Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Dewi
Dewi hated this. Everything about it.
That she’d had to do what she did, and that she’d manipulated Ken to accomplish it.
No more.
It ripped at her soul that she’d hurt Ken, even though she’d known when it finally came out that he would feel hurt. Except she’d hoped to delay that revelation for days, possibly weeks.
Maybe even forever, had she been lucky enough.
Which she rarely was, but that didn’t mean a bitch couldn’t hope, right?
She lay in their bed, staring up at the ceiling and knowing anything she said right now, until Ken was ready to come to her, would only make the situation worse.
I don’t know how to do this when I’m not single.
Then again, she technically hadn’t been single before Ken, since she and Beck had an ongoing situationship. But Beck understood the mission came first, by any means necessary when the pack was at stake.
And yes, it pissed her off that she’d been sloppy on that one fucking little detail. It led her to obsessively replay the day in her mind, scouring it for any other minutiae she might have overlooked that could come back and haunt them.
I never used to be sloppy.
And that was sloppy of her. Not only because it revealed to Ken what she was doing, but because before, she would’ve thought about a detail like that and kept it in mind. Leave no footprints, no trace of any kind.
She’d violated that rule.
Worse? She’d violated her mate’s trust.
When Ken finally came up to bed he wore a towel draped around his hips and she knew he’d showered on the lanai. After closing the bedroom door he hesitated, staring at her in the dim light.
“I know you’re awake,” he said. “You don’t need to pretend to be asleep.”
“I wasn’t pretending; I was waiting for you.”
He headed to the bathroom without turning on any lights. On his way to bed a few minutes later, he stopped and grabbed a pair of sleeping shorts from the dresser and pulled them on.
Then he walked over and sat on the end of the bed, his back to her.
“I love you, Dewi. But since the night we met, it’s felt like a non-stop mindfuck. Like I’m in a parallel world. And one of the things contributing to my feelings about it is that I don’t like that I’ve become a murderer, someone who can easily do it and still sleep at night.”
She stared at him, shocked. “You’re not a murderer!”
“Uh, I am. Endquist.”
“That was self-defense! He was attacking us and would’ve killed us. He’d damned near killed you.”
“Then there were Manuel Segura’s men in Idaho. They were disabled by Duncan and the trap. I didn’t have to kill them. I could’ve let Duncan kill them all.”
“Again, they would’ve killed you and Nami. They deserved it. That was also self-defense.”
“It wasn’t self-defense when I killed Manuel Segura.”
“Manuel Segura was an execution. He had a blood edict on his head. It was justified after everything he did.”
“And I walked up and shot him.”
“He was a dead man walking,” she insisted. “There’s nothing wrong with you executing him. Especially considering that he protected that feral, murdering rapist scumbag brother of his for so long. How many more people would have had to die at their hands to consider it justifiable?”
“The point is, I don’t like that I went from not knowing shifters existed, much less that my grandparents are shifters, to walking up to guys and shooting them point-blank. If you’d told me this was going to be my life? I’d probably have run far and fast the other way in terror.”
His tone chilled her. “Do you regret marrying me?”
“No. But I need to find a way to drive it home through that thick, beautiful skull of yours that you’re part of a team now.
You and me. Equal partners. You can’t ‘lone wolf’ your way through life anymore.
” He paused. “And how do we finally stop these fuckers for good? How do we stop all of them so we don’t have to keep going through this shit? ”
“We do what we’re doing,” she quietly replied. “Hopefully we don’t face another serious threat for a long time. This was by far the worst in my lifetime. Hell, I think it was easily the worst in Trent and Peyton’s lives, not counting losing Dad and Mom.”
“Let’s assume it’s not the last existential threat. Then what?”
She carefully thought about her response before answering.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “We have to prepare as best we can while still living a relatively normal life. We can’t exist as if we’re perpetually under siege.
For starters, it’s not realistic. Second, it’s not sustainable in anything resembling a healthy way.
And third, it could paradoxically lead to the pack not being ready when a real threat hits, because we won’t recognize it.
