Chapter 45

45

SKYE

“ N o!” I word clawed out of my throat, fueled by a desperation I had never felt before. Terror spiked through my chest like a gladiator swung a mace into it.

I had been too busy watching Remy, relief coursing through me as I realized Cassian was done . He would never hurt me or anyone else ever again.

I had missed Marc shifting, several other men joining him. Now they were all poised to attack Remy.

We would never get to him in time. As strong as Remy was, he was injured and couldn’t take on ten wolves. They would rip him to pieces before we even shifted and made it halfway to him since everyone had stepped back to give the Alphas room to battle.

Lulu shoved me back as I stepped forward in a futile attempt to get to Remy. She lifted her arms, and the wolves about to attack froze for a second before falling to the ground. They screamed in pain, the animalistic sounds deafening, as they writhed around. The remaining men from Long Mesa stumbled back with wide, fearful eyes.

“What did you do?” I whispered, stunned.

Sweat beaded on her upper lip as her arms fell. Her gaze cut to me, her gray irises swallowed by the inky black of her pupils. “I stopped them.” Her chest heaved and she blinked, her eyes clearing as she stumbled back a step.

Dimitri was there immediately, grabbing her arms and holding her up as her knees buckled.

I wasn’t sure what the hell had just happened, but Marc and the others were still screeching in pain.

“What the fuck?” Rhodes stepped up beside me, his jaw gaping open.

Remy shifted back in the confusion, pulling on his jeans. I took off at a run, hurling myself into his waiting arms. He grunted and rocked back.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” I tried pulling away, remembering his injured side.

“It’s fine,” he assured me, not letting go. His hand fisted around my hair, tugging my head back so he could kiss me.

“Your side,” I gasped into his mouth.

“It’s already healing. Shut up and let me kiss you,” he simply grumbled, his lips coaxing my mouth open so his tongue could slide against mine.

He let me go after a minute or ten of nibbling and licking and kissing. I let out a plaintive whimper as he stepped away just as things were getting good.

But the audience surrounding us quickly brought me back to where we were.

“What hell happened to them?” Remy asked, frowning at the men on the ground.

“Lulu,” I replied honestly, looking over to see she was back on her feet and looking better. Dimitri was still hovering behind her like he was waiting for her collapse again.

“Is that... magic?” He seemed to taste the word on his tongue as he spoke it.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Damn,” he murmured appreciatively, still looking at the men. They had stopped screaming, but they were still on the ground.

Speaking of on the ground...

I looked over at where Cassian lay. He was gasping, barely able to get air in through the bubbles of blood frothing around his lips.

“I think I crushed his windpipe,” Remy said quietly.

I walked the few feet to Cassian and crouched beside his head.

His blue eyes focused on me after a second. I could see the fear reflected there, twisted and swirled with the agony he was in as he died in front of me. I wondered how many times he had seen that same desperate look in my eyes as he pinned me down.

“You look like you’re in a lot of pain,” I murmured, reaching down to brush a lock of sweaty blond hair from his eyes. My jaw hardened. “Good.”

I stood up slowly, fluidly, and stepped over his body to head back to my friends.

Remy watched me with worried eyes as I approached. “You okay, babe?”

I nodded and looked at Lulu. “Is what you did to them permanent?”

She glanced over. “I crushed their ribs. Sort of... ground them to dust. They won’t be able to get back up unless I reform the bones.”

“Don’t,” I told her in a cold voice.

Lulu nodded.

“Right,” Nikolai said sharply. “Can we commence with the beheading of every person in this shithole before heading back home?”

“We’re not killing everyone, Nik,” Mom said with a frown.

He turned to her, his eyes glittering with rage and retribution. “I don’t see why the fuck not.”

“They’re not all bad,” Mom told him, laying a hand on his arm. The simple act seemed to calm him, some of the fury leaching from his expression. “Some of them are just scared. Trapped.”

“But not all of them,” I replied bitterly. “Some of them need to be punished.”

“Okay, but how?” Larkin asked, meeting my gaze. “Do we kill them all? Put them in jail?”

“We don’t have a jail big enough to put them all,” Rhodes murmured. “Blackwater doesn’t have issues that required the need for housing inmates indefinitely. Usually issues like this would be handled by the Council.”

“Which no longer exists,” Dante sighed.

Alexei folded his arms over his chest. “So, we kill them all. Problem solved.”

“It’s not the worst idea,” Dimitri agreed, pressing his lips together. “At least then we won’t have to watch our backs, waiting for them to stab us the first chance they get.”

