“Dad?” He says, yanking on him, and I glance away, unable to see his heartache.
His father is dead. The bullet hit him in the center of his back as he turned to shield Marabella. His head hangs forward limply, and Kyan is screaming for his father and shaking him.
“Ezra,” I call, nodding toward Kyan.
Ezra walks over to him and tries to grab him when the mist engulfs him, and Ezra is thrown backward at an alarming speed.
“Dad, wake up, dad,” he screams, climbing onto his father’s lap. “Please, dad,” Kyan cries.
Ezra shakes himself off. Getting to his feet, he goes over to pry Kyan off his father’s body. “I know, buddy,” Ezra tells him.
“No, no, no,” Kyan screams before unleashing his magic and directing his magic at his father.
I gasp when I realize he is trying to resurrect him, remembering what Dominic said about his son’s rabbit turning evil and cannibalistic. “Kyan, no,” Ezra says, gripping his arms.
“Get him out of here,” I call to Dominic’s men, who rush over and grab Dominic’s body and remove it so his son can’t try to resurrect him.
“No, bring him back, bring him back, I can save him!” Kyan screams, and I drop in front of him.
“You can’t bring him back. Your father wouldn’t want to be like your rabbit,” I remind him, trying to get him to understand.
My words may be brutal, but he needs to understand what he was trying to do.
“No, let me go. Let me go!” Kyan screams, thrashing in Ezra’s arms.
“This is her fault. It’s all her fault. He died for her!” He screams as he stops thrashing. His breathing is hard as he glares at Marabella in my arms. I stand up, seeing one of Dominic’s men walk over. He is tall and stern-looking, muscle on muscle. I look up at him as he stops beside us.
“I am Dominic’s Beta. Let me take him,” he says.
“Kye,” the man says, and Kyan’s tear-filled eyes look up at him before he jumps out of Ezra’s lap and rushes over to the man who grabs him, crushing him against his chest.
“I’m his next of kin after the Alpha. You can check his will. My name is Lucas. I am Kyan’s uncle on his mother’s side,” the man tells me as Kyan hugs him, sobbing against his chest.
“He’s gone,” Kyan chokes out.
“I know, buddy,” Lucas tells him.
“He died for her. I hate her, I hate her,” he whispers, and my heart clenches.
“Don’t say that, don’t say that, Kye,” Lucas tells him, but Kyan shakes his head.
Lucas puts him on his feet, taking his hand when Kyan lets his hand go, ripping his arm away. His eyes lock on Marabella, and I turn slightly, shielding her from his angry gaze, and he looks up at Lucas.
“Take me home now,” he says, his voice ice-cold, before he walks off toward Dominic’s car and not looking back.
“He is just upset. He doesn’t mean it,” Lucas tells me.
“I have a feeling he does,” I whisper, watching him open the rear door and get in the car.
“Soren, Rowan,” Lucas calls out, and I see two, just as intimidating men approach him with hard looks on their faces.
“Bring his body back. I’m taking Kyan home,” Lucas says, and the men nod sadly, and Lucas walks off toward Dominic’s car. He stops at the trunk, grabs some clothes out, and slips on some shorts.
“Is Kyan going to be okay?” I hear Jonah’s voice.
“He will be alright, he is just sad,” Sage tells him, looking at me. She nods her head to me, mouthing thank you. I tip my head to her, and she smiles as she sits in Andrei’s lap with Jonah on hers.
The first day on the job, I already have failed and want to quit.
Katya
One week later
There is nothing worse than everyone thinking you are the solution to their dilemma. Sure, I could have saved him, but how do you choose whose life is worth more? How do you decide who to kill and who to save? Essentially playing God, how do I live with choosing?
What will the ramifications of that decision be? How do you choose whose life is more valuable when all life is precious?
Marabella learned the hard way. She saved her pack, but by doing so, damned the man she loved. She cursed herself and paid the price – a never-ending cycle of pain. Now, I am the one to choose who can live or die. The risks of altering a future that I have no control over might be my downfall and ruin those I hold dear.
Choosing to do nothing and watching Kyan’s heartbreak was the hardest decision of my life.
I already regretted it, but Dominic’s men had already killed the rogues, and I couldn’t take the life of someone undeserving. Skeletons, Seline said, make sure you choose which to live with, and now I understand that with a newfound clarity, that is terrifying.
Every decision I make from now on will haunt me, break small pieces off, and I don’t know how Seline bore the weight of those decisions. How she chose between her children, her children she entrusted me with. This job is impossible.
I am not ready for this, and I am not ready to take her place and the expectations that come with it.
Is it too much to be normal, free of consequence, and free to live without choosing? I feel tired, and this is just the beginning. I am already emotionally exhausted, and I feel dead inside.
So many lives have been lost, and I just watched because sometimes choosing to do nothing is a better option. A long time ago, this was all set in motion. I realize how right Seline was.
We choose mates, not their destiny. Sometimes fate can be cruel, and I learned to take the punches and avoid causing more unnecessary destruction.
One decision can have a domino effect. One wrong move and the entire thing will fall around you. Get it right, and we may just survive it, but with death comes life, and once that life is over, death comes for us again, a never-ending cycle.
Each time we wash off our sins and send them back until we get it right or choose not to. I realize Seline decided not to.
She broke the cycle of living with the things that haunted her.
I wonder if I will make the same decision one day. Could I force this onto someone else? I am grateful for Seline bringing me back, but now, I pay the consequences of her sacrifice. My kids are forced to pay for a sacrifice of mine.