Fifteen
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Dianna
T he dart connected, drawing a long groan out of Julian.
“Bullseye.” I grabbed the glass and downed the werewolf blood
inside before slamming it back on the table. “I guess I should come up with another word for it since I hit your balls with that one.”
Julian hung suspended on the far wall, covered in sweat. He howled, his entire body shuddering when I tossed another dart, and it found its mark.
My heels echoed against the scarred wooden floor. A few drained bodies slumped against the far wall, and the two pool tables were overturned.
“You really won’t tell me where your dear old dad is, will you?”
He shook his head as I neared, one bloody eye glaring at me, the other lost somewhere across the room.
“Why prolong the inevitable? You know I am going to kill you, him, and everyone else involved. So why not just hurry the process up?”
“No.” Power swirled behind his remaining eye, the wolf inside ready to end me, but I had drained him to near death.
I sighed and stopped in front of him, shaking my coat off my shoulders.
My hands gripped the sides of my shirt, and I parted the low dip a tad farther. Julian’s face scrunched as I exposed the skin between my breasts.
I pointed to a small scar. It was almost completely healed. Almost.
“I ripped my heart out in a tomb months ago. I thought I’d die, but I was willing to give up my life for those I care about, and I didn’t see another option. If Tobias got the book, then Samkiel and my sister would die. But that was back when I believed in the greater good and saving people, blah,
blah, blah.”
His breathing hitched.
“It didn’t kill me,” I glanced up, “but I thought about what bliss it is to die for the ones you care for.” I shrugged back into my jacket and held his gaze. “This isn’t the same thing. There is no glory in your death or theirs.
You’re not saving them. You all assured your deaths the second you let Kaden keep her and didn’t move to help.”
“We couldn’t, and you know that!” he spat. “You knew what Kaden would do, and still, you aligned yourself with the World Ender. You are to blame for—”
My hand whipped across his face with such force blood splattered the wall. I gripped his hair, forcing him to look at me. “Where are the others?” I
snarled in his face.
“I won’t tell you.”
“Fine.”
I lifted my free hand, talons replacing nails, the curved tips glistening. I ripped them across Julian’s chest. He hissed and writhed in pain, his shirt hanging in tatters.
“I know werewolves are pack animals. Even with you all hiding from me, you wouldn’t be too far away from one another, especially the know-it- all son who needed a night out, right? I also know you howl to signal your pack, and with the heightened vocals of your species, it can be heard almost fifty miles away in open terrain.”
I placed the tip of my nails in the center of his chest, over his pounding heart. “Do you want to know what it feels like to have your heart ripped
out?”
“I won’t call him.”
“Yes, you will. Anything will break when you apply the right pressure, even you.” The tips of my nails pierced his skin, his entire body going rigid.
I tipped my head, my voice dropping an octave as the Ig’Morruthen in me crawled to the surface. “Now, scream for Daddy.”
T he front door burst open . I stayed seated at the bar , wiping the
blood from my cuticles.
“Took you long enough.”
Feet ran into the room, hurrying to Julian’s hanging body. A soft sob escaped one throat and then another as they reached him. I continued to clean my hands. That one damned spot was almost impossible to get. I licked the edge of the small towel and rubbed, finally getting the last smudge before placing the blood-covered towel on the bar. I stood and studied my nails, the ragged edges after turning them to talons bothering me.
“I wonder if I ask nicely if Camilla would get me a permanent set.
There has to be some magic for that, right? No more chipped nails.”
Caleb appeared in front of me, huffing and his chest rumbling with a
low-level growl.
“What did you do?” he snapped at me.
I glanced at Julian’s body as the wolves cut him down and held him. “I didn’t do anything. It’s not my fault you took too long.”
“Killing my son will be the worst mistake you have—”
“No.” The room shook with the force of my voice, gaining the attention of every wolf in the room. “You, like the rest, made a mistake thinking I was weak when she was the only thing keeping me in line. This is your consequence. I warned you. I warned him. You chose.”
“You act as if we could defy Kaden.”
“That is the weakest excuse I have ever heard when you are all supernatural fucking creatures. I did. I defied him.” The tiny bit of control in me that wanted answers began to fray. “Gods, Caleb, my balls are bigger than yours.”
“Why my son, Dianna?” he choked out. “How are you even different from Kaden? He was innocent in all of this.”
The wolves stepped closer, flexing their fists, ready to die for their alpha. I kept my gaze on Caleb as the bar went silent. No one even breathed.
“No, she was innocent. You use your son like your own personal bloodhound. The underground fights and cash exchanges that keep Kaden in the know. The information you all run for him back and forth. Don’t preach now, Caleb. We both know we are in the business of liars and murderers here. None of us are innocent. None.”
Caleb glanced at his wolves and stepped forward. “What do you want?” he asked, his tone changing.
“Your blood. Give it, or I slaughter the rest of your pack in front of you and take it by force.” I cocked my head and smiled. “Your choice.”
“Fine. Take it. My blood will rip your head apart.”
I smiled coldly. “Do you all really think I’m that stupid? That I wouldn’t figure a way around Kaden’s stupid contingency plan. I’m not an idiot. I had Camilla do a spell on the water supply. Helps wash magic out from the blood of numbskulls like you.”
