Dahlia's POV
"Indispensable."
The word felt like a slap. It wasn't a word for a father; it was a word for a line of credit or a piece of machinery. It sat there between us, cold and metallic, poisoning whatever was left of the air in the master bedroom.
Nate looked at me with those intense, calculating eyes, and for a terrifying second, I didn't recognize him. This wasn't the man who had held me while I cried. This was the Alpha of Silver-Crest, a man who had spent so much time playing political chess with the Elders that he had started seeing his own flesh and blood as the most powerful pieces on his board.
"They aren't assets, Nate," I said, my voice coming out as a low, dangerous vibration. My hands were shaking, not with fear, but with a sudden, sharp clarity. "They're children. And the second you decided they needed to be 'useful' to this pack was the second you became exactly what we were running from."
