21. Sam #2
“What did it cost you?” I asked quietly. “Having a father who kept you secret? Who wouldn’t acknowledge you? Who wouldn’t protect you because it would expose him?”
Her mask cracked. For one second—one raw, unguarded second—her eyes filled with tears before she blinked them away furiously. The magic around her pulsed, unstable.
“Don’t!”
“When you were in Adarcan—”
“Sam.”
“—did you hope he’d come?”
“I said—”
“How long did you wait, Annabella? Before you realized he wasn’t coming?”
“Stop.” Her voice was shaking now, but with rage more than grief. The bed frame rattled against the floorboards. The lampshade swung. “I said stop.”
I should have. I knew I should back off, given her space, let her breathe. But I couldn’t. Because if I stopped, she might go back to him. And I couldn’t let that happen.
“He left you there,” I said. “His own daughter. And he did nothing.”
“You don’t understand. I failed him—”
“Are you—?” I had to stop. Had to take a breath. “Are you fucking kidding me? You gave him your loyalty, you risked your life for him, again and again. He failed you.”
I took a step closer. Then another. Close enough that her magic licked at my skin like static, sharp and bright.
“I saw the way his coven treated you. The whispers. The sneers. ‘Half-breed.’ ‘Witch-bitch.’ And he let them. A real father would have killed anyone who spoke about his daughter that way. He would have claimed you the second you were born. He’d have burned the world to protect you.
But Webster chose his reputation over his own flesh and blood. And you’re still defending him.”
“Because he’s all I have!” The words ripped out of her. “Him and Mom and Ellie. If I lose him—”
“Then you still have your mom. Your sister. Mina and Zeke.” I held her eyes. “And you have people here who care about you. You have me.”
Something shifted in the room. The magic didn’t stop, but it changed; still volatile, still dangerous, but dampened.
“You want to know the difference between Webster and the people who actually care about you and Webster? We love Annabella McGrath. The half-witch, half-wolf who’s stubborn and fierce and loyal to her crew and the people she cares about.
The person who survived Ashridge, who survived Adarcan.
Not the weapon Webster made you into. Not the obedient soldier who never questions orders. Just you.”
I watched her flinch from the words.
“And that’s something Simon Webster has never done.
He’s never loved you for who you are. He’s never accepted you as wolf and witch, as his daughter, his flesh and blood.
He only wants what you can do for him. And he’s got you so twisted up that you actually believe you failed him.
” My voice dropped. “Don’t you see, Annabella?
He’s only interested in what you can do for him.
When you stop being useful, he’ll throw you away. And will probably blame you for it.”
She went cold. Dangerously, lethally cold, and I knew I’d gone too far.
I’d just ripped away the one person who she thought saw her, believed in her, accepted her.
The one relationship she’d built her entire identity around.
The magic snapped back into her like a rubber band, and suddenly the room felt arctic.
Tactical genius, Shaw. Bravo.
“Get out.” Her voice was flat.
“Annabella—”
“I said get out!” The bedroom door crashed open behind me. “I can’t—I need to think. And I can’t do that with you in here, tearing my life apart.”
My wolf was howling in protest.
Stay. Stay with her. Don’t leave.
But I’d pushed as hard as I could, and staying now would only give her something to fight against instead of something to think about.
“I’m right next door,” I said quietly. “If you need anything.”
“I don’t need anything from you, Sam Shaw. And I never will.”
Fuck! Had I just destroyed what little trust she had in me?
I looked at her, standing there in the center of the room; she looked like a warrior making her last stand.
Her chin was lifted, defiant, but I could see the micro-tremors in her hands, the way she was holding herself so rigidly it had to hurt.
Her eyes blazed with fury, but behind it was something raw and bleeding.
The look of someone who’d just had their foundation ripped away.
Magic still flickered around her fingers, silver-green sparks that couldn’t decide whether to attack or defend.
She was magnificent even in her devastation; fierce and fragile all at once, a storm barely contained in human form.
I walked out.
The door slammed behind me hard enough to rattle the pictures on the hallway wall. I stood there, in the dark corridor, and pressed my back against the opposite wall.
Inside the room, I could hear her breathing. Fast. Ragged. Then, so quiet that even my hearing almost missed it, a sound that gutted me. A single, choked sob. Cut off almost instantly, strangled into silence.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes and slid down the wall until I was sitting on the hallway floor, back against the plaster, legs stretched across the narrow space. I wasn’t going to my room. If she tried to leave, she’d have to step over me.
And if she needed someone in the dark, I’d be right here.