Bellamy scoffs. “They never would have killed me.” She eyes Doc Z with blatant disgust. “They understand how this world works. I’m too powerful to be put down.”
Doc Z finally makes a move for the former dire awry. Bellamy doesn’t even attempt to stop the vicious punch aimed for her. Cay shouts, also darting forward.
Presh is standing far too close to the brawl poised to destroy the immediate area.
So I reach for Doc Z’s threads, grabbing all of them at once.
She jerks to a stop, her fist only an inch from Bellamy’s smirking face.
“I said that’s enough.” I yank Doc Z back, using a little too much power, because she stumbles and falls to her knees at my feet. “All the choices leading up to this moment have already been made. Dissecting the past fixes nothing.”
Doc Z finally looks at me directly, peering up even as her head is partially bowed. Hatred that I previously missed, or that’s flourished in the months I’ve been gone, radiates from her. “You don’t command me.”
Cay moans quietly, stifling the sound.
I remove my sunglasses, giving Doc Z all the eye contact she seems to crave in this moment.
Zephyr starts to shake, but she doesn’t drop my gaze. “If you’re so fucking powerful, where the fuck have you been? You’re just toying with them and harboring mass fucking murderers now … because you’re just like the rest.”
“Oh, fuck.” Cay takes a shaky breath. “Zaya … please …”
“I’m not going to hurt her, Cay,” I say evenly. “But … you will stay away from Precious, Zephyr. You will voluntarily tell the Outcast that you’re transferring to another pack. Or I will inform him of your prejudices against his nieces.”
“This is my pack,” Doc Z gasps. “It’s not your decision —”
“I could rip the pack bonds from you right now,” I say, still calm. “I won’t because it might kill you. And because you’re correct. Normally, I stay outside such petty disputes and interests, but Presh is mine. As is Bellamy, Rought, Rath, and even fucking Reck. And you’re very ill-informed if you think the Outcast would even try to countermand my claim on them.”
“Zaya …” Presh murmurs, clearly thinking I’m being too harsh.
“No, Presh,” I say firmly. “I’m not handing out second chances when someone I love is clearly threatened. Especially without any evidence of remorse.” I release my hold on Doc Z’s threads, offering her my hand instead. I truly didn’t intend to knock her to her knees.
Ignoring my hand, she scrambles to her feet and takes a few steps back. She glances around as if she might find an ally in Cay or even DeVille. The young shifter’s expression is set in stone, though, fiercely protective of his mate.
Cay looks resigned. “Just go to the Outcast, Doc. I suggest you … don’t leave anything out. You don’t need the truth dropping into his inbox.”
“That’s what Coda’s been doing when they get bored. Emailing about every little disruption or cover-up in the MC or the pack,” Presh says to me, sounding slightly gleeful about it. “It’s driving the Outcast nuts.”
“But you agree with me,” Doc Z says to Cay, ignoring the interjected clarification. “About her.” She slashes a hand toward Bellamy just in case that wasn’t clear.
“We don’t know each other very well,” Cay says.
“What? We’ve known each other for five years! We dated brothers, for fuck’s sake.”
Cay grimaces. “Are we calling casual, dirty fucks in the storage closet or clubhouse bathroom ‘dating’ now?”
Doc Z reels back. “That’s not … that’s not all … Rath was always …” She drops that line of thought, though she was the one who brought it up. “I was there for you, Cay. I always have been. When Kiki went missing —”
“Not missing,” Cay says. “Kidnapped. And Zaya was the one who rescued her.”
“What? That … you didn’t tell me.”
Cay leans a little closer. “Not all of us went to fancy schools or had talents easily hidden that made us outshine others in our fields.”
Doc stiffens.
“Some of us have had bloody pasts forced upon us. And even though we now try to hold to a lighter path, some of us were very recently prepared to walk into a building and murder everyone between us and our sister.” She flicks a gaze at Bellamy, then back to Doc. “The difference being, it seems, that I don’t have purple eyes.”
“I’m not … prejudiced.”
