I doubted Potato was happy about the command, but I couldn’t let her stay near this guy. Just being around him would be a death sentence for her. I’d rather sacrifice my own life than let him hurt Potato.
“I would be a better servant if I knew what I was doing, Hel,” I said under my breath as I climbed back onto my feet.
Where was I supposed to run? My exit plan had been taken away from me. Vince whipped the tire into the woods where it crashed against a tree and sent birds soaring into the air in droves. I jerked, startled.
My veins coursed with adrenaline that was making me shaky at this point. I dragged in a ragged breath and backed up slowly. Maybe if I was quiet, Vince wouldn’t notice me. That was a pipedream. The man stepped out from the other side of the SUV and turned a cloudy glare in my direction.
“What happened to you?” I spoke with the hopes that I could maybe buy myself some time if I stunned him with his own memories.
It was a shot in the dark, but one that I had to take. There was no point in ignoring any possibilities at this stage. Vince stalked towards me with his shoulders pulled tight and his hands curled into shaking fists at his sides.
“Who tore your soul to pieces, Vince?”
He flinched at the sound of his own name. While I should have felt victorious, I couldn’t help the bit of guilt that churned in the pit of my stomach. Vince had been through a lot, and it’d clearly been traumatic. I shouldn’t have used his trauma to my advantage, but I didn’t have a whole lot of other options here.
“Someone used you as a battery for their magic. It’s clouding your perception. If you let me, I could…”
I could what? Help him? I didn’t know how to fix someone’s soul. Even if I did, would he be able to look himself in the mirror after what he’d done? Vince had killed a number of people. If I could stitch his soul back together, would he lament the person he’d become?
This is where Maddox and I would butt heads. To me, there was only one way forward. I didn’t want Vince to have to deal with the horror of what he’d become. If I could kill him here and now, then he would never have to know.
At least, I hoped he would look back in horror. If he didn’t, then I was likely in the right.
Vince lowered his head, his sights on me. A shiver raced down my spine—not from the chill of death, but from fear.
Maddox
I snarledat the man outside my cage. He crouched low, his hands hanging loosely between his knees as he stared me down. His eyes swirled with electrical light. My fur stood on end from the charge in the air.
“I’m proud of you for coming to me,” Ryder said, though there was a tired note in his voice.
At this moment, I didn’t care. I didn’t give a shit about whatever was on his mind. I pulled myself into a tight ball to avoid the sliver at the edges of my crate. The metal burned my skin if I even brushed against it.
However, my beast was silent. It was just me in here for the first time in days.
That should have been refreshing. I thought I’d feel great. Instead, it was like one of my paws had been taken. While I knew I could go on living this way, I also knew the missing part of me would be on my mind forever.
I couldn’t live like this. I refused.
Lashing out, I gnashed my teeth. I wanted to escape this damn crate. Had this been my idea? At this point, I couldn’t remember. All I wanted was to feel whole again.
Maybe that was the lesson I was supposed to learn here. I wasn’t human anymore. No, I’d become a creature with two voices in my head, and I couldn’t imagine living any other way anymore.
“Come on, Maddox. You’re ruining your own life at this point. Sure, I want you to become a part of my Pack, but this isn’t about me and the Pack. This is about you and your future from here on out.” Ryder sighed. He canted his head and tongued a sharp tooth while he took me in.
I pulled my lips away from my teeth in a snarl before I could think twice about it. Even with my beast locked away, I was still more animal than man. When would I come to terms with that? Would I ever?
I knew that I had to, or else the rest of my life would fall apart. I’d already gone through disaster once. When Paige died, I let her death destroy my life. There’d been little reason for me to go on, at that point.
I had a reason to live now. I thought of the small woman with long dark hair and solemn gray eyes. The taste of her lips on mine was a memory that I would never lose. That one kiss in the graveyard had been on my mind more often than not, though I would never tell her.
Addie wasn’t the only one I needed to live for. While I wanted to hate Ryder for this damn cage, he could have been doing anything else with his life right now. Instead, he was here, with me. He kept me company while I worked through the mess that was my own mind.
I wasn’t alone. There were people here who cared about me. They wanted to see me succeed.
Just like Bastien.
The pain of that betrayal had run deep. First, it’d been Paige. Then Bastien. Then Addie.