She’d fisted the top page of the open book and strained to tear it from its binding.A deep growl rumbled like thunder from the area of Panaal’s chest, and a mighty wind blew through the clearing.Panaal bared his teeth, those black eyes fixed on Meredith.
“You fucking bitch,” Alex yelled.“You’ll doom us all!”
Leaning into the wind, her red hair whipping around her head, Meredith ripped the page in two.Carefully, she fed the pieces into the purple flames in front of the altar.The parchment caught fire at Panaal’s feet even as the ground shook harder and the wind increased to hurricane proportions.Panaal’s mouth opened in a brain-slicing scream, his teeth gnashing in Meredith’s direction.But his bite passed right through her.
In obvious pain, Meredith lifted one side of the massive tome and slammed the book shut.Panaal’s growls turned into howls as the god of the underworld descended slowly into the purple flames.
Alex gaped.A mixture of rage and disappointment strained his features.For a moment his muscles flinched.Silas used the opportunity to remove one hand from his wrists and punch Alex in the side of the head.With all his weight behind the blow, it was enough for Alex to loosen his grip.Wrestling the dagger away, Silas twirled the blade and centered it over Alex’s heart, pinning his arms to his sides with his knees.
“You’ve won.”Alex went limp under Silas’s weight.“Take me in.Lock me up.Let the pack deal with me.”
“I should.Maybe it’s the right thing to do,” he mumbled.
“Of course it is.What kind of alpha would you be, what kind of detective, if you didn’t uphold the process of justice?”
“You have a point.”Silas watched a smug grin crawl across Alex’s face.
“You can’t kill me, Alpha.It wouldn’t be the right thing to do.Not when I’m surrendering.Unarmed.I’m giving myself up.”The words held a well-practiced acerbity.
“I shouldn’t.You’re right about that.Only, I promised my brother vengeance.And I’ve recently learned that there is no substitute for family.I need them, Alex, and they’ll never be safe as long as you’re alive.”He placed both hands on the hilt and looked directly into Alex’s eyes.“This is for my mother, my father, my siblings, my pack, and for Soleil.Go to hell and take the horned god with you.”
He thrust the dagger into Alex’s heart.
Alex’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.His pupils dilated with disbelief.Silas watched the light fade from his widening eyes until there was no more breath, no more fight left in his mortal enemy.And still he pushed the dagger deeper into Alex’s chest, his hands shaking with the need to make certain he was dead.
He’d hated Alex for so long, dreamed about this day with such fervor, that he expected choirs of angels and a rush of elation.But as it became more and more obvious the man was gone, Silas merely felt hollow.Miserable that killing Alex was necessary, helpless that it was impossible to bring back all the people the man had killed, and thankful that it was over while remaining hyperaware that it was not.
A scream behind him seemed to bring him back into the present.He climbed from Alex’s dead body and whirled to find Olivia in her human form, crouching over Jason.
“What have I done?What have I done?”Her hands were shaking.She backed away.
Silas ran to his brother’s side.There was a red ring around Jason’s neck, but otherwise his brother seemed undamaged.
Jason coughed into his hand.“I’m okay.”He rubbed his neck and gave Olivia a sideways glance.
“Silas!”Meredith cried from the altar, Laina in her arms.“My legs won’t work.”
She was staring at the widening crater that crept toward her toes.Panaal was still trapped in the flames, sinking into the rumbling earth like it was quicksand.But it was the space around the horned god that was the problem.The ground was giving way, steaming black emptiness growing from the inside out.
Silas ran for her right as Panaal opened his flaming mouth.The beast laughed, a hissing charcoal bark that increased in its maniacal splendor.The earth swallowed the horned god, but it didn’t stop collapsing.Meredith screamed as the creeping black hole claimed the altar and the book.Both tumbled into the abyss.
He was almost there.So close.
“Meredith!”Silas ran for her, swerving to avoid the widening crater.
She looked up, tears in her eyes.“I love you.”
With a twist of her torso that made her scream from the pain, she threw Laina into his arms.Silas caught his sister.
And then Meredith dropped into the void.
ChapterTwenty-Nine
“Meredith!”Silas transferred Laina into Jason’s arms, thankful his brother was close behind him.
He ran to the edge of the crater, a foolish move considering the ground was still shaking.But what was love but a fool’s errand?He peered over the side.
Panaal was gone, disappeared down the bottomless pit before him.The earth stilled.Thankfully the crater stopped expanding, its hunger seemingly appeased by being fedTheBook of Flesh and Bone.Even the wind gave up its campaign against him.Charred rock steamed from the crater, a dozen small fires burning below, giving off the smell of sulfur and burning flesh.
