by M F Adele
“I haven’t seen you in forever, Briggs,” a sultry, southern voice called cheerfully. “Where have you been?”
“Are you going to be accosted by females all night?” Sloane whispered.
“No,” Briggs grumbled as Palmer said, “Aye.”
“Asshole,” the wolf hissed at the mage.
Palmer threw his head back, chortling at the wolf, and I eased the cup from his hand. I didn’t know where the liquor came from; the last time I’d seen him, he’d had a beer.
“It’s good to see you again, Cilla,” Briggs replied politely, prying her hand away from his arm.
He looked thoroughly irritated and sick of being touched.
Sloane’s brows furrowed slightly as she watched him. I didn’t think she wanted to step in if he could handle the situation, but as he grew more irritated, so did she.
Her demon was pushing just under the surface of her skin, ready to burst free. And that caused my demon to become anxious. It was somewhat of a chain reaction.
Cilla seemed oblivious to the unease and turned her attention to the guys and me. “How are y’all? My sister is here; I’m sure she’d love to see you.”
“No, thanks,” Novak commented quickly.
I blocked everything out as I focused on Sloane and Vaughn, picking my way into their mental conversation.
“Her mind is as static-filled as the last one.”
“We need to leave. If more of them are showing up, then it’s only a matter of time before more shit gets stirred up.”
I interrupted them. “Kill her or don’t. Vaughn is right; we need to leave.”
Sloane nodded her head to us both and moved to stand by Briggs’ side. Cilla’s unfocused eyes darted to our mate and back to the wolf as she continued to push him into—
“He’s not going home with you,” I told her as soon as I’d comprehended what she was saying.
Novak and York were glancing around the crowd for Blaire and her mates while keeping a firm grip on Palmer. They were murmuring about how they were going to get Baylor’s truck out of the clearing.
The druid teased the vampire about his sister running people over to get out, but it wasn’t a joke.
She would do it.
Sloane must have reached out to Jack mentally because the hellsteed and company began walking our way as Cilla crossed the last line.
She stretched her hand up, intending to touch Briggs’ face. Sloane swatted at her like an unruly child.
“Keep your hands to your-fucking-self,” she warned. “I’ve had enough of your bullshit. He was polite. He’s declined you. Stop throwing yourself at him. He’s not fucking interested.”
Cilla’s cheeks pinked as her hands clenched at her sides. She raised her fist, cocking it back to swing, but Sloane wasn’t fazed. She grabbed Cilla’s fist before it connected with her jaw, spinning the shifter around.
“I gave you fair warning,” my kitten whispered, her eyes bouncing to Briggs before scanning the unsuspecting crowd.
No one was paying us any attention. Not that Sloane actually cared.
A single, curved claw grew from her index finger, and she wrenched Cilla’s head back by her hair as she slid her nail over the thin flesh of her throat.
She held the shifter up as blood poured from her neck, only releasing her when she was satisfied with her work.
Meaning, she knew there was no coming back from that amount of blood loss.
And just to be sure, she leaned down and twisted Cilla’s neck.
The sound of snapping bones brought attention to us.
Sloane wiped her hands on her shirt again, but it didn’t help clean them. I took my black t-shirt off and handed it to her.
She sighed, grimacing at Briggs. “Okay, from this point on, I’ll try really hard not to kill any more of your exes.”
Jack shook his head as he eyed Cilla’s prone form. “You can’t just kill every female who talks to them.”
“I don’t.”
“You killed our sister. Are you crazy?” A male shouted as he split away from the party-goers.
Sloane rolled her lips in, tilting her head to the left as she thought about his question. “Legally? No, I am not.”
A petite woman dropped to her knees over Cilla’s body, sobbing uncontrollably.
My kitten shrugged. “Sorry? I did warn her.”
“Sloane!” Jack chastised, covering his face with his right hand.
“What?” She rolled her eyes. “I said sorry.”
