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Though leaving him would surely break me—more completely than any brutality unleashed by the Bone Crushers to date—I couldn’t spend the rest of my life being forced to bend to the will of a man who refused to bend a little in return.
39
GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER
Silver
Grimm knew I was stalking him, no doubt about it. Every cell in the Prez’s body was on high alert since the attack and would be until we’d settled this score with the Bone Crushers once and for all. I ghosted his heavy steps all the way to the infirmary. My alpha was beaten down. Ready to quit on the best fucking thing to enter his life, and I was set to kick his mangey ass until he started making better decisions.
First, the Prez had some business to attend to. So, like a good little omega, I bided my time. Grimm stood over Louise’s body before he bent down and kissed her forehead in farewell. Doc nodded and drew the sheet back over her face.
“How’s she doing?” Grimm’s hoarse voice was soft as it carried to the other occupants in the room. Standing at the other occupied bedside were Benji and Talia. Addy was back in her human form and sleeping fitfully.
“She’ll pull through.” Talia’s voice was firm when she answered as she held her sister’s hand, untangling it from where it fisted the sheets and threading the fingers through her own. The harsh frown on her sister’s forehead eased some.
Benji’s wolf flashed in his eyes, holding Grimm’s just slightly longer than was polite before he deferred to the alpha. “I’ll train her. Teach her to embrace the wolf. Mongrel will help. We’ll do right by our family.”
Grimm didn’t miss the distinction. Even though no official announcement had been made, invisible lines were already being drawn. As if the whole pack could feel Sasha’s group splintering away and were preparing themselves for the inevitable heartbreak.
The Prez nodded stiffly and strode from the room.
I followed at a discrete distance knowing where he was headed. There was no way Grimm would sleep tonight. Nor would any of our brothers and sisters. The Soul Reapers were preparing for war. We passed Mongrel in the hallway and my mate gave me a determined nod, ignoring Grimm completely as he headed straight up the stairs to comfort our mate.
We could both feel Sasha in our den, grieving all that had been lost. Taking all of the pack’s pain onto herself, trying to funnel it so the rest of us could function. A fundamental fault of all alphas, it seemed. But Sasha wasn’t as pig-headed as Grimm. When I sent her comfort she didn’t push me away. She grabbed my offer and drew it in close.
Sasha didn’t expect herself to rule from an island. She longed to be part of a team, to work as a unit and share the burdens of responsibility with the people she trusted and relied upon. Mongrel and I were determined to give her that and whatever else she needed to move on with her life.
The one blessing in all of this was that the Chaos was almost at an end. The Bone Crushers would be forced to put everything into their next attack or lose the opportunity to reclaim their merchandise in time to force mating bonds.
As soon as we got to Grimm’s office, he took his seat and nodded at the door. Without a word, I closed it behind us. He didn’t waste time mincing words. “What do you want, omega?” he growled. “As you can imagine, I have a shit ton to do.”
Without being invited, I sat down and kicked my feet up on a coffee table opposite him. A move which would usually infuriate him but tonight didn’t even earn an eye flash from his beast. His wolf was exhausted, too.
“Did you see the bite location?” I studied the blood and dirt under my nails, unable to look at the beat down slump of my alpha’s shoulders.
Grimm nodded, running a tired hand over his face. “So?”
“Neither of them were kill zones.”
Grimm sat up a little straighter as he got what I was laying down.
“They weren’t just here to rustle the sheep, alpha,” I continued. “They were trying to force a claim.”
“Fuck, Silver!” he roared, jumping to his feet and slamming a fist down on the wooden desk hard enough to make the whole thing shake. “Venom is using the Chaos to sell his wolves on the fight? It’ll make them completely reckless.”
I nodded. “And our humans the prime target. Club members, sweetbutts and rescues alike. If he’s telling the Bone Crushers they can force a bond during the Blood Moon with a human, then none of them will be safe.”
It had taken me a while to pick through the disconcerting sensation in the back of my head. The attack itself had gone down in the blink of an eye. I’d been strolling out into the yard to join them when everything had gone to hell.
The prospect who lay dead in our yard, waiting to be thrown into an unmarked grave, hadn’t gone for a kill shot with Louise. No, that wolf had been trying for a mating bite. But Sasha had charged in—like an avenging angel—and stabbed that fucker before he could go for a second attempt. I wasn’t even halfway across the yard when Carbon’s shotgun had blown a crater in the Bone Crushers’ side.
That was how Venom was getting his wolves to volunteer on a suicide mission they couldn’t possibly win. He was using the madness of the Chaos to dangle the false promise of mating bonds over his wolves’ heads.
“So what do we do?” Grimm growled, staring at me like he was praying I had all the answers.
Time was running short. We could all feel it. The intensity of the war drum thrumming in our veins was reaching its inevitable climax. Tomorrow was the Bone Crusher’s last chance before the Blood Moon Goddess would rest. On the following morning, a new dawn would rise and the sun would return to bathe our broken world in sunlight once more.
“We?” I replied as I looked my alpha dead in the eye. “There is no we, Prez. Not anymore.”
