrong in his life so he kept her to have someone to take it out on. Everything that made up the makings of a villain. She was not the monster. Grey Wind was.

At first he could not respond to any of her questions or accusations. Every single one of them was true. He could not deny anything and he would never be who he was without her. He would never be a father or a mate. He might still be that evil brute he was before. Although did one ever stop being evil once they had done the deeds that he did? His form was alongside their daughter’s corpse, and he had given no comfort to Macaria so of course she would give him none. In fact he had just made the situation drastically worse. Before he could comprehend what was happening, Macaria was running off. He tried to yell after her, to ask her to wait. He needed to apologize. He had to make this right. But would he ever be able to make things right with them again? It had been a miracle that the two had grown to love each other. And now he had made everything from their past come surfacing again. And there was no way that they could bury all of this again. His yellow orbs lingered on his daughter before flickering to the mouth of the den. Should he follow her? Give her space? He didn’t know what was the correct choice. Or really the better choice since there was no clear right and wrong here. He just seemed to be making poor decisions left and right.

Picture and table credit to Xathira!