“Do we take her to Victor?” Sam asks.
“No,” Bruce says. “We bring Victor here. She’s hard enough to control without trying to move her. Besides,” he adds, and I swear I canhearthe sick leer in his voice, “the beach is the perfect place to do it. We can clean up afterward.”
When he says clean up, he’s talking about my blood spilled on this sand. He’s talking about the remains of my body—my life having been ripped out of it—tossed into the lake to be washed away by the current. Probably washing up on some distant shore for someone to find, and after that…anything I can imagine is too unthinkable to dwell on for long.
A shudder passes through me. For the first time, I’m really, viscerally afraid of these people.
“Go get Victor,” Bruce says, and Sam takes off at a jog down the beach.
I watch him disappear. I wonder how far away Victor is. It’s like I can feel the seconds of my life winding down. I’m shaking now.
Bruce looks at me. “We can sit down,” he says.
It’s strange. His voice isn’t particularly unkind. It’s just…businesslike. He’s talking about killing me the way you would talk about killing an animal for a meal. Not a daughter of your pack. Not an enemy. Not even aperson.
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper. “We were like family.”
“You were never one of us,” he says, his voice detached, as if he’s talking to a stranger he doesn’t really give a damn about. “It’s not really your fault. I know that. You couldn’t help who your mother fucked. But you know our pack doesn’t let Moon Casters live. Especially not ones who’ve infiltrated us so successfully. You know too much.”
“I didn’t infiltrate you,” I say. “I was never trying to hurt the pack. The pack was my family.”
He looks out at the lake. “We’re not your family,” he says. “We never were. It was always a lie.”
I hate that that hurts me.
It doesn’t feel as bad as the moment Victor told me he rejected me as his mate. It’s notphysicallypainful in the same way.
But it’s still awful. Because, whatever Bruce may want to say about it now, he’s wrong.
The packwasfamily to me.
And now that’s gone.
I only have one hope remaining now, and it’s that when Victor sees me, he won’t be able to bring himself to overcome the mate bond and end my life. But I know how slim that hope is.
Chapter 25
NATE
Honestly,thewolves’scentsweretooeasy to follow. They must not be worrying at all about the idea of being tracked.
If these are the people who raised Emlyn, it’s a wonder she’s survived on her own as long as she has. They’re pathetic.
I slink through the reeds at the highest part of the beach, where sand meets dirt. Unlike Emlyn’s idiot packmates, I know how to stay hidden when I want to. I know enough not to just march out onto the beach.
Unfortunately, that’s going to make it really hard to move against these guys. And that might not be the right decision anyway. Right now, I’m just gathering information.
I move as close as I dare. Close enough that I can hear them talking to her.
“Go get Victor,” says one of the two men. The older one. He looks like he could be her father, maybe, but I don’t think he is. It’s hard to imagine a father looking at his daughter like that—as if she was a piece of furniture that he wasn’t that fond of and was getting ready to throw out. Surely a father would feelsomething, whether it was love or hate.
The younger man takes off running down the beach. Idiot that he clearly is, he doesn’t even perceive that he’s being watched. This is why I’m the best fighter in a generation. I notice things other people don’t.
What makes it even better is that I’m not in my wolf form. I’m just standing here, fully human, with nothing more to disguise my presence than some tall grass. And these guys have no idea I’m here.
Now, what am I going to do about it?
Because Icouldjust leave. I don’t have any beef with these men, and the last thing I need is some kind of fight with a pack of strangers. Admittedly, they do look stupidnow. But who knows what might emerge if they’re pressed? The safest choice, and the most sensible one, is definitely to just let this play out and act like I never found them.