“We’re not killing dozens of people today,” Remy said finally.

Nikolai arched a brow. “You plan to let them off with what? A warning? Perhaps community service? They can build a playground or some other utterly useless reminder of what they’ve done to the people you claim to love.”

“I don’t plan to let them off at all,” Remy ground out. His eyes flashed dangerously as he glared at Nikolai.

“Then explain how you plan to punish those who have committed the most heinous of acts!” Nikolai’s chest heaved as he stared at Remy.

I glanced down at the men on the ground. “They haven’t shifted back.”

“What?” Remy frowned at me.

I took a step forward. “The guys on the ground. They never went back to their human form.”

“Probably because they can’t. Humans need their ribs to protect vital organs. Their bodies probably have no idea what to do,” Lulu answered slowly.

“You can make people change,” I said suddenly, sharply.

“I can,” she agreed cautiously.

“Can you make a shifter not be able to shift?” I demanded.

Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Holy shit. That’s pretty fucking brilliant.”

“Can you?” I pressed, latching onto the idea.

“What are you two talking about?” Dimitri asked, looking back and forth between us.

Lulu smiled. “We can take away their ability to shift. Their own body will be their prison. If we keep them as wolves—”

“—they’re no longer a threat,” Remy mused. “She’s right. It’s brilliant.”

“Can you do that?” Dimitri questioned, staring hard at Lulu.

“Yeah. It’s not unlike the moon spell. It’s actually easier. This time I’m just... locking a door, so to speak. I’ll sever the bond between the human and the wolf. The human aspect will eventually fade away. I can make them just an animal.”

Dimitri’s teeth ground together. “Yeah, and we both know what kind of drain that puts on you, Lu.”

“He’s right,” Nikolai agreed, looking concerned for the first time.

My heart sank. “We can’t do it if it’s a risk to you, Lulu.”

Her shoulders squared. “It’s my risk, and I can do it.”

Dimitri swore. “Lu—”

“But I might need help,” she said, turning to Remy. “You’re their Alpha now. You won the pack.”

“What do you need?” Remy spread his arms. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Command them to change,” Lulu told him. “If they’re already wolves, it will make things easier.”

“Everyone?” Remy asked.

“No,” Mom jumped in. “Not everyone. Not everyone deserves to spend the rest of their life as an animal.”

“Probably won’t be a long life,” Ryder added, waving a dismissive hand. “Farmers and hunters will likely shoot most of them. There’s a reason natural wolves aren’t around much of this area. They’ve been killed off by cattle ranchers.”

Remy looked at me and then Mom. “Can you two figure out who should be saved?”

My eyes met Mom’s. Could we? Could we objectively pick and choose who deserved a second chance?

“Yeah,” Mom answered for us. I didn’t miss the way she leaned her shoulder against Nikolai. “We can.”

Remy turned to the men we’d brought with us. “Go door to door. Bring everyone out here.”

“And if they don’t answer the door?” One man spoke up from the back. I recognized him from Blackwater. He had kind eyes and a nice smile.

“Rhodes, you and Ryder shift. If you smell people, you can alert them that people are hiding.” Remy gave the order to his beta. Ryder was known for his tracking abilities as a wolf, and Rhodes was almost on the same level.

Rhodes nodded, kissed Larkin and waited for Ryder to kiss Dante and Tate before joining him. They led most of the men away.

“What about these guys?” Remy asked, jerking his head to the men still around the fountain. Men who I knew liked to visit the omega house frequently.

I hissed out a breath. “They don’t get a second chance.”

“Lulu,” Mom asked softly, “can you do me a favor?”

“Of course,” Lulu replied instantly.

Mom stared at the fountain. “Destroy that thing .”

A second later, the marble and cement fountain crumbled into a shapeless heap, a small cloud of dust puffing into the air and being carried away by the wind.

I swallowed down a fresh wave of tears.

“Thank you,” Mom said, clearly fighting the same emotions.

I t took hours to separate the people into who was getting a second chance, and the number was smaller than I had imagined.

“Is it just me, or are there less people here?” I asked Mom softly as she indicated for Nikolai to take a man to what we had dubbed ‘the wolf pile.’

Nikolai seemed to take great joy in literally hurling people into the ever-growing wolf pile.

“Because they’re not here,” a voice snapped as a new person was dragged in front of us.

I flinched at the sight of Norma Loomis. Allan’s second wife had always had a perpetually disgusted look on her face, but she had clearly lost weight the last few months.

