I hesitated, watching her.
Bri had something up her sleeve.
“You want me to stay,” I said, trying to unravel what it was that my friend wanted from me.
She grinned, her brows lifting victoriously.
I threw my hands in the air. “No. I can’t. That’s out of the question. I’ve stayed here long enough. This place is a…a…” I couldn’t think of anything bad to say about Lakesedge.
While I’d had my fair share of trouble here with Ness and Beryl, my beast loved the territory. The dragon loved the open skies and the pink haze of the sunsets. Lakesedge was a beautiful place, and I wanted it all to myself.
That wouldn’t happen, though. I’d given up any right to lead a pack or a clan after what I’d done. The blood on my hands would never wash away. I might have done what I thought was right at the time, but now I could see the harm I’d done to everyone around me. I’d learned that I would never be a good leader.
Lakesedge deserved better than me.
“Stay and help your girlfriend,” Bri said. “I know you think you can drink faery wine and escape your guilt, but that’s not how that works. Nothing is going to erase what you did. All you can do is move forward and become better than your past. Your girlfriend deserves that much, at least.”
I paused, the gears in my head finally starting to turn. Bri had said something several times now, and it’d only just now dawned on me.
“Mygirlfriend?”
Bri grinned again. She must have thought she was being smart.
“No.” I shook my head and paced away from Bri. “You have this all wrong. Ness is not my girlfriend. That witch convinced me that Ness could help fix what I did, but the witch was wrong. Ness is nothing to me.”
Bri laughed at me. She openly laughed, her head thrown back as she clutched her stomach. When she wiped tears from her eyes, I stopped pacing so I could glare at her. It took her several minutes to stop laughing, but I suspected most of that was purely theatrical.
“You can go back to Thunder Pass now,” I told her.
Bri playfully flung her hand toward the direction of the door. “It’s clear that the two of you like each other. It’s all right if you want her. I won’t be mad. You’re allowed to move on.”
I clenched my jaw so hard the screech of my teeth grinding together nearly drowned out the fury of my beast. “Excuse me?I’m allowed to move on?”
“Yes. And you really should. I know that you haven’t dated anyone since we broke up. The entire clan was worried that you would never find a mate to bear the next generation of leaders. While that’s not really a concern anymore, I still think you should explore whatever it is that you have with that woman. Ness? Right?”
I flipped Bri the bird and stormed outside.
The reason I never got over her wasn’t that I still loved her. Bri had left me for my brother. She’d told me that she loved me only to drop me three weeks later. While I respected her and wanted the best for my childhood friend, her actions had left a crack in my heart that refused to mend.
Perhaps I was unlovable. I could live with that. No one needed to deal with a man like myself. I had too many ghosts, too many sins. That didn’t make for good mate material. Still, I wished I hadn’t found out that way.
I yanked open my car door, pausing when Bri came to stand outside. I didn’t want to look at her, yet found myself glancing in her direction anyway.
“You should talk to Morgan,” she said. “Tell him what happened. If he understands, then the two of you can be brothers again.”
Morgan and I shared everything, even girlfriends, apparently. This wasn’t something that I wanted Morgan to understand. If anything, I wanted his righteous rage so that he wouldn’t have to live with his own guilt.
If Morgan thought that I’d lost my mind or that I’d become corrupted, then that was for the best. He would never forgive himself for not noticing our father’s decline. Morgan would blame himself for the atrocities he’d overlooked.
“A conversation like that can’t happen anywhere near here,” I said, instead. “Morgan and I cause destruction when we fight. I’d like that to happen far away from Lakesedge.”
Bri didn’t look convinced, but I didn’t have the time to make her understand. I got into the car and set out to see just how far I could get before Beryl pulled me back. If she materialized inside my car and whisked me back to her court while I was driving sixty miles an hour, I was going to charge her for the inevitable repairs.