XXXI

                                    

                                          


                          
Tyler's POV
                          
Ethan called me to tell me he was on his way. His mate had gotten them a smaller plane and they boarded it a few hours ago. In that time I learned about my daughter's mate. 
                          
His name is Cain and he is over a thousand years old. More importantly he loves Sorcha, his first mate whom he lost tragically. He wouldn't say how. Jade was incredibly enthralled by this as Fern told the story. 
                          
"I'm so sorry this happened to you, Cain," she said in a tragically quiet whisper she only used when her father was involved," No one deserves to lose their mate like that."
                          
He looked out the window. Any reply he may have had to my nieces unforeseen empathy was lost in translation somewhere between his thoughts and his lips. 
                          
"You know E, then? How is she? I've been nothing but worried ever since she disappeared."
                          
"She was just... angry last time we were together."
                          
"She was angry last time I saw her, too. It's not her fault, you know. She can't help her emotions. It's just how she reacts to the world around her. Life is difficult when the entire destruction of the supernatural world rests on your shoulders," Jade's pretty blue eyes dulled as she thought about her cousin and Eve's fate. "I should have been more sympathetic to her. This wouldn't have happened."
                          
Fern put a gentle hand on Jade's pale wrist. Thalia knelt before her daughter who was sat at the Lycan's kitchen table in his cabin out in the woods. I watched from the couch my baby girl had slept on only a little while ago. A blond hair lay on the cushion next to me. I'm so used to finding hers and her mother's hair all over our own little house in the Jade Forest but this one in particular made tears threaten my eyes. This one isn't home.
                          
Thalia said something to her daughter about not blaming herself for the sins of our pack. How the Jade Forest pack should have been more respectful of Eve in the first place and how fate herself shouldn't have done so much to an innocent girl like her cousin. A casual thought of Theresa came to mind. I haven't seen my other sister in years but something about Eve and her stubbornness, her cleverness, and her eagerness to experience life always reminded me of her wayward aunt. It's something I don't think Thalia or Nova saw but the singular time Eve met Thomas as a toddler I saw something in his eyes that told me he saw it, too.
                          
I remember the way she would watch the other wolves playing gaily in the field. Her eyes flashing a deep grey when one of the wolves tackled another. The rough play intrigued her but it was unwelcomed for a pup like herself to join and she being who she was, well-
                          
It just wasn't something anyone really desired.
                          
Maybe that's just how fate works then. After years of unwelcome emotions, abandonment from the people who are meant to love you most yet acceptance by those nearest and dearest to your heart. Loyalty only came in small doses for my girl but those she trusted in the end were the ones who truly had followed her to the ends of the Earth while those who had abandoned her and shunned her were now left cowering in the corner.
                          
This is how fate meant for it. Ethan, Nova, Jade, Mike; all of us who truly love Eve Wright had not left her in her time of need but followed her when she told us not to because we knew this was a path she needn't walk alone. 
                          
Looking at Cain and Fern as they spoke with my family I came to the understanding of something that had been true since Eve had survived stab wounds from Wyatt and been born all too early. Since she brought all the light into my world despite the prophecy of darkness that surrounded her.
                          
My daughter has a strength within her that no other wolf could reasonably access. Whether it be from her wolf or her heart, my Eve is strong enough to conquer the world.
                          
Maybe that's the problem.