4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Seeing Nate had given me an idea and I called Grandy. ‘Can you phase directly to me? I need to get home in a hurry.'

He mumbled some words of complaint but seconds later he was stepping out of the shadow of a nearby tree. ‘I'm not a taxi,' he chided me, but there was no bite to the words and his eyes were sweeping over me, checking me for injury.

Greg looked surprised. ‘I thought vampyrs had to know the location of the place they were phasing to.'

‘Or have a bond with the person we're phasing towards,' Grandy said shortly.

Greg's forehead creased. ‘You don't have a bond with Lucy.'

‘Don't I?' Grandy sneered. ‘Then do tell me how I'm here?'

Greg's frown deepened. ‘ I don't know.'

‘We have a bond of blood,' my grandfather said pointedly. ‘You don't know everything, kid.'

Greg opened his mouth to object to being labelled a kid. ‘Not now!' I interjected. ‘You two can bicker later. For now, Grandy, I need you to take me and Greg to Nina. Can you do that?'

‘I can just about manage to phase two with me,' he said begrudgingly. ‘But you'll need to hold on tightly. It gets cold.' With that brief warning, he took hold of our hands and plunged us into shadow.

It gets cold? What an inadequate warning. I was shivering and my bones were aching with a deep abiding chill that felt like it would never ease. I was so cold that my teeth were chattering to the point that I was at risk of breaking a tooth. I was going to look really mighty in front of the seat of power when I strode out of the shadows with my teeth clacking

I do not care how we look. All that matters is that we are ready to kill Rain, Esme admonished me.

Were we? Could I really kill Rain? I was surprised when my answer was yes. If he was on my lands, trying to steal my pack, my crown – even my life – then yes. I could kill the alpha. Kill him, and not lose sleep over it. Who and what was I becoming ?

We finally plunged out of the shadows and into absolute chaos. Once again fire and wolves were attacking the pack lands. The bushes that had survived the Domini attack were in flames, though thanks to the runes Amber's team of witches had painted on the seat of power, Nina appeared unscorched.

Her front door was shut. Rain was shouting at a team of men in human form who were using a battering ram on it, trying to gain entrance through sheer force. Wasn't that a metaphor for the way that Rain treated all women?

Rage filled me. Nina wouldn't be the first woman battered by him, but by all that was holy, she would be the last.

My wolves were ravaging the line of Rain's wolves, and snarling, howling and whimpering filled the air. Flesh was being ripped and rended. I needed to make it all stop before my wolves got hurt or killed.

I could see faces crowding the inside of Nina's windows. The lone wolves were watching fearfully as their new home was attacked by one of the very men who'd evicted them from their old homes in the first place.

I spotted Nova in one of the top windows, her eyes wide with terror. She was clutching her son Reid tightly, terror radiating from every line of her body.

Fury filled me.

Shift! Esme urged.

No! I snarled back. This one is MINE.

When Rain saw me he remained relaxed, indolent. He smirked at me. Bastard.

‘Stop!' he commanded his wolves. ‘We have company.' Eerily obedient, his wolves dropped back to form a tight unit around the men who were using the battering ram. ‘Hello, little girl,' he sneered at me.

We are not little, Esme snarled.

‘How nice of you to join us.' His tone dripped saccharine, then he gestured dismissively. ‘The time for your make-believe is over – you need to stop playing dress up and give the crown to a real man. That crown deserves a king .' He dropped all pretence of faux friendliness. ‘Hand it over, bitch, and maybe I'll let you and your wolves live.'

I realised then that Amber's illusion runes hadn't made it through the phasing or they must have finally worn out. Either way, Rain could clearly see Terrance on my head. His eyes weren't feverish, however, and his hands weren't shaking. Relief washed over me. His actions weren't being driven by a daemon's influence but by good old human greed.

We can kill him, Esme said triumphantly.

We can kill him, I agreed darkly .

I continued walking towards him, keeping my pace deliberately slow; I even put a little extra swing in my hips. When he looked at me, all he saw was a pretty little lady without a thought in her head. He was underestimating me and I was happy for that to continue right until the moment of his death.

