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It was Rowan who’d caught my arm. “Enough,” he said quietly. He pried the heavy weapon out of my hand and tossed it in an industrial-sized sink fixed to the wall. “You’re done.”
Wylder watched me with a hooded expression, but the fact that he wasn’t heckling me was proof enough that I’d exceeded his expectations. Kaige’s jaw had gone a bit slack, and Gideon’s gaze was penetratingly avid.
I looked down at my blood-splattered hands and felt a shiver run through me.
Kaige let out a hoarse chuckle. “You’ve got a strong stomach.”
Had he expected me to back down too?
Wylder’s smirk came back. “And one hell of an appetite.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? I frowned at him and pushed myself to the sink to wash my hands. Gideon reached past me to grab a rag and a spray bottle, but he held a distance that felt weirdly respectful.
Kaige went over to heave the torso into a separate sack, and Gideon started wiping down the table. “Kitten is more blood-thirsty than any of us thought,” Kaige said. His stance was softer now. Apparently seeing me cut up a man somehow put him more at ease.
I watched the congealing blood swirl away from my hands with the water gurgling down the drain. A bar of soap sat in a dish at the back of the sink—I grabbed it and rubbed it all over my skin from fingertips to wrists, digging in my fingernails, working the lather into the creases of my palms. It felt like forever until every trace of red was gone.
When I turned off the faucet and stepped back, adrenaline kept thrumming through me, leaving me dizzy. I swiped my hands across my cheeks and neck, haunted by the sense that I might have gotten the dead man’s flesh on me somewhere else, although the gown I’d been wearing over my clothes looked pretty clean. Corpses didn’t bleed much.
I wrenched the gown off and threw it into one of the sacks, longing for a shower. Longing to crawl out of my very skin.
This was what my father had wanted. When I was growing up, he’d never missed a chance to remind me that it was a son he longed for, an heir to carry on his legacy. Someone who’d be as strong and ruthless as he was. He’d trained me in combat while reminding me that I would never live up tohisexpectations, punishing me whenever I hesitated or fell short of the mark.
Would he have been impressed by the bloodlust I’d shown today? I wanted revenge on Colt, but the thought of reshaping myself in my father’s image sent an uneasy quiver through the adrenaline dwindling inside me.
Rowan came up to me again. I didn’t look over, but he spoke anyway. “You okay?”
“What do you care?”
“Rowan, Kaige,” Wylder said, “prep the car for transport. Quickly. I don’t want this bastard stinking up my home any longer.”
Rowan looked at me for a second before he followed Kaige out. Gideon stood off to the side, typing something on his tablet. “No missing persons reports yet.”
“Won’t anybody trace the murder back to you?” I asked.
Gideon smiled humorlessly. “I’d like to see them try.” He glanced at Wylder. “I’ve got to tie up a few loose ends upstairs. The signal down here is pathetic. You don’t need me for anything else right now?”
Wylder shook his head.
After Gideon was gone, I tried not to look in the general direction of the table. The smell of the disinfectant he’d rubbed over the metal surface had drowned out most of the fleshy stink already. When my gaze settled on the bags for a moment, no regret hit me, only a surge of triumph.
I’d done it. That was the important thing. I’d proved what I was made of—that I wasn’t going to shy from a challenge. That anything they could face, I could too.
“You’ve got mettle,” Wylder said as if he could read my thoughts.
I made a face at him. “Does that mean we’re done with the punishments now?”
A sly smile curved his lips. “It didn’t look like a punishment for you. You almost seemed to be… enjoying it.”
He’d struck closer to the truth than I liked. “Maybe you’re just projecting,” I suggested.
He sauntered up to me and tucked his finger under my chin so I’d meet his gaze. “You’re not quite how I had you figured.”
“Really? And how’s that?”
He teased his fingertip over the sensitive skin so delicately I couldn’t ignore the tingle that shot through me. “I think under that righteous facade of yours lies something even more brutal than you let on.”
I scowled at him. “You don’t have the first idea about me.”
