“Wrong dog,” Roman murmured before he slammed his fist into Axel’s throat.
The wet crunch made him giggle, the sound alien to his ears as Axel’s hands fumbled with the front of his throat. Trachea collapse was simple under Roman’s precise strike; he’d been sparring with a trained fighter for the last two years of his life and pleasure surged through him at how effective the hit had been. It wasn’t suffering to the depth he would have preferred, but there was something satisfying about watching someone wheeze as they suffocated to death.
He sank to his knees in the mud, watching as Axel’s face reddened. “Hurts, right?”
Axel stared at him with wide and disbelieving eyes, trying to draw in breath through a throat that no longer worked. For just a moment, Roman considered ripping his throat open to give him one last gasp before he gurgled his last, but he didn’t possess the quality of mercy.
Those alphas bled it out of him the moment they laid hands on his mate.
“You’re going to die soon,” he said, relishing the way Axel’s eyes widened up at him, blinking to clear away the rain that fell into them every few seconds. “There is no saving you. I want you to know that. You are going to die, and you are going to die because you touched my omega.”
Sidian, sharp and prickly and yet sweet when he wanted to be. Sidian, who once said all he wanted to do was disappear into the woods and live like a cryptid or something equivalent.
Sidian, who trusted Roman enough to open up to him, who accepted the hand Roman offered him, who wanted nothing more than to beseen,to berespected,to be treated with kindness that did not come with conditions attached. Sidian, who was so, so afraid of everyone around him, and yet sought connection with a desperation that made Roman feel sick to his stomach.
His tormented, beautiful mate, who only deserved the best things in life.
“I am going to kill your entire pack,” Roman promised as Axel’s body bucked, instinct kicking in as he pissed himself, as the fear took hold of him. “So don’t get too lonely down in hell. I’ll send your brothers to you as soon as I get done with them.”
He held Axel’s gaze with his own until the alpha stopped moving, his body slumping against the earth as the last of the life drained out of him. Blue-tinted lips stopped smacking, hanging half-open as a thin line of drool trailed down from the corner of his mouth. The front of his throat looked almost comical, dented in as deeply as it was. Roman had done a good job with it.
He wished he had his phone. It took shitty pictures, but it would have been a trip to show Mal what he had pulled off.
Shouts echoed through the trees, and he lifted his head to see the Kincaids spilling off the porch.
When an alpha bonded into a pack died, the entire pack would feel it. That none of them had noticed Axel’s desperate attempts at survival said something about how sick their bond was, but Roman didn’t care about that. It was a relief that they hadn’t been able to stop him.
He wondered about their omega just as Jett Kincaid fell to his knees.
“No,” Nash said, shaking his head as he raked his hands through his hair. “No, no, no, that’s not possible, is it? There’s no way that just happened.”
They could feel the absence within the bond, which was more than enough for them to know something horrible must have happened. Roman chuckled as he leaned back, taking in a deep breath of the fresh night air, of the blood and piss and shit of the corpse beneath him.
He wasn’t able to give the doctor at the breeding center enough time or attention, but he would rectify that now. He would send everyone who had hurt his mate straight into the fire.
“Axel!” Knox shouted into the trees. “This isn’t funny. Where the fuck are you?”
Denial is such an addictive drug.Roman blew a breath and rose to his feet, rolling his shoulders to work the slight tension out of them.
Puppy was nowhere to be seen, but now that he knew she was there, he could almost feel her like a phantom limb. Could almost imagine her silent pacing back and forth as she waited to see what would happen next. She would know Axel was dead; Roman wondered if she would be disappointed she didn’t get to do it herself, but he supposed it didn’t matter too much to her.
All of them had a hand in hurting her, after all. Just like all of them had hurt Sidian.
“Why isn’t he answering?” Jett’s voice was low, careful, controlled, but Roman could see the way his hands shook before he shoved them into the pockets of his jeans. So much weakness on open display; they must have relied on numbers to get by this long. “Where the hell is he, Knox? There’s… There’s no way, is there? There’s no way they could have…”
He trailed off, unwilling to admit the truth, but Knox did not answer. He stared into the trees instead, alert and hoping the impossible would come true.
Roman watched him for a moment before his gaze dropped back to the corpse at his feet. If the Kincaids were unwilling toadmit the truth, then it was up to Roman to ensure that they understood the gravity of their situation. He doubted they would rise to the occasion, but the least he could do was give them a chance to brace themselves.
Sidian did not have that chance. He did not have the luxury of being given an opportunity to prepare himself for what Pack Kincaid had done to him. But he had survived, and Roman would ensure that the Kincaid alphas did not.
He owed it to his mate, and he would deliver no matter what it took.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Dax grunted as Sidian slammed him into the wall of the nest as hard as he could, plaster cracking all the way up to the ceiling from the force of the blow. Several of the photographs fluttered to the ground as their fragile adhesive was disturbed, the sight of them drawing a snarl from Sidian’s lips. How dare he? How fucking dare he ever think he could do something likethat?
“You stupid bitch!” Dax backhanded him across the face and Sidian stumbled back, his cheek throbbing from the impact. “Don’t ruin what little progress you’ve made. You’ll regret it.”
