Page 86 of Rabid
I stop in my tracks, every hair on my body rising, my vision fracturing as I search the surrounding woods. A menacing growl tears out of my throat, and fur starts to sprout out of Hess’s arm as he scans our surroundings too.
Tyran steps in front of me, dominance radiating off of him. “Seneca, it’s okay. Come with me,” he instructs, and although everything inside of me doesn’t want to move, my wolf and I primed to shift and deal with the threat, we trust our mate and do exactly as he asks.
I hear Kier guiding Hess in the same way that Tyran is guiding me, but I don’t understand why until we crest a hill, and it all clicks.
Hanging from a tree, his ankle wrapped brutally in a snare, is none other than Burke. He looks over to see me and starts wiggling and flailing frantically, which only causes the snare to bite into his flesh deeper. The smell of his fear permeates the land like a thick fog, and I close my eyes and let all the rabid parts of me revel in it.
“You found him,” I say, satisfaction pouring through the bond both ways.
“I found him,” Tyran confirms with a nod.
Seeing the ex-alpha like this feeds the rabid beast inside of me.
“Happy hunting, Vicious,” Tyran whispers in my ear, nipping my earlobe before he pulls back. With wide eyes, I turn to him, completely shocked and overwhelmed by what he’s done. Tears well in my eyes as I kiss him deeply, taking my time to show him what this means to me.
“I love you,” I whisper against his lips as we pull apart.
“I love you,” he answers back simply, moving his mouth to my shoulder and biting his mark there.
I shake my head, still completely in shock, and then move down the hill to our prey. “Best. Fucking. Mate. Ever,” I call over my shoulder.
“You know it,” he calls back from the top of the hill.
I chuckle and reach over and squeeze Hess’s shoulder as we get ready for the best hunt of our lives. “You want to run him down first, or should I?” I ask.
A savage smile tilts his lips. “The lead is all yours, Luna,” he tells me, wicked excitement in his voice mixed with pride that Burke willfinallyget what he deserves.
I walk over to the base of the tree and spot the cable of the snare looped around the trunk of the tree.
“Don’t do this,” Burke starts to plead. “You don’t have to do this. You can be better than I was,” he begs. “Take the pack! I won’t come for them. You did me a favor, actually, I was ready to be done. There’s a lot of money and power in that pack, it’s all yours,” he declares, trying to trade things he no longer owns and make promises that we all know he’d never keep.
Hess and I look at each other, half offended that this idiot thinks he’s going to talk his way out of theverypainful death that he’s earned.
Burke swings slightly, making it so he can’t see us, and when it’s clear his begging is going to get him nowhere, the threats start. “You’re fucking cowards, stringing me up like this. Couldn’t fight me properly, so this is what you resort to? You’d both be nothing without me, and this is the thanks I get? Cut me down, and I’ll fuck you both up! And when I’m done, I’m going to destroy everything you ever cared about. You’re going to wish you never fucked with me, Seneca!”
His body rotates enough that his malicious black eyes once again land on me. “I should have taken you the first time I saw you. I should have fucked that virgin pussy and licked up your tears when I had the chance. I should have slit your fucking throat and cum down it while you bled to death,” he snarls, spit flying out of his mouth as though the venom of his words is poisoning even him.
A low growl starts in Hess’s chest, but I pat his arm to tell him I’m okay. Nothing this foul monster can say or do penetrates my armor.
“Shoulda, coulda, woulda, Burke, but thanks for the ideas of what we can have done to you before you die,” I tell him casually, and I watch his face pale as he slowly spins away from us.
He puts everything he has into trying to free himself one last time, but when he can’t, when the begging doesn’t work, and the threats and taunts fall on deaf ears, he goes quiet. I watch as he spins another full rotation and I pull in a deep fortifying breath.
“I’ll give you a choice, Burke,” I tell him, and his eyes narrow at my words. I’m not surprised. For someone who’s lived their life stealing the choices of others, I’m sure it’s alarming that he’s now being offered one. “Tell me how you killed my mother, and I’ll make this quicker and so much less painful than it could be.”
Hess tenses next to me and silence falls around us like delicate snowflakes. I can practically hear the calculation going on in Burke’s mind. I know he’s looking at all angles, trying to gauge whether or not he can lie, barter, gaslight, or deny his way out of this. I wait patiently, giving him all the time he needs to see clearly exactly what I see. That there’s no way out of what’s coming.
Burke’s black gaze falls on Tyran and Kier up on the hill behind us, and then he looks at me. Anger shines in his eyes, but it’s slowly drowned out by the desperation that once again creeps in. He’s cornered prey and he knows it.
“I’ve been rehoming females to some of the southern packs who needed them,” he starts, and I have to work hard to school my features.
I tamp down hard on the emotion that wants to surge through me as I recall the females we found in the cells from Twin Rivers, and the ones we discovered from other packs. I thought he was hurting them, and that was bad enough, but I had no idea he was selling our kind too.
“Some of the boys got a little too rough with a couple that were already paid for. I had no choice but to bring your mother in,” he goes on, and anger roils through me.
I know all too well the disgust and horror that must have gone through her at witnessing what was happening in those cursed concrete prisons. I’m sure she quickly realized the minute Burke showed her his dirty little secret that he was never going to let her leave knowing it.
Was she scared?
