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Van’s hand was still caught in Margarette’s hair. With a flicker of movement, Flor’s knife was in her hand again, and she slashed through the mass of tangled hair, cutting off two of Van’s fingers as she did so. Then the steak knife rose again, arrowing like a diving, silver hawk, to land in Van’s throat.
With a quick thrust, a twist, and two more slashes, Van’s throat lay open, fileted as perfectly as any perch on a stream bed, the muscles laying red and bloody, exposed to the air.
Flor met my gaze across the ring and grinned at me, her eyes glassy, her face slick with blood. “Stupid noisy toadfucker. I’ve been wanting to do that for a long, long time.” She kicked the dead Head Enforcer with a bare foot, then spat to one side. “Wish I could kill him all over again.”
Shouts and howls sounded from beyond the ring as I came out of my stupor. The visiting packs’ remaining Enforcers had arrived and were overwhelming the rest of Southern shifters now, tearing into them, though seeing their Head Enforcer castrated and killed by a five-foot-tall woman seemed to have taken the fight out of them.
A heavy hand landed on my shoulder. I turned to see my father and scanned him quickly. “Are you all right?” His wounds were extensive, and the bodies of Southern Enforcers lay around him like a bomb had gone off, but I could see he was already healing.
“Good exercise.” He nodded, looking me over as well. We were the tallest shifters left standing, and we both looked around, making sure no one else was coming, no more surprise troops.
Then we both turned back to my mate. My little Flor, who was diligently, laboriously, using her steak knife to saw through the neck tendons and spine of the Southern pack’s ex-Head Enforcer. The end of her pink tongue poked out one side of her bloody mouth as she worked, intent on doing a thorough job.
“Why’s she doing that?” Dad asked softly. “Taking a trophy?”
“I think she needs to be sure he’s dead. Glen told me this sort of thing is called closure.” I smiled when she finally succeeded. “Isn’t she perfect?”
Dad hummed, then patted me on the shoulder again. “She’s the one, son. Don’t let her get away.”
“I won’t,” I promised, feeling my heart rise up as I watched my savage flower wrap the head in a torn shirt. “I’ll do whatever I have to.”
As I scanned the ring and noted four other shifters—all the Alpha Heirs, and the strange dark-haired Alpha—all staring at her with expressions that matched my feelings, I knew that promise would be a very hard one to keep.
34
After the Battle
FLOR
Ithought I’d known what it felt like to be the pack reject. But nothing had prepared me for the aftermath of the battle. In the space of a week, I’d gone from being the girl everyone hunted, to being the one no one would look at.
I sat in the hallway of the Pack House on the gray carpet—the now-clean steak knife in my hand—and learned what it felt to be invisible.
The remaining Council members were holding a meeting in the Alpha’s private dining room only a few yards away from where I sat. Brand’s father, who’d asked me to call him Alpha Samuel, had invited me in, but I’d left after a few moments. Even though it made me feel exposed, I sat outside Margarette’s door. Someone had to keep watch while she was weak.
When I’d left the dining room, Glen’s brother had been guarding outside his mother’s room. I knew he wouldn’t leave her, but he’d looked exhausted. “Go inside with her, Patrick. There’s an armchair in there. Sleep for a while; I’ll stand guard.”
He’d protested. “You need sleep and food, too.”
I’d just parroted one of Del’s favorite expressions. “I can sleep when I’m dead. If they get past me, Enforcer, you’ll be her last line of defense. Stay inside.” At that, he’d agreed.
Margarette was his focus, and mine. She was my way out of here, and more than that, she was the only person who had brushed my hair since… I tried to remember. Ah, yeah. Since I was six, back when Mama had her worst breakdown, and Del had had to stop her from trying to drown us both in the creek.
I touched the ends of my short strands, remembering the feel of Margarette’s hands on my head, my face. I had felt loved, for a moment.
Her promise to take me away from here felt like the only grasp I had on my own sanity right now. No one had spoken to me since Glen’s brother. Or looked at me.
The shifters who passed me now—none of them Southern, as none of them had been allowed in this wing of the Pack House—averted their eyes, their expressions blank. Ignoring me entirely. But they hadn’t been able to hide their feelings after the battle.
Shock, disgust, morbid fascination, anger, and curiosity had painted their faces, even after I’d been gently escorted to an empty shower room by Brand, who’d guarded the door while I washed off blood… and other things. At some point while I washed off the gore, the other shifters must have been commanded to stop staring and whispering.
I wished I could wash my memories away, so I didn’t have to think about what I’d done. Well, what they’d told me I’d done, since I didn’t remember it all. I’d lost time again shortly after I’d stepped into the ring and seen Margarette in trouble. I’d woken up covered in blood, holding Van’s severed head in my arms, wrapped in a ruined shirt for some reason.
Alpha Samuel had gently taken the head from me when no one else dared approach. He’d offered to stuff it, as a trophy of battle.
I’d thrown up then.
But a small part of me was upset—not that I’d killed Van, but that I couldn’t remember it. Inside, I was glad he was dead, glad I’d been the one to hold the knife to avenge Del. An even smaller part wished I’d told Alpha Samuel to go ahead with the taxidermy.