“You didn’t mean it,” Grim commented distractedly as he collected Cilla’s and Cassie’s souls.
She shook her head, no remorse in her voice as she said, “Not in the least.”
My mate was crazy, of that I wouldn’t disagree; but why were these women approaching Briggs now? I couldn’t quite connect the dots, though it was absolutely time for us to go.
We needed to get the fuck out of this party before we had to kill more shifters than necessary.
Blaire and Grim loaded Jack and Baylor into Bay’s red truck. Novak’s sister climbed into the driver’s seat and began maneuvering the huge vehicle out of the packed field without hitting anyone.
Scratch that. She hit a fox, but I couldn’t be positive if it was a person or a regular animal.
Novak chuckled. “Ten points for Blaire.”
We weren’t even past the second row of vehicles when another familiar face peered around the back of an SUV.
Sloane wasted no time, striding straight to her. My kitten’s hand shot out, fingers firmly gripping the redhead’s neck as her claws began to extend.
“What do you want, Rachel?” Briggs quietly asked, scrubbing at his forehead with his middle finger.
She didn’t answer him, her big blue eyes meeting Sloane’s in a dangerous display of disobedience.
Static filled my mind, and I groaned at the sound. It was getting ridiculous, and we needed to move the drug usage within the pack to a top priority.
The number one task on our to-do list.
“This is hotter than him choking me. You wanna take this somewhere else? He can watch, if you want,” she rasped out, biting the edge of her lip as her eyes continued to rove over Sloane’s face.
My mate furrowed her brow, and the redhead grinned as Sloane’s hand tightened around her throat.
“I’ll let you live. For now. Tell the she-wolf I’m done with her bullshit. She sent you to me so that you could die like the other two, and it’s getting old.”
She released the female shifter, motioning with her hand for Rachel to go.
“Did you date half the pack, or is it my imagination?” Sloane snarked at Briggs before pointing at the slowly retreating back of Rachel. “Also, I’d like it documented that I didn’t kill that one. So I’m two out of three for murders tonight.”
I snorted. “That one.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Devil. I’ll kill yours next,” she stated sweetly.
I bared my teeth at her, and she smirked, crooking her fingers for me to come at her.
“And what about you?” Novak drawled. “What if we feel the need to kill your ex-boyfriends?”
“Don’t, Novak,” Vaughn spoke up. “If she starts killing your conquests, then she’ll end up murdering enough people to put a small university out of business.”
“You’ve already killed one,” she countered, grinning at Vaughn before flourishing her hand at York.
“And here’s the last one, but I’d prefer if you didn’t truly kill him. Though—” She tapped her chin. “If what Lucy said is true, then my eternal lifespan has been shared between my bonded mates.”
“We are not testing that theory without solid evidence,” York stated.
“Of course not, sweetheart,” she mocked, nailing his accent but missing the rich baritone of his voice.
Sloane widened her eyes, holding both hands up in surrender as she pinched her lips together to hide her smile. Then she gave Palmer and me an exaggerated wink.
“Sl
oane,” York snapped. “That’s not funny.”
“Kind of is,” she affirmed, nodding her head as she backed away from him.
“Don’t you walk off,” he warned.
The challenge in her voice was thick and playful as she asked, “You gonna stop me? We both know you can’t catch me if I don’t want to be caught.”
Vines shot up from the ground, wrapping around her ankles while they maintained eye contact with each other. Then York’s vines detached from Sloane, crawling across the grass toward the druid.
She waggled her brows at him as she faded into the shadows. Her whispered voice echoed around us. “Come on, Druid. Try harder.”
“I see why you want to spank her,” York admitted, glancing at the mage before searching the shadows for her.
Briggs threw his hands out. “Right? It’s getting easier to jump to that conclusion. She’s a brat.”
“Ye can’t spank her. She likes it too much,” Palmer explained, rolling his bloodshot, gray eyes.
