I’m breathing hard myself.
My head is less of a kaleidoscope, but I don’t like the conclusions I’m drawing. I don’t like any of this.
“Yet here you are,” Ty growls, his voice shaking with temper. Betrayal. Fury. “Making like a serial killer and much too close to Maddox’s cottage.”
That electrifies Connor. It almost seems to me like he’s on something, careening from one emotional high to another and still with that axe in his hand. Not to mention that grim pile of mutilation behind him.
“You think you’re smart,” Connor snarls at him. “You swagger around, calling yourself some kind of high king when all you are is a pussy-whipped upstart who’s never known his goddamn place.”
I feel Ty stiffen, and I like that Connor is landing blows even less than the rest of this.
“You’re a traitor,” I tell him, my voice calm and clear in the snowy night. Despite the blood and how I still feel like I’m reeling, I pull it together. “You can call me anything you want. You can claim you foundtruth. You betrayed your king, and you’re a traitor to the pack. In the end, that’s all you are. No one will ever sing about you. No one will remember you—they’ll only remember what you did.”
I can feel the growl in Ty, though I’m not sure it’s audible. It’s like he’s simmering and it’s beginning to boil. The heat of his fury should be enough to melt the snow.
“And what they’ll remember,” I continue in the same steady way, my eyes on Connor, “is that you’re a two-faced bastard who sold out everyone who loved you. What a legacy.”
“I’ve heard more than enough from you, Maddox,” Connor growls at me, and he starts tossing that bloody axe from palm to palm. This is not exactly comforting. “I should have killed you when I had the chance. And do you know how many times I had the chance? A thousand times when you were a girl. When it became clear again and again that your role in this life is to pervert everything this pack stands for.”
“I think that’s you, friend,” I tell him.
“Hey asshole, news flash,” Ty barks out. “This pack stands for what I say it stands for. If you have a problem with that, take it up with me. Don’t sneak around like a fucking coward, trying to scare females.”
“Another legacy right there,” I can’t help but drawl. “Did you really think you were going to scare a fucking sorceress? Or get anywhere near the vampire king’s consort?”
“I watched you sleep,” Connor growls. “I was as close to you as a breath, and you didn’t even notice.”
Ty laughs at that. Loud. Long. It makes the trees seem to cower, but that’s better than imagining Connor—drenched in blood and entrails—staring into my windows. “That works for me, because I’m going to watch you die.”
“You still don’t know what this is about,” Connor shouts at him. “I don’t give a shit about you. I don’t give a shit about your mouthy,unworthy bitch. Neither one of you will survive the night when she comes.She will make you pay in blood.”
That echoes back too, a distorted roar against the canopy of trees laden with blankets of snow.
It’s a very pretty place to find out someone you trusted is a monster. A real monster.
“How does a werewolf become the blank-eyed minion of a death goddess he helped put back into her place?” I ask him. “That’s what this is about for me. One of herfaithfulshowed you the way? Does that mean she fucked you until you crashed out and started massacring woodland creatures?”
Connor has clearly had enough talking. Or maybe he really has had enough ofmetalking. Either way he throws back his head and howls.
Then he glares our way and throws his axe.
It flies through the air, spinning end over end in a shower of blood until Ty smacks it out of its flight path.
One swipe of his arm and it ends up embedded in a nearby tree.
Connor only laughs. It’s a madman sort of a laugh, which suits this grisly moment, but I still can’t really believe this is happening. He throws out his arms, there’s a flash of familiar energy, and then he’s a wolf.
And he doesn’t waste a moment.
He catapults himself straight at us.
But Connor doesn’t make it to a full landing, because Ty leaps up, shifts midair, and swats him out of the air too.
Then everything gets even more deadly.
It’s teeth and claws, and it’s vicious. It’s frenzied.
I might not be able to believe this is happening, but reality doesn’t seem to give one shit what Ibelieve. Two enormous wolves clash again and again, rending and tearing at each other, nobeliefnecessary. The two of them fight in front of me with all those animal bodies in a wet pile behind them as they grapple in the bloodstained snow.
