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Luke didn’t give him a moment to recover. He attacked like a savage, slamming his fists into the bush dog’s temples over and over, dazing him further. Soon, Donal dropped to his knees, his eyes completely glazed over. Luke wasted no time in acting. He unsheathed his claws once more and sliced the fucker’s throat, severing arteries.
It was no swift death. Donal gurgled and choked for what seemed like endless minutes. Then, finally, he slumped to the ground, unmoving.
Swiping at the blood dripping from his nose, Luke turned to face his mate. She sucked in a breath. Unsurprising. He knew he was a mess. His knuckles were red and swollen. His utter lip was split. Rake marks scored his face, chest, and sides. A deep gash sliced through his eyebrow, stinging like fuck courtesy of the sheen of sweat on his forehead.
Blair slowly came to him, reaching out to touch him but hesitating.
Knowing she was worried she’d hurt him, Luke curled an arm around her shoulders and tugged her close. She shuddered against him, and he could feel how much it pained her to see him so wounded. He put his mouth to her ear, whispering, “It’s over, baby. It’s all over.”
Healed, clean, and thoroughly sated, Blair sprawled over her mate later that night as they lay in bed. She couldn’t quite make her mind go quiet. It was currently a hub of activity, replaying the evening’s events again and again.
Well it wasn’t as if they’d been able to relax the moment Donal’s corpse hit the ground. There had been so much to do. Like getting rid of evidence and notifying her old pack about Donal.
Mitch had lost it when she’d returned his call and told him what happened, as had her parents when she’d later called them. They felt guilty for upholding that none of their pack mates could be her stalker, as well as for trusting Donal.
Breaking it to Embry that his Beta was not only her stalker but had killed Gabriel’s parents had been hard. Absolutely devastated by Donal’s betrayal and by Embry’s own mistakes, the Alpha had expressed an intention to visit Gabriel and “make things right.” Blair wasn’t sure that was doable, but she hadn’t said as much.
Donal’s body was now nothing but crumbs, according to Isaak—and yeah, ew. Dimitri had claimed the Beta’s van for himself on learning it wasn’t registered to Donal, so that was sorted.
None of the pride were shocked to hear that Finley had come to her rescue. But then, as Vinnie pointed out, the female enforcer might be a pain from time to time but she would always protect her pride mates whether she had a fondness for them or not.
After Blair thanked her for all that she’d done that night, Finley had responded, “Yeah, well, don’t read anything into it. I still don’t like you.” There had been no heat in her words, though. In fact, there’d been a playful glint in her eye.
Blair doubted that they would ever be friends, but she did get the feeling that they’d no longer be foes. Going by how Finley had earlier deferred to her as they cleaned up the evidence, the enforcer had clearly decided it was time to stop pushing for the position of Beta. Maybe it was Blair’s advice that made the difference, maybe it was something else. Whatever the case, Blair was glad of it.
As for the standoff between the humans and the shifters … the only casualties had been human, thankfully. Valentina’s brothers had tossed the bodies into Hank Wheeler’s van, promising that they would “take care” of them. Blair hadn’t asked what that meant, but she suspected it involved them using certain body parts as edible delicacies.
The pride members had gotten rid of the other vehicles and cleaned up all evidence of the battle. Unfortunately, that might not be enough to erase every trace of the meeting, since Wheeler or his cronies might have told other anti-shifter extremists about it. If so, their associates would for sure turn their attention to Vinnie when they realized that so many had gone missing.
No one was concerned about that, though. If contacted, Vinnie intended to claim that he’d delivered Camden and then driven away. As the extremists firmly believed that Vinnie was in their corner and trusted him implicitly, he didn’t believe they would at all consider that he could be connected to the “disappearance” of Hank and his fellow assholes.
Although Zayne wasn’t exactly a person who could go missing without it being noticed by many and then thoroughly investigated, the pride wasn’t much concerned that it would be linked to them. After all, it didn’t seem likely that the police would learn he’d recently paid Vinnie a visit. But if they did, Vinnie already had a story whipped up that would connect Zayne with extremists and shifter poaching—the police tended to avoid getting involved in such matters. And River would be a big help in ensuring that their attention was diverted anyway if necessary.
