The Rebel Queen (Outlaw 1)

Danny hugged me tight. “We can’t know that.”

“She knew how important it was to keep the grimoire away from him. She knew. We had just had a conversation about it. What if going for the bag cost her her life?”

“We can’t know that,” Danny repeated. His hands rubbed over my back. “Baby, we don’t know anything except Myrddin doesn’t have it, and if we can do this safely, he never will. I’m sorry. I was expressing my fear. I trust you to do this. And whatever did happen back then, it wasn’t your fault.”

I couldn’t help the guilt I felt. It weighed on me like a millstone, pressing on every aspect of my life. Watching Rhys come into his own had briefly allowed me to forget about the hell I found myself in.

“I want it all back. I want to take it all back,” I whispered against his chest. “I want to do this all over again. One moment in time shouldn’t ruin everyone’s lives. It shouldn’t ruin our family and everything we worked for.”

“But that’s how it works, Z. It’s literally how it works. One moment, one mistake, can change everything. Didn’t we learn that when we were kids? I died. I took my eyes off the road for one second and it was over. I didn’t want it to be, but it was. We don’t get to choose, and it’s not what happens to us that matters. It’s how we deal with it.”

“These are our kids. Danny, Lee is out of control, and Rhys has spent years so wound up he can’t even show affection properly. Something happened to him and he won’t talk about it. I haven’t spent enough time with Evan because she ran out of here as fast as she could. They are in pain and you would have me do nothing about it.”

“No, I would have you do exactly what you did today.” Danny stepped back, obviously frustrated with me. “You walked Rhys through an experience that along with everything else he’s learned, will make him into a leader. Don’t you think Harry would have turned back time and made sure I didn’t get into that car if he could have? Would you have gone back to save me that night?”

At the time I would have done anything to stop Danny from getting into that car. But then he wouldn’t have risen. We wouldn’t have met Devinshea, and there would be no Rhys and Lee and Evan. Kelsey would have been taken by the Council and twisted into what they required or killed when she refused to comply.

Summer wouldn’t have been born, and the outer planes would be lost.

So much depended on that one terrible moment.

“It’s not the same. What we went through…they shouldn’t have to go through that pain. We took it for them. They shouldn’t be traumatized. They should have had a good life,” I insisted.

“It isn’t so bad.” Lee stood in the doorway. He held a bag. “Sorry. I forgot the herbs Lily wanted me to bring her. Unlike my brother, I happily admit that I like to eavesdrop. I’ve found I learn a lot. It’s not such a terrible life, Mother.”

Oh, shit. Now he was calling me mother. “Lee, I wasn’t saying something bad about you.”

“No, you’re just sad about how I turned out,” he said quietly and with absolutely none of his devil-may-care air. This was the Lee who hid behind his smile, the one who felt all the hurt.

“I think you shouldn’t have had to go through any of it at all,” I replied.

“Your mother didn’t mean anything,” Daniel tried.

“But she did. She wants to try to change things, to go and fix the world. You see, nothing happens here in the city that I don’t end up hearing about. Some of the brownies overheard your conversation this morning.” Lee stared at me, more serious than I’d seen him before. “I know I act like an idiot. Sasha taught me that. He taught me that people tend to see what you want them to see. I kind of thought you would see more.”

“I see that you’re not happy, baby. You think I’m fooled by the arrogance?”

“I earned some of the arrogance, you know,” Lee said. “I earned it by being the absolute toughest son of a bitch in our group. I earned it by never quitting. They took my eye and I still saved my brother. Dad knows the story because he’s asked me. Papa sat down and told me how proud he is of the man I’ve become. But what my mother has done…my beloved mother, the one I held above everyone else…what you’ve done with your time is plotted with my uncle about how to fix us, how to go back to the time when we were children and easy to love. The funny thing is we would always have grown up. We always would have become more complex. You know Papa said we judged our parents when we were kids, and he’s right. Now that I have space, I can see honestly how much love and care I was given, and so can Rhys and Evan. Not a one of us truly blamed you for what happened to us. But I do blame you for this. You want to erase who I am because looking at me hurts you?”