“Stay down, you stupid fuck,” I said. “There’s something riding you that I need to get rid of.” That was the threat, I realised, not Rick. He was just an insecure, pathetic, abusive fuck. A nice long jail sentence could maybe have dealt with that, but that wasn’t what kept peeling him off the tarmac. It was the thing inside him.
Lonan, my beast said. The old avatar of the Black Wolf. Twisted, sick thing, his shade does not lie quiet. Exhaust your anger on this man, then bring him to the crone.
But of course, he couldn’t just lie there and take it, could he? I felt a thrill of excitement as he wriggled out from under my grip. I was trying not to give into the itch in my fingers and cut this lumbering git into ribbons, but he just kept on coming.
Time to try something a bit more direct, I thought, driving my fist into his stomach as he swiped at me, causing him to careen into Aidan, who caught him with a snap, headbutting him with a brutal efficiency before shoving him towards Noah.
My pale lover glowed in the pool of light as he held a writhing, sobbing, bleeding Rick at arm’s length. Rick tried with every fibre of his being to lash out at Noah, but my lover just watched him scrabble with a faintly amused expression. One that twisted the longer he looked at him.
“I don’t need to do anything to you,” he said, awe creeping into his voice. “You’ve done it to yourself. You hurt Flick and Kade. You saw everything that they are and figured the best response was violence. You’re so fucking pathetic, you’re not even worth it. There were so many moments of possible redemption, and you shat on every single one of them. Just die. That’s all you can do right now.”
He thrust Rick away with a flick of his wrists, sending him careening over into Sen’s hands.
There was no such mercy in my dark lover’s eyes, his red gaze burning into Rick’s. He held him by the collar, dragging him up to his face so they were mere inches apart.
“Show me,” he snarled, his voice a full-throated alpha command. The other man went dead still within his grip, then Rick’s mouth curved into an unnatural smile. Because it wasn’t Rick doing the smiling, I realised. He laughed, spitting blood on Sen’s face, but he refused to look away. “Show me!”
I knew what Sen was seeing by the change of expression. I felt a pang of something I hadn’t for a while, not since I’d seen Aidan on the table—of loss. Every time Sen saw me going forward, this would be there. All my current strength and badassery would be lost under the avalanche of memories. Of Rick’s cutting remarks and laughing put downs, his mates cackling like hyenas. Of petty tyrannies, of inspections of my ‘work,’ of aspersions about everything, including my sexual performance, housekeeping, and value as a mother. And of course, the physical abuse, me screaming, crying, begging. I strode across the space as Sen’s hand raised, his lips pulled back in a snarl.
“Yes…” a voice said, but it wasn’t Rick’s. “Do it!”
And that’s when I knew where I fitted in all of this. It wasn’t my revenge trip, my turn to pummel the ever loving shit out of Rick. The Black Wolf could have killed any of us if he tried that day at the waterhole, but it hadn’t been him. It was this Lonan, and he wanted Sen to commit this act of violence for a reason.
Power, my Tirian said. Power to take a more acceptable avatar.
“Sen,” I said in a low growl, but he wouldn’t look away, his hand shaking with the effort of holding back. “Sen!”
I’d never used an alpha’s whip before, but I heard my voice crack over the whole square. When he looked up, Sen’s eyes had gone to grey, haunted now with shadows that hadn’t been there before.
“Sen, this is what he wants, whatever is inside Rick. He wants you to kill him
. You’re the one he’s wanted all along.”
“But he… He…”
“I know, love. I was there. I went through it and I was strong enough to get past it, and so will you. Give him here.”
“I’ll keep coming for her. Her son, her—”
My fingers slapped over Rick’s face.
“And my little dog too? Shut the fuck up.”
I hauled him away from my pack, trying not to be too happy when my claws dug into his skin. He screamed the whole way, thrashing like a little bitch, past the women until I reached the square.
“You relinquish your right to vengeance?” Ophelia asked when I brought him before her, Flora now holding a silvery sickle of a knife.
“You can put an end to what’s inside him?” I replied.
“For now,” Flora answered, stroking the handle of her knife. “Until there is balance, there will be threats like this.”
“Sounds all very Jedi,” I said. “Fine. The Black Wolf asked for him as a sacrifice, for bringing me back. Let's give him over.”
If I was a better woman, I’d have some sort of kumbaya moment where I got Rick separated from Lonan, put him on the path of rehabilitation, and he went out into the world a changed man. I didn’t. He was broken, Lonan was broken, and if they were the coin I had to pay the ferryman with to stay with my pack, it would be paid.
“The mother is love, nurturing, but she is also dark,” Flora said with a witchy smile. “She is the animal swallowing her young whole, crunching them between her teeth.”
“Right fucking now she is,” I said. “Let’s get this done.” I stamped down on his hand when he started trying to claw at my feet.