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Unfortunately for my uncle, he’s up against four strong alphas. Four alphas who have a grudge to settle, and who hate him for what he’s done to me. The fight is vicious and brutal, but eventually, they wear him down and get the upper hand.
Archer’s wolf clamps its jaw around his neck, teeth making indentations on his skin, while Dare and Trystan pin his arms to keep him from using magic. Clint is bleeding from multiple places on his body, his shirt half torn off and wounds covering his torso. Maybe it makes me a monster, but I appreciate the poetic justice of it—seeing him bleed the way he once made me bleed.
My mates begin to shift back into human form, so I follow suit. I’m too heartened by them winning the battle to worry too much about being naked… until I step up onto the dirt driveway and a cool breeze brushes over my bare skin. The marks on my skin flare like a network of shadows passing over my body. I suddenly feel vulnerable and exposed, facing my biggest fear with nothing to hide me.
Ridge is kneeling on Clint’s chest, while Trystan practically sits on his head. As if by unspoken agreement, Dare and Archer stand to join me, forming a barrier between me and my uncle.
But Clint’s eyes widen as I come toward him out of the darkness.
“It’s you,” he croaks. Victory resonates in his tone despite the raspy quality of his voice. “It worked.”
28
Sable
For a long, interminable moment, my uncle and I stare at each other, neither of us moving.
Hell, I’m hardly even breathing while I try desperately not to fall into my old habits. I am not afraid of this man anymore. I will not bow to him or show him any weakness. I’m not hiding any longer. And right now, he looks like a coward, weak and incapable with his aged body crumpled and bloody beneath my shifters.
Suddenly, Clint laughs, a wild and maniacal sound that sends a shiver racing up my spine. I’ve never heard him sound so unhinged. His laugh echoes off the landscape around us, and the echo only makes him sound crazier. He turns his head and spits blood on the ground.
“They told me I was insane,” he says, almost as if to himself rather than to us. “Told me I couldn’t do it. And look at you. It worked.”
Dare and Archer step in closer to me as if to hide me from his sight, even as I’m trying to see around them.
“What worked?” I snap.
“Might as well let her pass, boys.” Clint leers gleefully to the two shifters barricading me from him. “No need for modesty. I’m not her uncle. And we have things to discuss.”
Dare and Archer exchange glances, but they step aside enough for me to better see Clint. There’s a sort of wild look in his eyes—wilder than his laugh indicated, as if seeing me shift back from wolf form was enough to set him off into insanity.
“What worked?” I repeat, proud of myself that I speak without the slightest tremor in my voice.
“You worked!” He cackles, his eyes rolling in his head and his feet stamping the ground like an animal in its death throes. Then his gaze shoots back to mine, and his mouth opens in a ferocious slash of a smile. “Your parents were a special experiment of mine. I wanted to prove it could be done, and I did. I can see the magic inside you. I can feel it. It sings to me.” Clint’s eyes glitter dangerously as he laughs again.
“Stop talking in circles!” I snarl, and my wolf shines through for just a second in that sound. “You’re clearly proud of yourself. Tell me what you did.”
Clint’s face twists into an even wider grin. “I successfully cross-bred a wit
ch and wolf. It’s never been done before, you know. It’s taboo. Considered verboten. But I knew it was possible. And I knew that if it worked, it would give us a tool to use against the wolves. Now… look at you.”
It takes me a minute to wade through the depths of his insanity and process his words.
I successfully cross-bred a witch and a wolf.
So that means my parents were both.
One witch. One wolf.
Did they just… allow Clint to manipulate them? Or were they complicit?
I hate the feeling of his gaze on me. He isn’t leering at my body or acting like he wants to hurt me. For once, he looks fucking proud of me, and I despise the expression on his face with every atom in my body. It’s the face of a mad scientist whose experiment has worked. The face of Victor Frankenstein watching his unnatural creation come to life.
God. I’m Frankenstein’s monster.
“For the longest time, I didn’t think it had worked,” Clint goes on when I don’t respond. “No matter what torture I submitted you to, nothing happened. I thought I’d failed.”
Holy shit. He tortured me on purpose to trigger the transition.
