Blood & Wine

20 | Eden

"I can't do this anymore," I said to myself, sinking to my knees a mile from where the werewolves were—where I always parked. I buried my face into my hands and cried. "I don't know what I'm doing."

I had tried to erase Fynley—with someone else, then with a memory-altering vampire. Neither option had worked. It had caused me to be late, and Dasher had chosen today of all days to have a goddamned break down. I had been waiting on him to have one, to finally admit to himself what Calla and I had been speculating for the pat week and a half—and when I wasn't here, it had happened.

Iris had to have been there. Of course she was.

I didn't cry often, but when I did, I cried.

You don't have time to cry, I reminded myself. I really didn't. I should've been texting Calla, telling her what happened. I should've been finding a way to patch this together. I should've apologized to Dasher right then and there, but when I saw him, when I saw how angry he had been with me, I balked.

I never fucked balked.

I, of course, had never had someone that counted on me be this upset with me either. I had never seen anyone that disappointed with me. My one job, taking care of him, and I had failed at it so miserably.

Dasher had no reason to forgive me. I wouldn't forgive me.

He had his werewolves. He had Calla. He had the Moon Goddess. Why did he need a powerful witch?

What happened when he joined La Luna and I had to kill them?

A chill, something soul-cold and not weather-cold, brushed over me. The dead. "I don't have time for your shit today, okay?" I said aloud, my voice as hushed as the slight wind blowing through. "I have my own things I'm going through."

"Eden."

I recognized the voice—my great-great-great grandmother, Mary Meredith. I wiped my eyes but welcomed the ghost-touch. She was the only one to ever look at my strength and see my weakness. Not in a bad way. Unlike everybody else who saw power and used it to push me, she reminded me to take moments to relax. She reminded me, when everybody said I had no reason not to be able to handle everything dumped on my plate, that I was still young.

No matter how old and wise that silver hair makes you look, she teased whenever she saw me falling even slightly.

She ran her hand through my hair. "I can hear your cries from where I rest, my love." She materialized next to me, short and stout. I had the uncanny resemblance to her. Not my mom, not my dad, but an ancestor from five generations ago. We still had her photo in the Family Book on my dad's side.

"I'm lost," I admitted.

She had my dark brown skin, my lovely eyes—dark brown like they were before I took on this immense power—and my beautiful, heart-breaking smile. She looked the age she did when she'd died, though, in her eighties. So she looked about fifty years older than me, and her hair was thick and dark, framing her face in bouncy curls I always admired. "Where are you?" she asked me.

"I am outside of Magus."

She batted at my head gently. "No, my dear girl. Where are you with your problems?"

Unsolved. "I only have one more member of the Coven, and I only have another half year to build it up with no prospects," I answered. "Nobody wants to join the Coven. Dasher hates me, and even if he does star to like me again, he'll eventually leave me. I'm haunted by these weird se—dreams about the same werewolf that murdered my Coven. Nothing is happening, and no matter how hard I try to do the right thing, I always mess up."