After a moment, the wolf questioned us. It was a curious afterthought, not a true worry. “Is it just me, or does she keep getting more terrifying the longer we know her?”
“I don’t think terrifying is the word you’re looking for. More powerful, maybe; more relaxed around us, less closed off. I don’t see a problem with it,” I said.
He snorted. “Of course, the demon wouldn’t. I’m not saying I’m scared of her or anything. I’m just saying that I don’t really understand the depth of her power, and that thought is slightly terrifying.”
“I don’t understand it either, but I’ve never felt safer,” the mage commented.
“She’s like...” Vaughn trailed off, staring at the night sky as he searched for the right words.
“Really fucking hot when she’s all blood and murder?” the vampire suggested.
“I was going to say protective, but yeah. That too.” The fae nodded.
Novak shrugged. “Same thing.”
“She’s just killed two of my exes. Aren’t you guys, I don’t know, concerned?” Briggs asked as he rubbed his beard.
“No. I haven’t seen her kill anyone who didn’t deserve it in one way or another.” York thought for a moment before he pointed out, “She didn’t kill your brother, did she?”
The wolf sighed. “Not yet, but if he keeps talking shit to her, then I’m not going to save him.”
“But her powers have changed significantly since I met her years ago.” York scrunched his brows, contemplating before continuing. “I’m not sure why, exactly, though I don’t think it has much to do with us. Experience, possibly, or just time. I’ve been wanting to talk to Dolyn about their experiments, but I didn’t get an opportunity to.”
I started thinking about what I knew of her powers as we strolled to the truck, but I didn’t know enough either. Most of what I did know was more speculation than facts.
York was right. If anyone understood Sloane’s powers, it’d be Jack or Dolyn.
We had assumed Sloane would be waiting for us at the truck after she’d faded away from the druid.
And she was…
So was Anna.
“It’s the night that never fucking ends,” Briggs griped to us.
We all sighed dramatically as Anna spoke. “You didn’t tell me you had a new girlfriend, Briggs.”
“I don’t tell you shit. We haven’t spoken in months.”
“Does she know all the filthy things we used to do together?” Anna’s eyes glittered as she stalked closer to Briggs. “Did she see all the pictures on your phone?”
“I tossed my phone out the window a couple of weeks ago. The guys had deleted everything for me before that, though.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. And rage coursed so heavily through our bond that I thought Anna had struck a nerve with Sloane, but the emotion was from Briggs.
Outwardly, he was calm. Internally, he was ready to lose his mind.
Anna had had such a tight grip on him in the past, twisting his feelings to make him think he was always in the wrong. Now she stood between him and his mate, trying to block his view of Sloane.
She rubbed the backside of her finger over his cheek. Fury like I’d never felt before swallowed us whole.
Sloane was at his side in the blink of an eye, and I finally understood that new power that Vaughn had been trying to describe.
Our mate snatched Anna’s hand back, bending her finger backward until her nail touched her wrist. The she-wolf shrieked, and Sloane smiled as her demon pushed to the surface.
Her voice was little more than a growl as she leaned into Anna’s face, nose-to-nose.
“Touch my mate again. I’ll break every bone in your body instead of just a finger. I’m patient, Anna. I’ll draw out the torture for eternity.”
“Bitch,” she groaned, gasping as she tried to pull her finger back into place.
“Thank you. That is my favorite term of endearment.”
As Anna stomped away, cradling her hand to her chest, Briggs leaned against the side of the truck. He scrubbed at his face erratically, and Sloane frowned at him as she approached.
She propped herself up beside him, bumping his shoulder with her own. He glanced at her between parted fingers, and she tilted her head toward the trees. He gave her a curt nod in reply, bending down to untie his boots.
They tossed their shoes and clothes in the cab of the truck as they stripped down to barely anything. Briggs shifted without a word to us, his black wolf hardly visible as he trotted to the wooded line at the edge of the clearing to wait for her.
