Sawtooth Spire Wanna believe, wanna believe that you don't have a bad bone in your body

Did I say that? Wylla ground out, cutting him off, or trying to. With her life falling to shambles around her, it was the only way she knew how to be heard, before the force of the battleaxe he wielded to cut her down could chase any words from her throat. I said you've spent MORE time with her than with me since her brats were born. Regardless what you're actually doing in your free time, you've made us your lowest priority. I haven't done fuck all to her or said she didn't deserve anything.

Wylla had allowed him to complete his contract with Nyx, despite how much she disagreed with it. She hadn't harmed a hair on Nyx's head, or her cubs. She'd kept well away from the woman and intended to continue doing so. It wasn't about whether or not Nyx deserved anything. Mahler believed she did, and so Nyx had gotten what she'd wanted, and Wylla hadn't interfered, no matter how much she disagreed. It had nothing to do with Nyx.

It was about Wylla feeling forgotten and tossed aside as a result of it, and it was about Wylla having to deal with the tumultuous emotions of her cubs as a result of it, and having absolutely no reassurance that this was temporary, and it was Mahler gaslighting her for expecting more from him when he threw words like "love" around. Now he cut her down, swinging his sword carelessly again and again to harm her, and she slammed shut the doors of her heart, fearing desperately that to open them ever again would be the death of her.

He framed everything he'd done as a sacrifice, but the only ones making sacrifices were the kids themselves, Phaedra especially, starved for her father's attention while he kept himself away.

You've given me no reason to believe you, she snarled. I don't care what anyone says, Mahler. You can say anything you want, but what you do matters more. And what you've done is treat me and our kids like lesser since hers were born. If you loved me or cared about them then you would be here whenever you could, so Phaedra doesn't have to feel inferior, and I don't have to do this alone and wonder if everything you ever said really was a lie, because that's what it feels like! There's no excuse for that. He could fault her for jumping to conclusions and he wasn't wrong to do so, but if he thought his grand proclamations of love and his assurances had prepared her for—or were enough to soothe the hurt of—being left on her own the second his new kids came into the world, he was dead wrong. Her heartbeat thudded hard in her ears.

If you care for your children, then do better! You've neglected them, she hissed, shuddering with sobs. Phaedra wets herself at night, she cries regularly, she has bad dreams. I've had my paws full trying to reassure her while you fuck off and do your duty while neglecting us. Thade suffered for it, and even now that he's missing, you have such a massive fucking ego you have the balls to blame me!

On the subject of denying his daughters the title of sibling, she snorted a billowing breath. Her kids being your kids does not make them kin to me or mine. I did not make an agreement with Nyx to be family, and she did not make an agreement with me. Your desires do not supercede that. For Wylla, only blood was family. Nothing less. Maybe Mahler never realized that, which was probably her own fault. Another thing they'd not known about one another prior to making their stupid decision. If you feel low, then maybe it's because you're BEING low!

Skimming back her lips to flash her teeth, she choked, your love is poison, and turned and stomped several feet away, trying her best to calm down, but the bludgeoning blows of his cold words served only to stoke the fire of her wrath higher, so high that it consumed her in a tidal wave of tears that came without warning, forcing her to her knees.