She was yanking filthy sheets up to her chest, eyes wide, face drained, fear bright and sharp in her stare.
“Calix!” she screamed.
The sound hit me like a punch to the gut. For a second, the hurt was so raw it made my vision shake.
“Why?” The single word tore out of me, but it was all I had left to give. The only word that overtook my thoughts and feelings.
Her lips parted. Closed. She swallowed.
“I just…” Her eyes flicked to the wolf beside her. “I just wanted to see if he was my mate.”
My stomach hollowed.
She rushed on the second she saw my face change. “I wasn’t cheating on you! I love you… I just felt something, in here.” She put her hand over her heart. The move cut me to ribbons even if she didn't know it. “If he was my mate, I was going to talk to you. To tell you I still wanted to be with you because I love you, and that maybe, just maybe you would accept him.” Her voice climbed, becoming frantic. “You know, just like your mom has your dads, right?”
Mates.
That word again.
It crawled under my skin, setting every nerve on fire.
My nostrils flared. Heat surged through my veins so fast my hands shook.
She knew. She knew the only reason my parents made that type of relationship work was because they were all my mom’s mates. She knew I couldn’t handle that kind of arrangement. I’d admitted that. I’d told her in confidence how I could never do what my dads did, knowing how obsessive and possessive I got.
I thought she understood me.
The werewolf finally stood, dick on full display as his lips curved up. He looked me up and down, then lifted both hands in a lazy shrug.
“Hey, don’t blame me,” he said, smirking. “Your girl felt a pull. Wanted to see if we were mates.” He twisted the knife in my gut, and he knew it. “Not my fault.”
Something inside me broke.
A thick, rich liquid fell to the floor underneath my clenched fists. I barely felt it. The pain was distant, useless, nothing more than a spark tossed into gasoline. The fury didn’t recede. Instead, it swelled, filling every hollow place until there was nothing left of me but heat and pressure and red.
I stopped fighting it.
The world narrowed to the wolf. One blink. One step. I was on him.
My hand locked around his throat, fingers closing, twisting. There was a sharp crack, too clean, too easy. His body went slack, head hanging to the side before Valentina’s scream even finished tearing out of her.
It wasn't enough. I needed more pain, more blood, more death to fill this hole in my soul.
Fire roared through my veins, loud enough to drown out everything else. Someone had to pay for this. Had toburn.
I drove my fist into his chest. Bone gave way with a crack. Fingers digging into his wet center, I grabbed at the only thing that would make this final.
Blood hit the floor in thick splashes as I ripped free what was still beating, hot and slick in my hand. I crushed it without hesitation, fragments slipping through my fingers.
I let go, and the dead body collapsed at my feet.
Behind me, Valentina’s sobs broke into words, over and over, like a prayer she thought might save her.
“I just wanted to see if he was my mate.”
I stared down at my shoes, soaked dark, my pants heavy with crimson blood. My hands trembled now—not with regret, but with how little it had done to quiet the storm.
Not enough.