His face grew slack, his throat bobbing.
“Exactly. Now hand it over.”
He looked from his son’s body to his pack, his family. He moved closer, all the predators in the room shuffling toward him. His eyes returned to mine as he rolled up the sleeve of his sweater, exposing his arm. He clenched his fist, the veins along his arm filling.
“No, thanks.” I shook my head and smirked. “I want something bigger.”
He swallowed, and I heard his heart race. Exposing his neck was certain death for the wolf in him, but he obliged, reaching up to unbutton his collar.
He leaned in, and I grasped the hair at the nape of his neck. I brought his throat to my mouth, fangs piercing flesh. Memories, quick and fast, slammed into my mind, but there was only one I fixated on.
Footsteps followed me as I hurried down the hall. How was I supposed to tell them? What he asked was damn near impossible to find. My thoughts died as I opened my office door. Tobias stood beside my desk. He picked up
the letter opener and studied it.
“Silver. How cute.”
I swallowed and closed my door, locking out the few pack guards behind me. I straightened my tie and stepped around the other side of the large mahogany desk, glancing at the pages of lunar phases he’d been rifling through.
“The folder on the left is all we could find,” I said, nodding toward it.
He stared at me, crimson eyes blazing as he placed the letter opener down.
Tobias walked around the desk, and I shifted, my wolf’s hackles rising.
He stopped a mere foot from me and picked up the folder. He flipped it open, scanning a few pages before he closed it and looked back at me. His hand closed on my shoulder, not in pride but as a threat.
I swallowed the growing lump in my throat. “As for your other demands, Julian and the pack tracked them as far as they could. We don’t
know where she is.”
Tobias grinned and gave my shoulder a hard shake before releasing me.
He stepped away and said, “Don’t worry. You did what we needed. Once the vampire prince comes through, we will gather you all for a meeting. Be
there. All of your beasts.”
“We will be there.”
“Good, you better. This will be the last one before we prepare for the equinox. It’s getting too close to time, and Kaden will not risk exposure.”
I nodded. “I’m aware.”
Tobias studied me, his gaze hard and threatening. He finally nodded and turned away. I felt his power surge and a portal appeared on the wall, the air vibrating in response. Just before he stepped into the dark pit edged in flames, he looked at me over his shoulder and said, “Let chaos reign.”
I lifted my head, licking my tongue over my fangs. The memory faded, and the destroyed bar came back into focus. I swayed, half kneeling on the floor with a limp Caleb in my arms. His skin had turned a pale gray, but he glanced at the wolves practically vibrating in the corner of the room, signaling them not to attack.
I tapped his face, and he squinted, his focus returning to me.
“What’s the equinox?”
He gritted his teeth, trying to sit up. “You already got what you wanted.
Let me go.”
My hand shot out, and I grabbed the front of his jacket, hauling him up.
I lifted him and slammed him to the center of the bar. With my other hand, I raised a wall of fire, separating us from the others. Several yowls and yips came from behind the flames as the pack shifted and tried to break past.
“What you’re not going to do is play games with me. What is the equinox?” I wrapped my hand around his throat, my nails biting deep.
Caleb gripped my arm, his face turning red as he gasped for air. I lifted my hand slightly, allowing him room to speak.
“All I know is that it is a major celestial event, that’s all.”
“When?” I asked.
“That I don’t know, only that it’s soon. That’s why Kaden needed the book so quickly.”
So he had a date and a plan the whole time, and I had been none the wiser. He’d kept everything from me. Had he planned to sacrifice me as
well? Or did he not trust me at all? I had been so dumb to stay as long as I had, but I could do nothing about that now.
“Who else knows?”
Caleb swallowed a lump in his throat. “Everyone in his court. Except
you.”
“Why?” The words seeped out like acid.
“I don’t know.”
“Julian lied to me about having information, and so did you. Shame on you. Even your mutts leave behind prints, and I have a witch that told me what I already knew. Whoever you sent after me needed a pretty powerful nose to track me all the way to Camilla’s borders. They also needed to know how to hunt so that a god or I could detect them. Isn’t your cousin a
photographer?”
His pulse skipped beneath my palm.
“I noticed the frames on the screen when Kaden showed them. They were amateurish and at a poor angle. Whoever took them was trying to sneak up on the World Ender and me. I also remember him bragging about the new camera you had gotten him. A birthday present, wasn’t it?”
His eyes never left mine “You can’t blame me. Kaden commands, and we do. It’s how it’s always been. I must do what I can to keep my family safe. You, of all, should understand.”
I nodded slowly and clicked my tongue. “I do.”
My hand tightened on his throat, and I dropped the wall of flame.
“That’s why I want them to watch as I kill you. Then I’m going to eat your pack, and when you watch from the other side as they die screaming, I hope it rips you apart as it did me when she died.”
With a brutal twist, I ripped his head off and tossed it to the center of the room, the thud echoing in the room.
“I am curious,” I said as I turned around, shaking the blood from my hands. A dozen wolves snapped their teeth at me, their snarls a chorus of death as they slowly approached. “How many wolves does it take to make a fur coat?”
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