“And where are they?” I asked coldly, remembering Norma was just as twisted as children and husband. She had no problem brutalizing omegas herself.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Norma smirked. “Bet you think you’re all sorts of fancy now, huh? Got yourself an Alpha mate. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

I couldn’t help the cruel smile that formed. “I plan to. It’ll definitely be a lot longer than your husband. Or your kids.”

Norma’s face twisted and she lunged for me, fingers curved into claws as she went for my face.

I easily knocked her arms away and threw a right hook that snapped her head back.

“Wolf pile,” I snapped, watching Alexei drag her away.

Remy looked over at me, his expression a perplexed mix of concern and pride. I smiled back so he knew I was okay. He grinned back and went back to discussing his plans with Dante and Dimitri.

“They were taken a few weeks ago,” the next voice said, soft and timid.

I glanced down to see a girl who had graduated a few years ahead of me. Her face was a mottled mess of bruises and she looked way too thin except for the bulging stomach she protectively wrapped an arm around.

“It’s Bria, isn’t it?” I said, remembering her name. I tilted my head to the side as a memory hit me.

She had snuck me a sandwich when she stumbled on me picking through the dumpster behind the school one blisteringly hot afternoon a few years earlier. She’d simply set it down next to me and kept walking away, never making eye contact.

She nodded and dropped her eyes. “Yes.”

“Do you know where they were taken?” I asked, softening my voice. She looked ready to pass out or bolt at the first chance.

Bria pulled a thin sweater up over a bony shoulder. “I’m not sure. I asked but...” She touched the side of her face where the bruising was the worst.

“They took most of the girls and a few boys. All of the babies,” she added. “Some of the younger women who hadn’t had a fertility cycle yet also went. They put them on a bus in the middle of the night. I couldn’t sleep because I was hungry. The baby wouldn’t stop kicking.”

“Who’s the father?” Mom asked gently, reaching for Bria’s hand.

Bria swallowed audibly. “I’m not sure. It happened a few months ago. The night of the burnings.”

“Burnings?” I echoed.

She nodded sadly. “The night they burned the two omegas that were left after you two both...”

I sucked in a sharp breath. Maisie and Shane. The night they killed Maisie and Shane.

“You were there when they died?” Mom whispered, clearly as distraught as I was.

“After some of the council took their turns, “ Bria shuddered, “they tied them down. Threw gasoline on them. They took bets as they tossed matches to see whose would catch first.”

My stomach cramped painfully. It physically hurt to remember Maisie and Shane. I could only imagine how terrified they must have been. How much pain and humiliation they endured before they died.

Guilt smothered me in a suffocating embrace. We should have gone back for them or figured a way to bring them with us. I could feel the press of Remy’s gaze on me, trying to figure out what was wrong with me.

I held as still as possible. If I looked at him, even for a second, I would crack and shatter. I would fall apart like the fountain. If I started crying now, I might never stop.

“After they burned the bodies, the men, and some of the women, were in a frenzy. I should have stayed home, but we were all Commanded to attend. I tried to get away, but I wasn’t strong enough. Several other women and a man were killed that night. It was too much for their bodies to take.”

Mom was openly weeping beside me, enough so that Nikolai was headed our way. His expression was fierce and terrifying.

“Bria, would you like to come with us to Blackwater?” I asked her, working around the swelling knot of emotion in my chest.

Bria’s head lifted. Her greasy, brown hair hung in limp streaks over her face, but there was a flicker of hope in her blue eyes.

“We have a medical center there that can help you when it’s time to deliver your baby,” I added, ignoring my father as he pulled Mom to the side, crushing her to his chest in a hug after a pause.

“You’ll be safe,” I promised her.

Tears filled her eyes and spilled over as she nodded. “Yes. Yes, please.”

“Katy,” I called, looking for my friend.

Katy’s red hair caught in the sunlight as she looked up with a smile that slowly melted. She walked towards me cautiously.

“Katy, this is Bria. She’s coming back with us,” I said firmly.

Katy immediately stepped forward. “Hey, Bria. Why don’t you come with me? We’ve set up an area with some food and water until we can work out the logistics of getting people home.”

Bria started to turn, but at the last second closed the distance between us and hugged me. Her arms squeezed me as a soft kick from the baby landed against my flat stomach.

“Thank you,” Bria whispered. “You saved my baby’s life.”

I nodded as Katy led her away, shooting me a worried look.