Sloane smiled at us, saying, “We’ll meet you guys back at the cabin. Don’t separate. I don’t trust what’s-her-face not to come looking for any of you. Her mind wasn’t as clear as it should have been.”
She shifted into her gorgeous silver wolf, and as she joined Briggs, I realized how much they resembled the moon and the starless sky.
They disappeared into the trees, their tails the last thing we were able to see. I didn’t know what she planned to do to make this situation better, but killing Anna would more than likely solve it.
Or at least leave us one less stressor.
Maybe she wanted to make sure Briggs was okay, mentally and emotionally, before she hunted the she-wolf down?
I was ready to help her when that time came. We all were.
We’d done our best to shield him from her, but it was never enough. When I’d caught her cheating, we were able to break her hold over him. Even that hadn’t been an immediate release.
I knew he had feelings for Sloane and no positive feelings left for Anna. That wouldn’t keep her from fucking with his head, though. The she-wolf would pry her way into the smallest cracks in his mind.
Sloane wouldn’t let Anna get her claws in him again.
Anna would die before that ever happened.
Knowing our mate, the she-wolf would be dead before we left North Fork. The only question was how she would deliver her killing blow.
“What do ya think they’re doin’?” Palmer slurred.
Novak snorted, shoving the mage into the passenger seat of the truck.
“Get yer minds out of the gutter, Vampire. They’re leadin’ the hunt whenever the full moon is, so they could’ve gone ta scope out the area.”
“Sure they have. You can’t read her mind, Mage. I can…”
I chuckled as I sat on the tailgate. “The full moon is tomorrow, Palmer. Take a fucking nap.”
12
Sloane
Thursday, June 4th
Late Night
I wasn’t sure where to start with Briggs, but a run seemed like the best choice to calm his wolf down. When he chilled out, so would I.
The bond between us was full of unstable emotions, and they were making me anxious. I didn’t know how to fix feelings, especially when I wasn’t the one who made him feel this way.
Fighting my impulses was getting harder the farther we ran. I had never wanted to harm someone as badly as I
currently wanted to.
The she-wolf was another name on my list of people living on borrowed time.
We’d all gone in circles, thinking about who we suspected was behind the drug push with the shifters, though we hadn’t voiced anything yet. We were all leaning in the same direction.
Idly, I wondered how many bones I could break in Anna’s body before she passed out from the pain.
If the adult human body had two hundred and six bones, and I factored in the higher threshold for pain within supernatural creatures… then maybe thirty-eight?
I might have to start with the smaller bones to hit that number.
The task itself sounded like an exhausting amount of work, but it was a great idea for an eternity of suffering.
No matter how I killed her—or if torture was involved—I wasn’t leaving North Fork without her soul. I’d gladly release some of the others I was hoarding to make room for hers.
As long as the Underworld stood, her punishment for hurting my mates would too.
Would it be too terribly tasteless if I took a picture with her lifeless body to frame and set it next to her little glass case in my collection?
Also, would it be inappropriate to keep her skull and paint on it? Nothing pretty; I just felt the need to continue fucking with her after she was dead.
I needed to befriend a necromancer or ask Stone to call his friend. I’d pay him to bring her back to life so that I could kill her multiple times. Maybe the necromancer had an hourly rate.
Those were probably not the thoughts of a sane individual, but I didn’t have anyone to ask at the moment except for Briggs. The angry snarls coming from him told me that now wasn't exactly the time to ask him for his opinion on the matter.
I’d have to ask Jack or Hyde what they thought of my ideas.
My imagination bounced from one end of the spectrum to the other, none of the plans suitable enough to pacify my need for bloodshed.
I shifted back to my skin, hoping that would help me think straight. My bare feet hit the ground without missing a step, and I stayed silent as he worked through his twisted emotions.
I didn’t pry, didn’t peek into his mind as he sorted through all the shit.