“Oh, really!” Alec smiled. He put the point of the knife to Dale Rodgers’s chest, the mountain mafia boss shivering as Alec pushed the knife tip through his clothes, stopping just shy of piercing skin. “Who is going to come after you?”
“I…my men! They won’t rest until I’m avenged,” Rodgers tried to bluff, Leif chuckling as Rodgers lied again. Leif shook his great shaggy head, red eyes glowing in the night.
“Seems like no one’s gonna care you’re missing,” Alec declared. “The great Dale Rodgers, mountain mafia boss, goes missing and no one cares. Well, people might rejoice down in Hemlock, that’s for sure. Goddess knows that town will benefit with you dead and gone.”
Alec kept the knife pressed to Rodgers’s chest.
“Stu forced my mother to make drugs for him until it killed her, then he planned to do the same thing to me, except this time he sold me to you,” Alec said, making eye contact with Rodgers. “I was chained and forced to work with dangerous chemicals and poisons. It would have killed me eventually, like it killed my mother. You bought me, a person, and forced me to make drugs that hurt people. I was damn near starved, living in a cold cell for weeks, andbeaten if I was too slow or refused to work. I blew up the warehouse to escape, and you chose to send people after me, either to kill me or drag me back. You sent them to their deaths. Tonight, you did it again. These people are all dead because of you.”
Alec leaned in and pressed enough on the knife that it cut Rodgers’s skin, making the man hiss in pain.
“I love my mother, but I am not her,” Alec told Rodgers. “She refused to fight. She faded and died instead of escaping or protecting her only child. I won’t be the same. I have someone to fight for, to live for, and I’ll never let anyone use me again.”
Rodgers’s eyes went wide in terror as Alec pushed the knife into his chest.
No need to use his powers, not when he had something important to save all his energy for after they dealt with the mess.
Leif
The bonfirethey made out of the fallen tree burned bright and hot, sending smoke and embers high in the sky, lighting the surrounding forest, the trees seeming to dance in the flickering lights.
Alec leaned into his side, holding the knife he’d used to kill Rodgers. “What are you going to do with the knife? Keep it?”
“I don’t really need a knife,” Alec said. “I’ve got an amazing mate with fangs and claws.”
Leif growled happily from low in his chest, huggingAlec tighter to his side. Alec smiled up at him, his wildflower scent mixed with coppery blood and hints of contentment. He was amazed by Alec’s calm, but he was happy and equally content with the choice Fate made for him in a mate—Alec was not at all bothered by the violence he was capable of, and he never shied away from the blood and carnage.
“I was saving my energy, but I can spare a bit for this,” and Alec held the blade up in the light. Leif watched in impressed awe as the blade shimmered, and then fell away into dust, Alec holding his hand out for the wind to blow away the remnants of the hunting knife.
“How...” Leif asked.
“I changed its molecular structure, turned it into metal dust.” Alec brushed his hands together. “No murder weapon to find, even if there was a body left to examine after the fire.”
“I am so impressed right now,” Leif said, and he hugged Alec to him, careful not to crush his mate.
Chapter 14
Alec
Dawn came with a quiet flood of white and gold light, the forest brightening slowly, birds waking, the few remaining species calling to each other as the sun’s glow spread over the mountains.
Alec sat on Leif’s lap, his huge mate in his lycan form keeping him warm through the night as they tended the fire, making sure everything was reduced to ashes and the fire didn’t spread past the fallen tree.
A few bones remained, along with blackened metal from buckles and weapons, but Alec would take care of them after he sorted out his mate’s curse.
“Can you Change back for me?” Alec asked, hand on Leif’s chest where the scar was hidden under thick fur.
In answer, Leif Changed, smoothly transitioning from lycan to human form in seconds, Alec in his lap the whole time. Blood and gore spotted and smeared his pale skin, but the area over his scar was clear.
“What’s on your mind, little greenbough?” Leif asked, smiling down at him with crystal-bright blue eyes.
“I want to try to dismantle the curse,” Alec said,spreading his fingers over the ancient dagger mark, sending his awareness deeper into Leif to the silver blade tip surrounded by dense scar tissue.
Leif held him gently, watching him with trust and affection, and Alec breathed in deeply before reaching out with his magic.
The silver was old, so old, the inimical curse anchored in the metal, sending out strands of hunger to consume the life force of any wolf that dared to form a pack bond with Leif. His poor mate, alone for centuries, cut off from the essential and necessary bonds with his own species, languishing on a lonely mountain until he stumbled across Alec in the cold woods.
Alec closed his eyes, focusing on the silver. Any surgical attempt to remove the chunk of metal would be butchery, as Leif’s healing would compromise every second of cutting by a scalpel—so Alec did not cut.