Esme saw what I was doing, and understanding and approval flooded from her. Go for it, sister, she urged.

I was going for it all right. Rain might be willing to let me live but I wasn't planning on extending the same courtesy to him.

As I sashayed closer, his eyes roamed over my body enjoying the sway of my hips and the allure of my body. His eyes glazed a little as he imagined what he'd like to do to me. Ugh. Disgusting.

He didn't see me as a threat and he continued not to see me as a threat even when we were face to face with only a foot of air between us.

Esme and I were in accord. Together, we shifted our hands into claws, then Esme slipped back into the passenger seat to let me take the next action. It was my thoughts and action that drove us, and it was very much my decision when I reached out, grabbed hold of Rain's jugular and ripped it out, trachea and all .

His eyes wide with disbelief, his hands rose to his ruined throat. Because I was watching for it, I saw the moment that he tried to shift to save himself. I immediately reached out with my piping magic and seized his wolf. No, I ordered. You must not shift.

His wolf raged against my order, fighting it tooth and claw, but I was stronger in this and many other ways. I knew that someone else's success didn't impact on your own success; if Rain had learned that lesson when he was young, maybe he wouldn't have been bleeding out now.

He made horrible gurgling noises as he kept trying to breathe through the windpipe I'd ripped out, then he slid to his knees and toppled to the ground. It took a few more moments for his chest to recognise the reality of his situation – and then it stopped rising and falling.

I had never imagined I could take pleasure in death, but there was a certain satisfaction in watching that bastard's life drain from his eyes.

I didn't know their names, but I knew that a good number of the lone wolves huddling in Nina had come from Rain's pack. This was for all of them: let them see me and learn what a good alpha would do to defend their wolves, rather than to punish them.

I looked up from my enemy's cooling corpse and saw the moment one of Rain's wolves tried to use the spectacle of death to his advantage. Whilst everyone stared at me, he continued trying to set fire to Nina. Rage reignited in my heart in an instant.

This wasn't an unknown intruder attacking Nina but one of Beckett's wolves that I'd let walk away. They had walked away after Beckett's defeat and immediately kneeled to Rain; they'd deliberately found another wolf who they thought could take me down. Well, they'd been mistaken – but I'd been mistaken to let them live.

I had compassion, yes, but some of it was making me stupid and I needed to harden up. These fools solidified the lesson that my ex, James, had started to teach me: don't leave an enemy alive.

Esme and I shifted and she took front and centre with my blessing. When she howled her challenge to the twat with the lighter, he dropped it and hastily shifted. He'd barely finished his transformation before we were on him. Esme didn't believe in sportsmanship and she felt no urge to let him find his feet as a four; he was alive one moment and dead the next, his blood dripping from her maw.

She pivoted and found the Devon pack deserter who was holding the battering ram. When our eyes fixed on him, the scent of urine filled the air and he turned and fled .

Prey! Esme crooned with delight as she ran him down. She toyed with him, letting him put a little distance between us so he'd think he could really escape.

A furious Ares put paid to that right away, cutting off the intruder's escape route. The wolf whirled to face us and, in doing so, left his back exposed to the unicorn. Like Esme, Ares had no problem with attacking a foe from behind; the animal kingdom didn't believe in fairness but in might and survival. He reared his powerful body and slammed his clawed feet back down, crushing the werewolf and piercing his vital organs with his deadly talons.

Ares was happy to keep repeating the experience, rearing up and down until the werewolf started to resemble hamburger meat. With a whicker, he called Ivy and told her to join in. The young foal started stomping joyfully on the mess – it couldn't be called a corpse any more – then hunger got the better of her and she started to chow down. Ares looked proud; it was his own version of immersion therapy.

I grimaced. That wolf wasn't going back to the Great Pack because there was no way I could deliver his smashed remains into Nina's hall – and anyway, there was little chance she'd want to help the wolf who'd tried to set her on fire. I guessed he was destined to remain unicorn food .

Esme and I settled our gaze on the cowering attackers. Now what would we do with them?