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Her eyes blazed. “He didn’t want me to. Arlo just wouldn’t see that. He wouldn’t stay out of it. It can only have been him who put it in Derek’s head to get me expelled from The Hollow. My friend works at the Command Centre. She saw the application to have me removed. She warned me about it.”
I didn’t dare glance at Coop. He’d been the one to pose the question to Derek of why he’d never tried to have her removed from the island. Maybe that had put the idea into the guy’s head, or maybe Derek had already been considering it. Either way, I saw no need to speculate with her on that. And I was immensely glad that Coop was unable to speak, because it was possible he’d have nobly taken the blame to save Arlo’s ass.
“I knew Sam and Jared would easily agree to it,” she continued. “Derek is a member of their legion. I serve no purpose here. I came as his partner, and he’d made it clear to one and all that I was no longer that. The Grand High Pair wouldn’t care that I have nowhere to go or no one to turn to. Neither did Derek. When I confronted him, he said it would be for the ‘best.’ Said he’d only kept me round this long because I was too helpless to be alone. He ridiculed me, laughed at me, called me weak.”
So she’d shown him that she wasn’t quite as powerless as he’d thought. “Did you always plan to call the animals here?” I asked, ignoring the ache that began to assail the muscles being forced to remain stiff by fucking Beatrix.
“No. I knew the people here wouldn’t accept them. They’ve been hunting and killing them. So have you. I had to keep my nest safe—that’s what good leaders do. So I compelled them to stay away.”
“But then you heard about Derek’s application, and you got pissed.”
She shrugged. “Ryder would have scanned my mind at some point anyway. He would have seen that I was guilty. For a while, I thought I might be able to convince Sam and Jared that we could all live in peace with my nest. But that wouldn’t have happened, would it?”
No, but Beatrix had believed what brought her comfort. It seemed to be a pattern with her.
“They will kill me,” she added. “But not in time to save Arlo or Coop.”
“You’ve already killed Derek, haven’t you?”
Her nostrils flared. “He would have thrown me away. Again. But for good this time—I saw that. And I’ve had enough of being thrown away.” She whipped out a blade and came toward me. “Now, my plan was to slit Coop’s throat when Arlo, the man who started it all, arrived. But I’m thinking of revising my plan. I could have you shift into your jaguar form. I could change you with my gift. Then I could immobilise you until Arlo arrives. It would be heart-breaking for him to watch the man he cares for be shredded to pieces. Then he’ll know how I felt when he took Derek from me.”
Cold fingertips scuttled down my spine. “There’s a huge fault with that plan. I’m not going to shift for you. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I can barely move.”
“I would release you long enough for you to change forms.”
“Yeah, but I still wouldn’t do it.”
Her mouth tightening, she cast Coop a sideways look. “If you don’t shift, I’ll kill him.”
“And if I do shift, you’ll try to make me kill him. This is a no-win situation for the guy.”
“How about this then?” She advanced on me and pointed the tip of the knife above my heart. “Shift, or I kill you right here right now. Then I will shove your body over that balcony for your squad and your friends to find. How about that?”
(Ryder)
“Christ, that was awful,” said Chico, rubbing a hand over his face.
The man was right. Dead birds littered the ground, bobbed in the water, and were sprawled in the sand. Now that there were no more birds to beat at the shield, Sam had collapsed it. But no one felt an ounce of triumph at our win, because the animals hadn’t been our enemies. They’d been victims.
There were no deaths on our side, and it didn’t seem that anyone had suffered any major injuries. Then again, they would have called on Paige long before now if they’d been badly hurt. She tended to hop from one wounded person to another during battles, collecting their wounds to use them as weapons.
“The animals outside the gates are dead, too,” said Jared, who must be telepathically in contact with the squad members out there. “There were wildcats, boars, capybaras, and more. A lot more damage would have been done here if they’d managed to get through the gates.”
