It had been one week since I killed Jeremy. There hadn't been another Hound attack, and the Malavite stone had stayed where I put it: right on my nightstand. Everything had returned back to normal--as normal as it could get. But I had a couple more things left to do, including talk to Dad.

To say that I was nervous to see Dad was the understatement of the damn century. I woke up at five in the morning. I hadn't been able to sleep at all this past week, nightmares of what I had done were haunting my dreams. I could barely close my eyes for longer than a half hour before I saw the dull, dead eyes of Jeremy and I was thrust out of my sleep.

After placing a kiss on Ares's forehead, I hopped out of bed, dressed, and decided that today would be the day I went to see Dad. He hadn't asked to see me, and he hadn't asked to be let out of the cages either. Ares went down there every day to make sure he was being fed well and had everything he needed. But I didn't want him out yet... because I was terrified that he'd lose complete control.

When I reached the prison doors, the guards nodded to me and parted. I took a deep breath and gazed down into the darkness. Step by step, I walked down the stairs, watching the light file in from above.

Dad sat in the same corner I left him, his head against the stone wall, despite the makeshift bed I made some of the guards bring down earlier this week. I stood there for a good ten minutes, just staring at him and wondering what the hell I was going to say to my father.

"Dad," I whispered, stepping away from the silver bars. He grumbled to himself and moved around to get into a more comfortable position. "Dad, it's me, Aurora."

He slowly blinked his eyes open. When they landed on me, he scrambled up to a seated position and clenched his jaw. "What are you doing here?" he asked so bitterly.

"I wanted to see you," I said.

"After a week, you finally want to see me?" He leaned against the wall and shook his head at me. "You should've come see me right after you killed your brother." His words sounded so vile, so hateful, so full of grief. I pressed my lips together. I had taken everything away from him... his mate and his son.

"I didn't mean to kill him," I said, trying so hard to keep my voice steady. "He begged me to do it, so the Hounds couldn't."

"Elijah had the damn courage to come down here and you didn't." His jaw twitched. "And that, Aurora, is the reason your mother didn't want you to be alpha. You don't have the strength to deal with half the shit it takes to lead a pack."

I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling the tears well up in my eyes. Had I done this to him? Had I made him so hateful and so fucking angry at me that now he thought I didn't deserve to lead?

He stood to his feet and snatched some fresh bread from the only table inside the cage with him. "At first I thought that Ares wasn't a good fit for you. But, now, I see that you two are perfect for each other. You don't care who you hurt or what you take from people. You just do it without a single care in the world."

Something inside of me snapped. He could talk about me all he wanted, but he couldn't continue to disrespect Ares when he didn't have the first clue as to who he truly was. I stepped closer to the silver bars, jaw clenched. "You want to know what?"

Dad looked over, surprised I had raised my voice to him.

"I'm done with everyone judging Ares based off those rumors. The whole fucking time I've been here, the only people he has killed were Hounds because they attacked us," I said, feeling the anger pump through my veins. "Yes, we went to Elijah's. And, yes, Ares hurt him... but he didn't kill any wolves once."

My whole life I had grown up in fear of Ares's pack and of Ares himself... but I shouldn't have been. I should've been afraid of believing in these lies that people made up to make me fear him. I should've been terrified of Mom and Dad for believing them too.

"He's ruthless," Dad said, taking a threatening step toward me.

"Did you ever think that the rumors were just rumors because people were terrified of him, because they've seen him fight in battle, because he's relentless and stops at nothing to have the people in his pack happy and healthy?"

Dad suddenly became quiet, turning back around and picking at the bread again. The sunlight flooded in through one of the small windows up above, hitting the dirty concrete below his feet.

I took a deep breath, hoping to calm myself down before I broke even more. "I'm the monster, not him. If you're going to blame anyone for all your misery, blame me because he doesn't deserve it and I'm not going to let him feel any more hurt." The world had been too harsh to him already. "I'm the one who brought Ares and a few of his warriors to your pack, but all I wanted was to try to do some good. Hell, all I ever wanted was to help people, and that's why I wanted to be alpha."

"And who the fuck were you helping when you brought them to slaughter everyone in your mother's pack?" Dad asked, knocking the bread off the table and glaring over his shoulder at me. "Were you helping yourself?"

"I didn't think he'd kill anyone because he hadn't. Tony provoked him," I clarified. "But I was helping Charolette, Ares's sister. She has cancer. And Tony, the man who betrayed you twice, knew the Hounds had the other half of the stone which could help her." I shook my head. "The stone heals people. It healed me. It healed Jeremy."

If only I could've kept him alive, if only the Hounds didn't come to try to take both halves of the stone from us.

"Your mother wanted to help her people too," Dad said. "That's why she traded you."

"That's a fucking excuse, Dad, and you know it." I snapped. "She groomed Tony for years. She thought I was too weak. She gave me book after book after book to get out of her hair." The pain inside of me festered. "She wasn't a good person. She didn't even try to protect us. Ever." I took a deep breath and finally came to terms with what had happened all those years ago. "She let Jeremy die."

Dad stormed up to the silver bars, grabbed them in his hands, and shook them. "Don't you say that about your mother."

"All I'm speaking is the truth." I stepped closer to him and stared him right in the eye to show him that I wasn't afraid or intimidated by him anymore. "She let him die, then she did nothing to protect this pack."

"She made the underground tunnels to save the pups if there ever was another attack, Aurora. Did you forget about that?"

"That was my idea, Dad. While she was recovering from the loss of her son and my brother, I'm the one who came up with that idea. I was the one who assumed the alpha position when she was too overcome with grief. It was never her, no matter what she told everyone else." My jaw twitched. "I deserved to be alpha more than she did, more than Tony did, almost more than anyone in that fucking pack did."

I turned away from him, tears welling up in my eyes again. "And, now, I deserve all this pain from seeing all my friends and family gone." It was hard to admit, but I was strong enough to admit my faults, to admit that I wasn't the best person... but, damn, did I try to be.

After taking a deep breath, I walked to the stairs. "Don't think that your mate was an angel because she wasn't, and neither are you." And, with that, I walked right out of the prison and slammed the door behind me.