My uncle closed his eyes, and when his gaze met mine again, I shook my head in denial of the inevitability I saw in his. Of the grief and the growing acceptance. “We can’t stop the internal bleeding. And it sounds like he has a punctured lung, Faythe, and there’s nothing we can do about that.”

“No…”

“Yes.” He put his hands on my shoulders and made me look at him. “Faythe, your father is dying. He only has a few minutes left. So you need to decide what you want those minutes to be like. If there’s anything you want him to know, you need to say it now. We’ll deal with everything else later.”

Tears came again. They poured down my face, and I nearly choked on sobs. I couldn’t stand it. The fear burning inside me consumed all logic, devoured all hope. This black terror threatened my faith in the very concept of justice—the idea that it was even possible. There wasn’t enough pain in all of existence to make Dean pay for what he’d done.

Uncle Rick handed me a dish towel and I scrubbed my face with it. My dad couldn’t be dying. He was only fifty-seven. That was too young to die. That was too young to do anything but nag his daughter for grandchildren.

But my uncle was right, and in spite of intense, insistent denial, I knew that. I felt it.

I dropped the towel on the table and took a deep breath. Then made myself take another. And another. Then I steeled my spine and walked back into the living room, suddenly aware of the murmuring and the stares. Marc knelt next to my father, talking to him quietly. My father gripped his hand and whispered something I couldn’t hear, and Marc nodded. “I swear,” he said, and I could see the cracks in his composed veneer. This was breaking him, like it was breaking me, and our anguish had no equal.

Jace stood near Marc, watching me. He touched Marc’s shoulder, and they both moved aside.

I sank onto my knees again, and this time I saw nothing else. Nothing but my father’s eyes, the same shade of green as mine. As Ethan’s. More tears came, and I wiped them away.

“I love you, Daddy.” The words came out broken. Halting. Wrapped around a sob that speared my heart. “Everything good in me comes from you and Mom, and I’m so sorry for all the times that weren’t so good. I…”

His hand moved. More of a twitch than anything, but I knew what he wanted. I curled my fingers around his, and tried not to notice how cold his skin was.

“Faythe…” he whispered, and I leaned closer. “I never wanted anything else in a daughter. Nothing more or less than what you are…” He coughed, and red bubbles appeared on his pale lips.

I sobbed again, and someone put a tissue in my hand. I wiped his mouth carefully, and he swallowed.

“You are stronger than you know. You’re smart. You have your mother’s strength and her heart, and that’s all you need. I’m sorry it’s come so soon, but the Pride is yours now.” He squeezed my hand weakly, and I squeezed back. I didn’t want to hear any more. I didn’t want him to die. I didn’t want to be in charge—not yet. But what I wanted had never mattered less. He coughed again, and tears trailed down my face as I blotted more blood from his lips. “Take care of our Pride. Fight for them. Lead them. They’ll be counting on you.”

“I’ll do my best.” There was nothing else I could say. I couldn’t tell him I wasn’t ready. Not ready was no longer an option.

“I love you,” he whispered, after a moment of pained silence. “And so do they.” His glance flickered over my shoulder, to where I knew Marc and Jace were standing. Watching. Waiting.

“You have to choose. You cannot make decisions for the rest of them if you can’t make this one for yourself.”

There was no stopping the tears then. I couldn’t even slow them. I leaned down so far my cheek brushed his, and beyond the pervasive scent of his blood—so much like my own—he smelled like leather and after-shave, the scents of my childhood. “I don’t know how to choose.” My tears fell on his cheek, and his beard stubble scratched my chin.

“You love them both, but you’ll survive the loss of one. Choose the one you can’t live without.”

He dragged in another painful breath, and his gaze was so intense it burned. “Tell your brothers how proud I am of them. Tell your mother she is my whole life, and has been since the moment we met. She is in my heart, and in my soul, and this will never really separate us.”

He inhaled one more time. Then his grip on my hand loosened, and his fingers fell away.

My father was gone.

Fifteen

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t make myself suck in the next breath, or even force out the old one. I still sat on the floor on my knees, my forehead resting on my father’s stomach, waiting in vain for it to rise beneath me. His blood stained my cheek. His hand was still damp in mine, and he still smelled alive. And as long as those things were true, I couldn’t truly accept his death.

It simply hadn’t happened. It couldn’t have.

Yet I understood that I’d failed him.

My primary job as an enforcer was to protect my Alpha—my father—and I’d failed spectacularly. What would I tell Michael and Owen? What could I possibly tell my mother?

“Faythe?” Marc’s hand landed gently on the side of my neck, the only part of me not covered by my robe. “Faythe, come on.”

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t face them. They didn’t need me. They needed my father. So did I.