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Chapter Nineteen
Maxim
Irun faster than I have in years, bounding over boulders and fallen tree limbs on the forest floor, flowing like dark water rushing down a riverbed.
My blood pounds in my ears and my breath comes faster, but I’m not winded.
I’m strong again—nearly back to normal—and I have my best fighters with me and a huge support team waiting in the wings.
I don’t have to beat Bane alone, and as long as we get to him first, this mission should be relatively easy. Zombies are strong and insanely dangerous when on the loose, but they can’t do shit while chained to a wall.
It will be like shooting fish in a barrel.
One big, evil fish…
Still, when we reach the charred edges of the camp and slow our pace, skirting quietly around the settlement to the north, avoiding the worst of the smoke and the people sobbing and coughing as they dig at a pile of rubble not far from the central cabins, apprehension has my fur standing on end. I keep circling back to what Diana said in her note, about Bane killing our mother.
It should shock me, but…it doesn’t.
What’s shocking is that I didn’t see what a monster my brother was back then. I knew he was selfish and arrogant and wanted the privilege of power without putting in the work, but I didn’t see the evil at the heart of him.
Maybe it hadn’t fully taken hold yet.
Or maybe I was just a naïve teenager, too busy thinking he had shit all figured out to see what was right in front of his face.
All I know for sure is that I won’t mind watching him die a second time.
I won’t enjoy it—I’m not a monster—but I won’t shed one fucking tear for the man who blew a hole through the middle of our family and then tried to do the same to the rest of the world.
There’s only one thing that could make this mission more satisfying.
As if summoned by my thoughts, the fairy devil who tortured me runs across the glen by the line of blue toilets Willow described.
A growl vibrates low in my throat and my lips peel away from my teeth. I want to race straight for that sick fuck and rip him apart, but that’s not my mission here tonight.
I have one target, one goal above all others.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t spare a few fighters to take care of Mr. Gray.
I reach out telepathically to Sam, That fairy with the long gray hair. He’s the one who tortured me. If he surrenders without a fight, capture him. If not, take him out.
On it, Sam says. She gives the order for three of our toughest fighters to join her and they break off from our pack, racing through the grass toward Gray with a speed that makes my mouth fill with salt.
I want to spill his blood so much I swear I can taste it, thick and hot, flowing down my throat. Wanting to kill another creature this much—not just to end them, but to do it as viciously as possible—is nothing to be proud of.
And I’m not.
But I never said I was an angel. I may have a big heart, like my sister said, but I also have a dark, angry side that comes out to play when the people I love are threatened. As my team and I arrive at the place where I was held prisoner and Evan shifts long enough to hold the heavy metal door open so that the rest of us can race down the stairs as wolves, my darkness rises.
By the time I reach the bottom of the stairs and burst through the door into my personal hell, a deep, threatening growl is rolling from my throat like thunder, warning of the impending storm. The woman standing close to where Bane is chained to the wall hears it and spins to face the door, sending her long gray braids flying. Her eyes are gray, too, but a paler gray than the fairy’s and her face is so finely wrinkled she has to be at least eighty, maybe older.
Elsbeth. This must be her.
She’s exactly as Willow described.
I shift, jabbing my arm forward as I transform so that a beat later, I’m standing with a warning finger aimed at the woman’s face. “Don’t take another step. This ends now.”
Bane roars in response and his milky eyes fix on mine. He’s deathly pale, drool flows from the side of his sewn-shut mouth, and black veins stand out on his neck in a way they didn’t before, but he’s still my brother. There’s still something of the old Bane trapped inside this dead body. I can see it in the way his gaze sparks with a mixture of excitement and hatred as it fixes on my throat.
