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I pulled myself, using the door as support, and was ready for his next attack. I saw his sharp claws, the menacing claws of a killer. They came down at me, and for a bleak moment, I was eight again.
I was back there in the living room, hiding behind my mother and watching as the invaders killed my father. I wasn’t going to end up like him.
I dodged the claw, grabbing James’s arm and using it to pull him toward myself. I punched him in the throat and knew I should have clawed him instead.
But I am not a killer. I’ve killed only twice before, and both times, I hated it. Besides, this was James. I couldn’t imagine myself killing him.
The blow to his neck made him stagger back, though, and he smiled at me. “You’re good,” he said. “Better than I taught you.”
He didn’t waste time attacking me again. He flew at me this time, and I met him halfway. I went in with my claws, sticking them into his side and dragging them up to cut him as deep as I could. I wasn’t spared, though. He got me around the chest, and we both fell to the floor, wounded and bleeding.
I pulled myself up and looked around the room, finally taking it in. It was mostly empty, but for a round table at the center and a couple of chairs around it. I walked to the table and picked up of the chairs, intending to use it as a weapon. I walked back to James, who was still struggling to get up, and I could see that my claws did a number on him. I hit him on the back, breaking the chair in the process and the pieces strewed around him.
“Why?” I asked him and grabbed him, forcing him to stand up. He didn’t answer, though. He grabbed at me instead, and I moved away from him, causing him to fall.
James dragged himself on the floor, crawling on his stomach towards one of the pieces of the broken chair. I kicked his chin, causing him to stumble to the floor again.
“Tell me why James,” I said, desperate for an answer. Just an explanation so I could wrap my head around this. “I need to know why. Was it money?”
James shook his head. “There is no why,” he said. “It is just the way it is. The strong prey on the weak. It is just nature.”
“You’re a sick bastard,” I said and lifted him up. My claws cut through his clothes. I knew what I had to do. I couldn’t report him to the police. He owned the police, and I just saw thecommissioner of police walk out of the room with the others. There was nothing the police could do about this.
This was between him and me.
“You have to do it,” he told her. “There is no other way.”
I threw him to the floor again. I shook my head. I couldn’t.
I fell to the floor and buried my head in my hands. The weight of the responsibility, of the knowledge, was so heavy on my shoulder it stooped her low. I was going to break; I could tell. I was going to break into a thousand pieces.
I felt a presence come over me, and when I looked up, it was James. He had stood up, and I didn’t notice. He was standing above me with one of the legs of the chairs coming down at me. I moved out of the way just in time and pushed him. The leg was broken and pointed at the two ends. When James missed out on stabbing me, and I pushed him, he fell neck first into the other end of the leg of the chair.
I gasped as the stick impaled James, and he struggled to breathe. I wanted to run to him and push it out to help him, but that would only hurry the process. There was no helping it. He was going to die.
He fell to the ground, bleeding from his throat. He was trying to talk and gulping against the blood. He raised his hands and called to me. I came close to him; the shock still registered on my face.
“Run,” James said with a lot of struggle. “Viper will come for you. Run.”
He was right, I realized. A murdered alpha was more than just a big deal. People were going to come for me. I stood for a while and watched James bleed out on the floor before turning, and running out of the door.
I didn’t care about my feet making so much sound now. I just wanted to get out of the palace, get out of town.
But the kids?
I would come back for them. I would figure something out. But I had to run for now.
I got to the main hall, and at the far end, I saw someone come out of a room, looking at me. I took a quick look at myself. My torn clothes, the blood on my body. It wouldn’t be long before they found James’s body and figured out what I did.
I could kill that person too, and that would keep it quiet until I put a considerable distance between myself and the community. But I wasn’t going to be that person.
I ran out of the Palace instead, and I figured I was right about what I had surmised earlier.
It was going to be a long summer.
Chapter five (Luke)
I rolled the coffee inside my cup as the smell rose up to me. I had watched Bonne prepare it earlier as he told me what he had just heard when he returned from the store. We were in his kitchen, and there was a concoction boiling beside him.
