“Okay,” I agree, allowing my eyes to harden—allowing him to see the darkness festering just beneath the surface, waiting for an outlet. “Help me get rid of Izzy. She’s destroying my pack, and I refuse to allow that to happen.” I curl my upper lip away from my teeth. “She’s not even a shifter. My brothers don’t see it—don’t see how bad she is for us—but they will. But by then, it’ll be too late. She’ll have them wrapped around her little finger.”
Kain’s smile sharpens, reminding me of a serrated blade seconds before it cuts through flesh, making you bleed.
He leans forward slightly. “You’re more like me than I thought, aren’t you, Ashton?”
I don’t answer as I move away from the cell to grab the key. Since most of the “prisoners” are usually drunk fuckers or shifters who willingly agree to be locked up, nobody makes an effort to hide the keys. They simply dangle on a hook near the foot of the stairs.
“You really do hate that bitch, don’t you?” Kain muses as I slide the key into the lock.
I glance up at him and allow him to see the pure, unfettered loathing in my eyes. “I want her gone.”
“And gone she shall be,” Kain practically purrs as the door swings open.
I swallow the knot that has manifested in my throat, knowing the consequences of what I’m about to do and praying I don’t come to regret it.
Forgive me,I mentally whisper, though I don’t know who I’m speaking to. My pack? Izzy? Christian? God?
Either way, no one answers, and the feeling of dread in my stomach intensifies.
Kain steps out of the cell with a smug smirk on his face—a smile that looks out of place amongst the multitude of bruises still marring his skin and the blood on his clothes.
“Come. I think there’s someone you should meet,” Kain says cryptically, and I nod once before following him up the stairs.
Twenty-Eight
IZZY
Soraya’s lips purse as she stares at the body, and my heart thumps even faster, creating a high-pitched ringing sound between my ears.
I wonder what thoughts are going through her head. Heaven knows I can’t articulate a single one in my own currently.
After a long moment, she sighs and swishes her hand back and forth in the air. The body vanishes in a cloud of glittery light.
“Where…?” Ethan gawks, scratching absently at his bare chest.
Soraya barely spares the half-naked shifter a look. “To the garden outside. The wards around the covenstead won’t allow me to transport it any farther than that.”
She turns on her heel and begins stalking down the hall—towards, presumably, the garden.
“And you can’t…I don’t know…make the body disappear or something? Make it go up in flames?” Ethan presses as he keeps pace with me.
Grayson ducks back into the room and returns a second later, tugging his shirt over his head. At least he’s covered. I know Soraya claimed she’s not attracted to dick, but it’s hard for the little green monster in my head to calm down when my guys are walking around half naked, their bodies chiseled from stone.
Focus, Izzy. There are more important things to worry about.
“What the hell is going on?” I push slightly ahead of Ethan until I’m shoulder to shoulder with Soraya, who glances at me sharply out of the corner of her eye. “How did that warlock die? There were claw marks on his chest.”
“Self-inflicted claw marks,” Soraya says, though the stiffness of her shoulders belies her composed tone.
“Self-inflicted?” Ethan pipes up. “He’s a warlock?—”
“Who can access powerful spells, including ones that can mutate parts of the body,” Soraya says.
She quickens her pace as we turn a corner and finally reach a door at the end of the hall. She opens it, and we all pile outside into the garden I spotted from Soraya’s window.
It seems to be smack dab in the middle of the covenstead—despite the open air, it’s surrounded on all four sides by reddish-brown brick walls. An old stone bench rests beneath a willow tree, its long branches creating shadows on the ground. A single crow sits on one of those low branches, watching me with unblinking eyes, its feathers dark and sleek.
Everything about this place is both beautiful and eerie, a perfect blend of witchy magic and nature. The slightest of breezes—dampened by the surrounding walls—blow back my golden curls.
