I could have blamed my wolf, but if I had truly not wanted to confront the professor, I would have climbed into the car with my mate.
Being a shifter, I was healing fast, but I suspected I’d have scars on my chest, back, and legs.
My wolf had killed a professor, so there would be consequences, but for now the stress that had been a companion for months had evaporated.
“How do I explain what happened?” A dead professor wouldn’t go unnoticed, and we could hardly toss him in a pit of wet concrete. We weren’t mafia.
My head was buried in the crook of Phelan’s neck as Jack tapped my back.
“It’s okay, Jack. I’ll face the consequences.”
“No. It’s not that.”
Whatever it was could wait because we had to alert someone, anyone, about the mutilated body covered in congealing blood and dust.
“There’s someone else or something else.” There was an urgency in her tone.
Coach. My beast had downed a wolf so it wouldn’t be a problem to deal with a squirrel shifter.
“M-more like s-something else.” Jack’s voice wavered.
“Gods, you need to see this, Rawling.” Phelan was clutching my hand.
I didn’t want to turn around. This was done and our troubles were over. Maybe we could stay at Sombertooth, though I might be in prison or banished and my in-laws may have custody of Eira. If I stayed where I was and walked away, I would have to confront whoever it was. I was done, and I’d suffered enough trauma for a lifetime. I wanted to live.
But I couldn’t avoid it and stick my head in the sand. I had to meet this head-on. I gulped and glanced over my shoulder. Oh gods, no. Was this from me? He didn’t look the same as the last time.
The man wasn’t human. It was an apparition, or a vision, similar to the one I’d witnessed last semester who’d beckoned me toward the woods. So all the talk of my heart stopping and killing the hunter in me was hogwash. I was still a hunter, and as my heart had stopped after the birth, there was now no way of ridding myself of the hunter.
“You have to run.” I shook Phelan’s shoulders. “You and Jack. Get out of here. Take Eira far away and never look back.”
“What? No. I’m never leaving you.”
I pulled away from him. If my beast had to fight and maim him, I would. I’d tell him the mate bond was meaningless and I never loved him.
“Stay back.” I stumbled over the wood that had fallen when both beasts fell onto the pile. “I’m no good for you, Phelan. The apparition is part of me, the hunter part that didn’t die.”
Jack grabbed my arm, but I shrugged her off, allowing my beast into my gaze. Phelan had to survive for Eira’s sake, and Jack would help him raise her. Silent sobs wracked my shoulders because I’d never see my baby grow up. She was my beautiful little girl and she deserved a bright future, one free from doubt as to who she was. Thank gods, Holden had established the hunter gene was only passed down through the alpha.
“Rawling, no, you’re wrong.” Jack was pointing at something over my shoulder.
“I’ve learned more about hunters than I ever wanted to and now the bad voice that I thought had died has once again taken a ghostly form.”
My heart had to stop, and this time it had to be permanent. I eyed the unfinished construction, thinking I could jump from the top floor.
“I don’t think so.” Phelan turned me around.
The apparition was hovering near Atticus, and instinct told me I should protect him. But he swiveled around, and while he was still the same Atticus, it wasn’t his wolf in his eyes, but something darker and ancient.
He grinned, and it wasn’t a snarky Atticus smile. I shivered because when he showed his teeth, I imagined them sinking into my throat as my wolf had done to the professor’s.
“Atticus, snap out of it. He’s only using you to get to me.” That had to be it. I was the hunter, not my twin brother.
“Oh my gods, it’s not you, Rawling. It’s him.” Phelan shoved me behind him.
But I got out of his shadow. This was no time for hiding.
Atticus didn’t speak and neither did the apparition. But I shivered because their gaze suggested more blood was going to be spilled. The bond my twin and I shared, the one I’d refused to acknowledge, tugged, trying to reel me in. Shit, no. Atticus was the hunter, and the only way to get rid of it was to kill him and restart his heart.
