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

Don't you think she's dealing with enough right now without being forced to face her fears, too? Phaedra was a fierce little thing, equal parts deeply warm and wildly passionate, and Wylla didn't doubt for a second their daughter could overcome any fear ordinarily. But she was in such a terrible state these days that adding more stress to her plate could only be a bad thing as far as her mother was concerned. She disapproved. But she would leave that decision in Phaedra's hands, and wouldn't interfere in Mahler's attempts to connect.

He didn't answer her question, which she thought was pretty typical. More and more, she was getting the impression that Mahler only wanted to be involved with things that were easy for him. If something wasn't going his way, he simply walked away from it, or danced around it, refusing to answer a deeply vulnerable question. Maybe he didn't realize how much it hurt her.

But what he said instead? He was terribly, horribly wrong.

Bullshit! she shrieked, affronted that he would even try to turn his choices around on her, like it was her fault that she'd imagined his love meant more than this. You told me that you loved me! You told me, when I was afraid you would leave for someone else, that you didn't enter a contract with me. That this was real. You said it was what you wanted for so long! You made me believe in that love, you made me think that I mattered! That our kids mattered, that this would be something good! You made me think that they would be your priority.

Yet you've been spending more time with someone you made an agreement with, and kids that were the product of an agreement, than you do with me! Or with them! Wolves you claimed to love! She sucked in a breath and only then realized that she was trembling. Only then realized that her cheeks were wet with tears again. God damn it. He didn't deserve to see her break down.

And then you, what, propose to me by saying we could legitimize our litter, not y'know, I want this family forever? What the fuck do you expect me to think? I asked you to show me that what you have with her is just a contract, like you said it was, before I was willing to commit my life to yours, and every day since then you've shown me that we're worth so much less to you. He could say until he was blue in the face that it wasn't true, but Wylla was a believer in actions first, and his actions spoke loudly. Since the birth of Nyx's cubs, the only time she'd seen him was when they moved the kids to the rendezvous. There'd been nothing to suggest anything other than what Wylla had told him she feared most:

That he had abandoned his love for her, and found it in Nyx instead, and the kids they'd brought into this world that both of them had wanted were now just broken pieces between them, and each of them affected irrevocably by it.

And now Thade is gone because I couldn't do it alone, I wasn't there for him and you weren't there for him and I lost him, she wailed. Is this the sum of your love, Mahler? Or has that changed, too?