Page 54 of The Lunatics

“Done,” she said.

“And if you don’t, you’ll have to deal with Michael.”

Her fear scent spiked again. I couldn’t blame her. After everything that just happened, sheshouldbe afraid of him.

We were there for another ten minutes. I stuck to Bonnie’s side like glue while she answered Monica’s questions. Afterward, she went on her way with a promise of safe passage out of the territory. I told her to text me when she was out, so I knew that the wolves had kept their word.

I still couldn’t look at the corpse. It had stopped making noises, but the sickly-sweet smell of its rotting flesh permeated the alley. I retreated close to the SUV, savoring the air that wafted in from the street just past it. The smell of chemicals and car exhaust was much better than death. Even the chaotic sounds of the city were a welcome relief right now. I needed them to distract me from the inner turmoil that threatened.

Michael’s wolves spread through the alley, some carrying boxes filled with instruments, a few working to clean up the body, stillothers scaling the walls and disappearing onto the roofs as they tried to track the vampire’s scent. They were like a paranormal emergency response team, one that moved like a well-oiled machine, and it made me wonder how often they got called out to scenes like this.

A second SUV pulled up to the curb just past the first, this one familiar. The driver’s side window rolled down and Ronald peered out.

“Layla,” Michael said.

I hadn’t heard him approach, which showed just how out of it I was.

Michael put his hand on my lower back and escorted me to the vehicle. I climbed in. Ronald drove us the short distance back to the apartment and stayed with us all the way to the front door, he and Michael poring over every detail of the attack. I stayed quiet, stuck in my own head, replaying the moment when undeath had fled from the vampire’s eyes and true death took over.

I stood in the middle of Michael’s living room after Ronald left, hugging myself.

Michael approached me slowly, like I might bolt. Wariness came through the bond. He stopped an arm’s length away, his brown eyes gazing steadily into mine. “Talk to me.”

“We killed it.”

“I killed it,” he said.

“But I held it there. I kept my hand around its throat while you…”

I gagged and ran for the bathroom. We never made it to dinner, and I threw up sour wine and bile that only made me heave harder. Michael followed me in, the bond bringing out his protective instincts. Afterward, he flushed the toilet while I washed my mouth out and scrubbed the tears and snot from my face.

I didn’t go far, afraid the need to vomit would come rushing back. Instead, I sank down onto the cool tile floor and leanedagainst the clawfoot tub. Michael sat next to me, pressed close so we touched from shoulder to ankle. I needed the contact—it offered both relief and distraction—and when he relaxed into me, I realized I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “The first kill is the hardest.”

The first kill. I had helped kill someone. I was a murderer.

Goddess help me.

I tried to tell myself that we didn’t have a choice. That it was the vampire or us. But that was bullshit. It was newly undead. Michael had been kicking its ass. We could have beat it to a bloody pulp and sent it back to its brood to serve as a warning. We didn’t have to kill it.

No. Notit.

Him.

He might have looked like a monster, but once he’d been a person. He had parents, a family. Maybe he still kept in touch with them. He might have had a romantic partner. Like the witch, he might have only been there following orders. And I’d held him down in a dirty back alley while my mate ground his heart to dust. His friends and family and broodmates would never see him again. I doubted they’d ever even learn what happened to him.

A tear slipped down my cheek as I turned to look at Michael. “How do I deal with this?”

His expression was carefully neutral. He’d retreated far into himself, so almost nothing came across the bond. “Remember that he wasn’t human. He’d already killed our sentries. If we hadn’t interceded on the witch’s behalf, he would have drained her dry. He would have reveled in the resulting high. With such an influx of power, he might have gone on to kill several more people tonight, gluttoning himself like an overripe tick.”

That was right. He’d killed Michael’s people. I’d somehow forgotten that. “How many wolves did he take out?”

“Two that we know of so far.”

I frowned. “How? How did he manage to kill two wolves and then corner that witch so soon after sunset?”

Michael’s expression hardened. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”