Page 42 of Dark Dragon’s Wolf

He shook his head. “I should have realized Beckenham might not have killed them. I should have looked for them. I should have—”

“You should have what?” Mayah said. “You should have somehow psychically known that those people you barely knew were still alive?”

“I did psychically know,” Tristan snapped. “They were fucking appearing in my head, calling out to me. Only I kept shoving them back in my damn mind-vault because I didn’t want to hear them. I should have—”

“I know.” Mayah was getting pissed off now. Tristan was her wolf. Nobody was allowed to dump on him like this. Not even him. “You should have saved them. Like you should have saved everyone in the whole fucking world.”

She stomped over to him, the straw on the floor of the crazy shed crackling under her feet. “When exactly should you have done that? When you were getting your sister to safety? Or when you were in Beckenham’s prison, being tormented there? When you managed to break out? Before or after you traveled all the way to Alaska to try to warn the pack there?”

“As if that did any fucking good. I was too late.”

“Yeah. On account of not being Superwolf. Did you ever stop to think that maybe no one could have saved them? That most people wouldn’t have even tried? But you tried. You fought. You risked your life. Mina Reilly might have died if you hadn’t been there—and Brock along with her, before he ever had a chance to be born.”

He tried to say something, but Mayah was on a fucking roll, and she talked right over him.

“When are you going to admit that no one in the whole freaking world could have done any more than you did?”

She went right up to him and poked a finger in his chest. “You listen to me, Tristan Barnes. You didn’t fail because you’re not good enough. You failed because you were on an impossible mission. But you tried, because if there was even just one chance you could save them, you had to take it. That’s who you are.”

She stood on tiptoes, grabbed the front of his shirt, and kissed him. “You saved a lot of people,” she whispered against his lips. “Don’t forget about them. Don’t forget about me.”

She let go of him and walked to the door. “I love the hell out of you, White Wolf. Even when you’re being a self-pitying jerk.”

And she left him to his brooding.

Chapter 19

After Mayah left, Tristan let himself slide to the floor of the crazy shed, back against the wall.

He’d been ready to go wolf, but somehow after Mayah’s diatribe, he didn’t feel like it.

Weird, that her yelling at him should make him feel marginally better. But it had. For the first time, he felt the burden of guilt lifting just a little.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he’d done all he could, maybe even all anybody could. He’d been hanging around with superheroes like Flynn for so long, it hadn’t occurred to him that maybe nobody could have done any more than he had.

It was a strange sensation, not being responsible for everything. He wasn’t sure he liked how it made him feel.

Less guilty, but more helpless. And he didn’t need that feeling—not if they were really going to pull off this rescue mission.

He had to believe they could do it. That he could do it.

A bulky shadow filled the doorway, and he looked up to see Flynn there, holding a bottle of whiskey. Behind him was Tank. They sat down on either side of Tristan, their shoulders just barely touching him, and Flynn cracked open the bottle, passing it to him.

After a while, Flynn said, “It’s not so perfect here, you know. This was a good day. But we still have bad days. Not as many, maybe, but we have them.”

Tristan nodded. “I know. I didn’t mean—ah, shit. I’m sorry for what I said.”

Flynn shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it. I just don’t want you to have some kind of hero complex. Trust me, it leads down a bad road. One thing Kira did for me was help me stop focusing on the people I couldn’t save, and look at the ones I maybe helped.”

“You really forgot about the others?” Tristan said. “Because I know you, and I’m thinking not.”

Flynn gave a shrug and a half grin. “I buried some of the bones, anyway. It’s a work in progress.”

Tristan passed the bottle to Tank, who took a swallow. “He’s right, though,” Tank said. “I almost missed out on being with Lissa—and having Arden—because I couldn’t let go of the past. And my guilt over Angie.”

Angie was Tank’s first mate—killed by shifter hunters. Tristan had never thought Tank would be able to get past that. It had wrecked him for a long time.