Desmond shook his head. “That’s not how things work in the pack.”
“I didn’t have to bring Marcus’s head to Lucas.”
“That’s because Lucas saw Marcus’s body. You didn’t have to prove he was dead.” He took both my hands, squeezing them. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to do this, but there isn’t any other option.”
No other option? Seriously? I could think of loads of other options, and most of them could be accomplished without cutting off my mother’s head. Werewolf society was so goddamn backwards, some days I wondered how they managed to get anything done.
“Grandmere?” I stood, and the room spun. I walked the few steps across the room and knelt in front of her, mirroring the gesture Desmond had just used on me. I held her wrists, waiting for her to pull her hands away from her face. When she did, it was clear she’d been crying.
I wouldn’t do anything without her approval. Callum might want the head, but if Grandmere said no, it wasn’t going to happen.
To be totally honest, I didn’t mind the idea of lobbing the bitch’s head off and delivering it to my uncle on a damned silver platter. But I wasn’t going to disrespect my grandmere’s grief if she said she was against it.
“What do you want me to do?”
She moved her hands to my cheeks and tipped my head upwards, running her thumb lightly across the bruise under my eye. “She almost took you from me,” she whispered. “What would I do? What would I do without you, bebe?”
Here I thought her tears were because Mercy was dead—and maybe in part they were—but instead of hating me for killing her child, she was grateful I’d survived.
I offered a watery smile. “She almost took you from me.” Turning my face, I placed a kiss against the rough skin of her palm. “You don’t have to worry now.”
“I’ve spent twenty-four years knowing she would come one day. Twenty-four years of fear for you because I knew she could not let it go. Oh, Secret, you cannot know the terror.”
“It’s over.” Saying the words was like waking from a dream. It was over. This whole nightmare with Peyton and Mercy, it was done. The two greatest evils in my life were gone, and now…
Now what?
I wasn’t out of the woods as far as trouble went. I still needed to go back to New York and face the wrath of the council, and for better or worse—probably worse—I owed Aubrey Delacourte a favor. Yeah, I definitely wasn’t done with sticky situations. But all the same I felt free.
“It’s over,” I said again.
Both Holden and Desmond watched me, but neither moved closer. I didn’t think I could handle their support right then anyway. Between the stark realization that I’d successfully killed my mother, and the too-fresh memory of having fingers inside my skin, I didn’t feel like getting hugged right now.
I got up, grasping Grandmere’s hand to remind myself she wasn’t going anywhere, and I had in fact saved her. “Take me to the body.”
Thankfully I didn’t have to ask a second time, otherwise I wasn’t sure I’d be able to go through with it. Killing her was one thing, but I wasn’t used to having to look at dead bodies once I was done with them. Especially not bodies I was connected to in some way.
Desmond led me outside to where the bruise-colored hints of sunrise had begun to brighten the sky by degrees. I was already feeling sleepy thanks to the night’s activities and my copious wounds. The coming morning was drawing me in, and I was ready to yield to a long and hopefully dreamless sleep.
The shed door was open, and before we entered I glanced across the yard to the brown garden shed near the vegetable patch. I couldn’t hear any sounds coming from within, so perhaps Ben and Fairfax had given in to sleep as well.
Boy would their faces be red when they realized how badly they’d failed at being bodyguards.
I hefted a sigh, too tired to mentally laugh at my own jokes.
Mercy’s body rested agains
t the back wall of the tool shed, her feet between the tires of Grandmere’s riding lawnmower.
She looked like a doll, limp and lifeless, her arms dangling, palms turned upward like she was begging for something. With her head lolled down, chin against her chest, she might have nodded off.
I cleared the room and poked her in the side with the toe of my shoe. Her head bobbed, but she didn’t respond. Desmond, clever fellow that he was, had remembered to bring my sword and handed me the weapon.
“Tell me this is real.” I glanced at him, quietly pleading for him to confirm I wasn’t dreaming.
“It’s about as real as it gets.”
I slipped the sword from its sheath—someone had thoughtfully put it back in its scabbard at some point—and slid the blade under Mercy’s chin, tilting her head up so I could see her face. Her slate-gray eyes, totally devoid of life, looked back but focused on nothing.