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Some cowered, some cheered, some looked just as lost and empty as I felt. Was this really the beast who had terrorized us? The one who had locked us in cages and forced us to run until our bodies begged for mercy and our tongues swelled in our mouths?
The Prez of the Bone Crushers had been reduced to nothing. Less than nothing. A speck of dust about to be swept up in the wind.
On Grimm’s signal, stone-faced men approached the bloody Enforcer. It took five men to pull Carbon off Chains. All the while, Winter kept standing there like nothing was happening. That was the moment something vital inside of me broke. She was gone. Winter, the woman I knew and loved, was dead. And neither of us would ever be the same again.
10
THE OPEN ROAD
Mongrel
I watched as my friend was broken by the Blood Moon Goddess and his soul was scattered into a million particles of dust. This was Carbon’s way. A turned wolf—a human harboring an animal forced inside of him through violence—who had mastered his beast. Most of the time.
Day to day, he seemed so normal, such an integral part of our pack, that I couldn’t imagine the Soul Reapers MC without him. But at times like these, I saw exactly why Grimm had made him our Enforcer. Because Carbon—the human side of this man—needed these moments of rage.
A safe moment to release the wild inside him.
Then, once we’d pulled him off, the rage deserted him and the man was left. He shook us off—all five of us—and stumbled to his mate’s feet. Falling to his knees in front of Winter, he wept. And while he wept, not a brother in sight had dry cheeks.
The pack was swept up in his grief. Mourning all that he had lost, all that had been taken before he even knew what the Goddess had given.
The humans watched in solemn silence. Many cried. If they were weeping for Carbon and Winter or for their own awful treatment at the hands of the Bone Crushers, I didn’t know.
The wild woman—Sasha, my mate had called her—was dry-eyed as she surveyed the scene. I glared at her for not so much as offering a murmur of thanks to my mate for preventing her from going on a damned suicide mission.
Still, I couldn’t help but admire her style.
She stood there, accepting our grief and that of her people as if it was her personal burden to bear. Like an alpha, for all that she was human.
Winter stood with her eyes fixed on the horizon, not moving a muscle even to look down at the man who knelt at her feet. Rivulets of blood still dripped from her throat, hitting the parched earth.
After a few minutes that could have been hours, Benji moaned from the back of the van and a fresh sob came from Talia who tended him. Reality crushed in as Grimm stepped up to the plate. All eyes shifted to our alpha, awaiting his judgement.
A feral grin spread across his face as he sauntered up to the bloody mess that had been the Prez of the Bone Crushers. I peeked back at the haunting woman, still standing in Silver’s arms. I got the feeling Sasha was the one allowing the contact now, offering my mate comfort he needed as our omega was bombarded by the pack’s emotions.
She lifted her chin, stoney-faced, as if measuring Grimm’s actions.
“What do you say, Mongrel? Shall we take him for one last ride?” Grimm tipped his head looking from me to Chains.
My pulse kicked up a notch as I caught on to what my alpha was thinking. The last ride was the ultimate shame for a biker. It meant dragging a soul along in the dust of their enemy, as their defeat was paraded in front of the Gods.
“I think a nice scenic drive down the old highway would be a pleasant way to spend an evening, don’t you? Sadly, I don’t think this piece of shit is gonna agree.”
Grimm threw the rag he had been using to clean his hands on the ground and scuffed his toe against the hard packed dirt, kicking up a small plume of dust over the fallen shifter.
“Don’t forget your jacket, man,” he added, giving me a wink. “Gets cold in the desert at night.”
“Sure thing, Prez.” I stalked over to Chains, tying his arms behind his back and letting him drop back into the pool of his own blood. “Seems like a good time as any to check out the Devil's Fingers. All this fog’s gotta make it a pretty sight.”
The asshole began blubbering as soon as I started dragging him over to my bike by the chain cuffed to his arms. “Stop embarrassing yourself, dickbrains.” I looked over to Carbon and caught his glassy-eyed stare. “Can someone gag this shit stain? I’m sick of his mouth.”
“Got just the thing, boss.”
“For fuck’s sake, Enforcer. I told you, I ain't your boss.”
Carbon huffed a mirthless laugh and jogged back to the van. I whistled tunelessly while the man went rummaging through all his shit. I almost felt sorry for Chains.
Then I looked at the woman in Silver’s arms, scanned over the group of humans still huddled in fear, and landed on the vacant one standing naked and alone in the desert. Each had died a thousand deaths at the hands of this fucking asshole and his brothers. Yeah, in the face of all of this suffering, it was easy enough to set aside my humanity and allow the rage of the Goddess to take hold of me once more.