“Honey,” Mom said, coming up behind me and sliding a hand along my shoulders. Nikolai stood beside her, his worried eyes studying me.

“Can you... I need a minute,” I mumbled, stumbling back a step.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Nikolai offered, his worried gaze making me self-conscious.

“No,” I said quickly, shaking my head. I met his eyes. “I just need a few minutes.”

I turned away and headed down the road, not entirely sure where I was going.

“Babe.” Remy’s hand reached for mine and caught it, falling into step with me.

“I can’t talk about this right now, Remy,” I told him, staring straight ahead. “I just... I need a minute.”

“Do you want me to leave you alone?”

He was worried and frustrated, but he would do as I asked if needed.

I started to choke on a laugh. All I could do was tighten my hand around his. Words stuck in my throat like the desert dust to my sweaty skin.

He would leave me to wander the streets of Long Mesa because I actually could now without worrying about being grabbed or taunted or chased.

Cassian was dead. He had finally gasped out his last breath an hour earlier. Preston had been dead for over a week. Marc was still alive, but in an indescribable amount of agony while being watched by an elemental who had zero issues with breakin more bones if he considered moving.

Allan was dead. Linden was dead.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

They were all dead . Just like Maisie and Shane and so many others. Like Alaine had almost been. And her baby...

“Baby, you’re scaring us,” he said softly.

Us .

I could hear the footsteps behind me and could only imagine the line of my friends currently trailing us. Rhodes and Larkin. Katy. Dante, Tate, and Ryder.

People who loved me too much to let me suffer on my own.

“I’m okay,” I whispered back, still moving forward as I walked away from the heart of town and down a barely used sidestreet.

“Stay,” I told Remy quietly as my feet turned down another road.

His hand squeezed around mine as he silently walked beside me.

Muscle memory led me back before I truly realized where I was. It wasn’t until the charred husk of the omega house came into view that I knew where I was going.

I freed my hand from Remy’s. “Give me a second.”

“Skye, what is this place?” I could hear the worry and confusion in his voice as I kept walking away.

I stopped a few feet from where the crumbling front steps would have been and simply looked.

The sky beyond the horizon was hazy with an impending sand storm. Dry lightning cracked through the sky, ominous and thundering as I glanced around.

My mind could reform where walls and doors had been.

Walls that had peeling paint and reeked of the smells that seeped into the weathered wood over the years. The cracked glass of windows that never opened right. The front door with the busted lock.

I moved closer, tracing the jagged edge where the fireline had charred the foundation. Decayed pieces turned to gritty powder in my fingers.

I could see through the skeletal remains, into the backyard I had played in full of rocks and rusty nails. I would line them up like little girls did stuffed animals, arranging them in a way only my mind understood.

Rocks and rusty nails. Those were my childhood toys.

My fingers snagged on a loose board as I rubbed them across the foundation. It came loose with a single tug, a splinter digging into my palm.

The flash of pain was grounding, steadying.

I dropped the board and it landed on something metal. I knelt and unearthed a crowbar from the rubble.

I tested the weight of it in my hand for a second before letting it swing downward with a satisfying crack that snapped a few of the floorboards like toothpicks.

My other hand closed over the end and I swung again like it was a baseball bat. I hit a corner of the house and debris went flying.

I swung again and the entire structure creaked as the post I’d hit dented. I hit a new spot, watching in fascination as a cloud of dust swelled up and was carried away.

Again and again. I swung harder and hard, destroying parts of the very house that had nearly destroyed me .

I pictured Maisie’s sweet face as I slammed the edge of the crowbar down onto a discarded pane of glass. Shattered fragments sprayed out, cutting my arms.

I pictured Mom’s face, pale and bruised as she crawled to the shower while I destroyed another post.

I lost count of the memories that purged themselves from the darkest parts of my mind. I swung until my arms ached from the force of it. I kept going until the crowbar fell from my numb fingers.

Remy was behind me before the first sob tore from my lips. He turned me away from the house, whispering something that couldn’t penetrate the incessant buzzing in my ears.

My friends stood in the distance, waiting and watching. Larkin and Tate were crying. Katy and Ryder looked just as heartbroken. Rhodes and Dante were doing their best to comfort them while not giving into their own emotions. Emotions they felt for me. Because they were willing to share the pain I felt to lighten my load.

I sagged against Remy, burying my face against his chest as I cried for the girl I used to be and might have been if not for this place.

After a second, he lifted me up, swinging me easily into his arms and carrying me away from my past.