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“Aria,” she whimpered.
“Rebecca,” I answered.
“I’m sorry—”
“No,” I urged. “Don’t apologize. This was my fault.”
A sob interrupted me as I looked at my sister. She seemed unharmed. “I shouldn’t have—”
“It was none of our faults,” she interjected.
“What a touching family reunion.” Azazel rolled his eyes as he stood. “The orphan and her adopted sister, whose family she endangered by running away and shacking up with a half-blood angel in the middle of nowhere.”
Guilt slammed into me at his words. “I…”
He was right. As much as Rebecca would try to absolve me of my guilt, this was all my fault. Minus the shitty people who’d started this, if I’d just stayed in my office, in my apartment, and wrote like I’d been doing, none of this would have happened.
He approached Rebecca slowly. The wolves who’d brought her in spread out within the room. I bucked again, struggling against Tyler’s hold on me.
“I thought you might need some incentive,” Azazel started conversationally. He flexed the fingers on one hand open, elongating the claws.
“I’ll do anything,” I said immediately. “I’ll agree to anything, just—”
“Leave your family alone?” he guessed. “It’s too late for that, I’m afraid. Let this be your first lesson: You willneverhave the upper hand, Aria.”
With one quick downward slash, he ripped into Rebecca from shoulder to hip.
Someone screamed, and then all hell broke loose.
19
TRUE STRENGTH
Aria
My wolf took over too quickly for me to agonize over the fact that she was taking control.
In fact, as I launched myself at Azazel, I was acutely aware of my actions. Rage fueled my movements, and my scream morphed into an enraged roar as I took him to the floor with me.
The scent of Rebecca’s blood spurred me on. I aimed for his throat as we skid across the floor.
I was careful to put myself between her and everyone else in the room when she collapsed with a pained whimper. Behind her, I heard Sariel’s chains snap and clatter to the ground
Then, I realized as I was snarling at Azazel—who’d frozen at my shift—that the change had broken me out of the cuffs.
My wolf was firing on all cylinders. She wanted blood.
The wolves holding Sariel shifted nervously on their feet when he didn’t move despite his chains being broken. I took a tentative step back and slipped in a small pool of blood—Rebecca’s blood.
The emotion I’d mistaken as rage before was nothing compared to the hot, bubbling madness that filled me. My wolf let out a blood-curdling howl that had several other wolves in the room falling to their knees under the weight of my dominance, the guards holding Sariel included.
Tyler tried to stay upright, but when my wolf swiveled her head in his direction, he caved, lowering his eyes in submission.
My wolf wanted to kill every person in this room, but she accepted that I wouldn’t be able to stomach it.
I was too weak to stop her. She wanted to rampage. She wanted her pound of flesh for Azazel’s transgression.
This was bloodlust.