If we’re hypervigilant all the time, and everything’s a threat, then nothing’s a threat until it lands on top of us. By then, it’s too late.”
“Doesn’t answer my question, Dewi.”
She sat up but didn’t move to touch him.
“I can’t answer your question,” she said.
“Badger and Beck taught me to stay flexible and think on my feet. That not every situation has a ready or easy answer, but my focus needs to be on the pack first when making those decisions. After saving lives, what’s best for the pack?
Unfortunately, what was best this time was what I did.
If we hadn’t just gone through the lab raid and all that bullshit, I might have made a different choice.
Maybe come up with something like Peyton said and kidnap her, reprogram her, and then turn her loose to take out Abundio and get herself thrown in jail.
But those are a lot of maybes and what-ifs to take into consideration.
A lot of moving parts that all have to align perfectly to work.
I decided to go for the lowest-risk option, the simplest plan with the fewest parts, that also ultimately gave her the choice. ”
“Where does the line get drawn?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Do we go in guns blazing and kill people in a compound even if there are kids present? Do we down an aircraft to kill one person who makes Hitler look like an angel while ignoring collateral damage?”
“I don’t know how to answer that,” she said.
“I wish I could promise you there will never be collateral damage. But I can’t.
We do our best to prevent it. And no, I wouldn’t take down an entire airplane of innocent people just to kill one.
I wouldn’t even take out a car full of innocent people just to kill one. ”
“So, it’s black and white?”
“Never,” she said. “If it were, I would’ve walked into that office, Primed her with a command, and had her go on a rampage and scream something that squarely placed the blame on Abundio for her actions before she killed herself.
Or intercepted her when she arrived at work, took her and the driver somewhere, and killed both of them.
Or any other number of options. I know I have a rep for tearing through china shops without hesitation, but you of all people should know that’s not who I am.
Not all the time, anyway. Not unless the situation calls for it. ”
He finally turned, changing position so he could look at her. “I don’t know who you are, and that’s my point. Just when I think I do, you do something like this that completely challenges my worldview. If you’ll recall, on the night we met, you killed a guy.”
She again weighed her words before answering. “I know. And I regret how that happened. I scented you and tried to come up with a plan to neutralize the target and not lose you or put you at risk.”
“Neutralize the target.” He stared up at the ceiling for a moment, where the light making its way through the open blinds cast shadows across it. “Do you even hear yourself?”
“I couldn’t walk away from my mission when children’s lives were at stake.”
“No, but you could’ve used your Prime on me to remember your name and number, for me to give you mine, and then sent me out the back door to get me out of there before you did it and have me call you later. Or pick me up out back with the car.”
“That wasn’t what I thought at the time. Yes, I realize I should’ve handled that differently. I am not perfect, and I’ve never claimed to be.”
“But do you understand what I’m saying? After this stunt I’m paranoid to even give you any information, unless Peyton tells me to, for fear you’ll go off and take action on it without consulting anyone first.”
Heat filled her face. “I’m sorry.”
“How many ‘I’m sorrys’ will there be before this finally clicks for you? We have to be a team, Dewi. I have to count on you, and you have to learn to count on me. More than that, you need to respect me.”
She felt even worse because he was one hundred percent correct. “I don’t have a good answer. I fucked up, I admit it, and I promise never to do it again. I’ll run things past you. But there will also be times I have to overrule you, or get Peyton involved to overrule you.”
“I’m not looking for you to be a tradwife or a robot,” he said.
“And I get it that sometimes you will need to make split-second decisions. But this wasn’t that.
You planned this over, what, a couple of weeks?
And nowhere in that time did you so much as hint to Peyton or me what was going on.
Worse, you deliberately misled me and assured me that you were just going on routine visits.
That’s unacceptable. I need to be treated like a respected partner. ”
“You had a whopper of a secret for quite a while,” she responded. “You and Peyton kept secrets from me. How’s that any different?”
He didn’t respond at first. “You’re right. It’s not much different. And it was also wrong.”