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He laughed, a giant bellow, as he led me out of his bedroom. “You said it, not me. And that’s why I keep giving you bullshit assignments. You need to get with the program. And today, that means finding that little murdering bitch.”
I leveled my gaze at him. “It’s just us, Dad. You don’t need to keep up that story. We both know she didn’t kill Del.”
His eyes narrowed. “Okay, then I won’t. I want her dead. I know you used to have a thing for her.”
“A thing?” I scoffed, wondering if he knew who she was to me.
“You always were soft. Trying to keep her and some of those other nobody trash wolves fed. I need you to prove yourself, boy.” He grabbed the crumpled receipt from my hand and squashed it in one fist. “You find her, and I’ll think about moving you closer to some real work.” He let out a sharp whistle, and his Head Enforcer jogged around the corner of the hallway, as if he’d been waiting for the signal. “Van, I want you to keep an eye on my boy here, while he searches for the murderer.”
His boy? My wolf raged. I wasn’t his. He’d killed my uncle to secure the heir he’d never been able to produce. It all made sense now. Of course he hadn’t been able to have children. If he’d killed his own true mate, the moon would never allow him to impregnate another female. He was a monster.
And I was going to end his reign, even if it killed me. It probably would.
The coven receipt in my pocket burned like an ember as I ran ahead of the burly Head Enforcer, praying that it would be the spark that could take down the Alpha. My wolf whined, deep inside, as we ran farther from where Flor had hidden in the forest, insisting that we head her way. Not to claim her, but to warn her.
And when Van Blackside stopped watching me, running off to stop a fight that had broken out between a few of our pack’s ranked males and some from the visiting packs, I listened to my wolf.
Flor had to leave Southern entirely, before it was too late.
10
The Madness of Grief
FLOR
“You won’t see him again.”
In less than a half-dozen words, the beautiful stranger utterly destroyed any chance at happiness, at peace, I had ever hoped to hold onto. I’d thought he was an angel when I saw him.
But Glen’s softly spoken words were straight from Hell.
You won’t see him again.
My scream was so loud, I was sure they must have heard it in the compound. I didn’t care if they did. All that was left inside me was rage.
And revenge.
You won’t see him again.
I lost time.
In one moment, I was being held in Glen’s arms, feeling that strange wave-like thrum that coursed through my whole body. Then, not a heartbeat later, I had thrown him into the creek somehow.
The next instant, I found myself standing in the clearing, wearing the dress that was now torn and mud-splattered, holding Del’s butcher knife in one hand, ready to run barefoot to the compound to kill the Alpha and everyone else I met.
I heard someone calling my last name—Wills, Wills—like they were far away.
I blinked and looked down. My feet burned and ached. My arms stung from cuts I had no memory of. The air swirled with the scent of blood. My own blood.
I was no longer in the clearing. I was at the very edge of the compound, but the hole in the fence had been patched. I was alone, but the words had followed me.
You won’t see him again.
No. I refused to believe it. I had to find a way through, had to find… I shook my head, fighting to ground myself in the moment, before I spaced out again.
I knew what was happening, though I was helpless to stop it.
When I was little, Mama had told me in one of her more lucid moments that time didn’t work for her anymore. That she lost patches of her life and couldn’t remember. I figured that was good; maybe it meant she didn’t have to relive her past traumas. But she said no, those stayed with her.
