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wn.
He had hoped at one time that they could console each other, but it had never happened. There was no touch but Raine’s that she could tolerate. And for him, there was only the memory of the woman he had thought Serena was.
“You can’t just walk away,” she argued, grabbing his arm even as he tried to do just that. “We have to decide now what we’re going to do.”
“We aren’t going to do anything,” he snarled back at her. “I will kill Watts, just as I killed the others. That simple.”
“Not this time,” she cried out. “I have the right to be there. Myron and I both have the right.”
They had the right, but he had the authority.
“You forget one thing, little cat,” he bit out coldly. “I give the orders here. Not you, not Myron. I’ll take care of Watts.”
Neither Danna nor Myron had any business being any further part of this. Their hands weren’t stained with blood yet; he wouldn’t have them stained with Watts’s blood. That was his responsibility, just as it had been twenty-two years before. He had failed then, he wouldn’t fail now.
“I have the right.” She glared back at him, her eyes stone hard. Eyes like Serena’s, the same color, nearly the same face. But she wasn’t Serena. She wasn’t a betrayer. She was the one that had loved, that had lost and that had suffered through the years after that loss.
“Little cat.” He sighed the endearment. Her mate was pure Lion. Raine had been as wild as the wind and just as impulsive. “Let me take care of this.”
“Like you took care of that damned Coyote,” she suddenly sneered. “You just had to save him, didn’t you, Rick? Just had to help him. You knew the whole fucking pride would follow you, and you just had to do it.”
He shook his head. “As I would have any Breed, Danna. You know that.”
He wouldn’t excuse it. That was his responsibility as well.
“A Coyote,” she cried. “A dirty fucking mongrel that didn’t have the right to live.”
“We all have the right to live.” He removed her fingers from his arm and stared back at where Myron watched, his gaze filled with such pain, with such regret.
Even the love of his wife Patricia hadn’t been able to dim the pain that festered inside him. That love had eroded over the years because of something Myron had been unable to help. Because of an affection he couldn’t give the woman who had given him her heart.
So much waste. And he accepted the fault for it. It lay on his soul and he had learned to live with it.
“I’ll take care of this,” he told them both then. “Then I’ll take care of the others. The Breeds might have been unwilling to kill Watts by using the truth serums on him, but I have no such fear. I promise you that.”
He would get what he needed, and he would watch the man die. Slowly. Patrick wanted to savor his death. He wanted to watch each labored breath until Douglas Watts took his last and then no more.
He lived for it. Ached for it.
Turning from them, he left them where they stood, though he wasn’t confident they would obey the order he had given to stand down. He needed Watts alive for just a little while, just long enough to get the names of the final members of the Dozen. Names that those who had died previously were unaware of. It seems they hadn’t even trusted one another. Not all of them. None of the men knew exactly who all of their hunting party was. They weren’t disguised just on hunts, but at other times they’d met as well.
They had been paranoid about their protection, but not paranoid enough. Elam March had trusted Ryan Damron. Ryan Damron had trusted Aaron Washington, and so on. Now he had only four other names to acquire. Once he acquired those names, his job would be done. His life would be done.
What was there left? He doubted his son still lived, but he had to be certain. They had killed Serena and cut their child from her while he had been with his pride escorting the Coyote through the forest.
Beautiful, lying Serena. Sweet, sweet Serena.
He still didn’t understand. He doubted he ever would. He simply lived with the consequences of her actions. And he would die with them.
? CHAPTER 22 ?
Cassa sat through the rest of the meeting Jonas had with Cabal, Lawe and Rule. They laid out their plan for keeping up with Watts and identifying their rogue. They also named those they believed were possibly involved in helping the rogue.
Walt Jameson, Myron James and Danna Lacey.
That explained the tension that had poured from Danna when Cassa and Cabal had met with her. Danna had been part of the Breed Freedom Society all those years ago. And according to Jonas and his Breed senses, Danna had, at one time, been mated.
“The scent is barely there,” he revealed. “Nearly undetectable except in periods of stress. She’s obviously been without her mate for some time, just as James has been.”
