19
Mercy
I knewsomething was wrong the moment the car pulled up at the Noble mansion. The outside security lights appeared to have been turned up to twice their usual glare. There were about a dozen men in view spread out across both sides of the lawn, fanning out as they scanned the terrain around them.
I frowned. I’d been gone for only a few hours. What the fuck had happened here?
A guy I only vaguely recognized was standing by the front steps. He wheeled his arm to direct me inside. “Go straight to your room and wait there.”
I glared at him. “What? Who gave you permission to order me around?”
“I did.” Wylder appeared in the doorway, his expression both fierce and so grim it made my stomach drop. Whatever was going on, it was bad.
I marched past him inside, annoyance prickling through me. After the night I’d just had, the last thing I needed was this new hostility of his.
More men were hustling around inside. A few of them were dumping plastic bags in a small heap in the middle of the foyer. As I watched, one hit the floor with a disturbing squelching sound that sent a twinge of nausea through me.
“What happened?” I demanded. “What’s in the bags?”
“Don’t worry about it, Princess,” Wylder snapped. “Just go to your bedroom and stay there until someone tells you it’s safe to leave.”
I whirled toward him, my fancy dress rustling around my legs. “Are you fucking kidding me? There’s obviously something huge going on, and I want to know what we’re dealing with. So can you cut the shitty attitude for one hot minute, please? I’ve dealt with enough assholes for one night.”
Something flashed behind his eyes, and for just a second the unfeeling mask cracked. “Why? What kind of crap did Jasper pull on you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Like you care.”
To my surprise, he caught me by my shoulder, his grip unexpectedly insistent. “Tell me.”
I shook him off, and he yanked his hand back as if I’d burned him. “I’m fine. He barely even touched me. Not that you’d be worried about my innocence anyway.”
“Right,” Wylder said, his jaw flexing. But he got over it—whatever it was—in a few seconds, his demeanor becoming frosty again. “You shouldn’t be out here. Move, now, or I’ll find Kaige to carry you up there.”
“For fuck’s sake.” I turned away from him and strode over to the pile of bags to find out for myself.
Most of them were tied off, but a couple gaped open. A pungent smell that was far too familiar hit me in the nose, putrid and sour. It reminded me… of the mangled cat corpse we’d found on the lawn.
Holding back a surge of horror, I yanked open the nearest bag just as Wylder caught up with me.
The smell hit me even harder. I gagged, both at the stench and the sight of the rotting, eye-less face staring up at me from the bag.
It was a severed head, the skin patchy with gray and green, maggots squirming in the empty eye sockets and the ragged flesh at the base of its neck… and it was also somehow familiar.
As I dropped the bag, the sense of recognition clicked into place. That face had been imprinted in my memory nearly two weeks ago when I had severed that head from its body. After I’d already chopped the guy’s limbs up for easy transport as part of one of Wylder’s tests.
Rowan and I had buried the cut-up pieces in the forest hours from here. What the hell were they doing at the Noble mansion? Was this some kind of sick joke?
My head swam, bile rising in my throat. I took a step back, and Wylder clamped his hand around my elbow.
“I told you to go upstairs,” he said in a taut voice.
I shook my head, but my thoughts kept spinning. It took a few seconds before I trusted myself not to vomit the moment I opened my mouth. “I’ve seen it now. I can’t forget what’s down here. You have to tell me what happened.”
Wylder sighed, but I guessed I’d made a good enough point. “I can tell you recognized him. Someone must have dug up the corpse from wherever you buried him and hauled the pieces back here. About a half an hour ago, they smashed the living room window and hurled everything into the room from outside.”
“Why—did anyone see who did it? Did you catch the guy?”
“No.” There was enough fury in that single syllable to tell me just how pissed off that fact made Wylder. “Whoever did it was gone by the time the nearest men got to the spot. Gideon’s been scanning the footage for any clue, but he hasn’t reported back yet, so I’m assuming he hasn’t found anything useful. We’re dealing with a sick bastard and a fucking sly one.”