I shove my hands down between my legs as Birch comes closer.
“I repeat,” he snarls, “what the fuck are you doing?” He points at Beth. “Where are her fucking cuffs?”
Beth laughs as she pushes herself up off the floor, blood staining her teeth.Her fangs. For someone who seemed so playful and easy-going when I first met her, she’s fucking terrifying now.
“They thought they’d teach me a lesson,” she scoffs, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She’s got a dislocated shoulder, slash marks over her neck and chest, a split lip, and a cut across her left cheek. But even as she stands there, I can see her healing. With the cuffs no longer repressing her wolf,everything else has kicked back in and her injuries from the crash are long gone.
The three FBs are also healing, their injuries matching Beth’s. They’re fucking huge though, and I’m still in awe over how she took on all three of them and held her own.
“You fucking idiots.” Birch marches up to the nearest FB and punches him so hard, he flies backwards and hits a tree with a sickening crunch. “She played you.”
Instead of grabbing Beth, Birch pulls a knife and walks back over to Flint. He sets the blade at his throat. “Put your fucking cuffs back on or I slit his throat.”
She hesitates.
Flint closes his eyes and tilts his chin, like he’s already accepted his fate, and my stomach sinks to the floor. I’ve not known him long, but fuck it, he’s grown on me. I can’t sit here and do nothing while Birch kills him right next to me.
As discreetly as I can, I slide my hands out of the ropes binding them together.
“Try it,” Birch says, voice deceptively soft. “See how far you get.”
It takes a second for me to realise he’s talking to me. My hands are still hidden by my legs. There’s no way he can see them from where he stands. I don’t get chance to try and run for it before hands haul me to my feet, one of the other FBs gripping my arms so tightly my eyes water.
I grit my teeth and look at Beth.
She’s the only one who’s free. I don’t know if she could outrun Birch or the others, or if they’ll kill Flint or the rest of us if she tries, but then maybe they’ll kill us all anyway.Go, I mouth, but she shakes her head, her gaze darting between me, Flint, the other FBs still standing, and Birch.
“Your choice,” Birch croons. “We’ll even give you a head start. But Flint dies the second you run.”
“They’re gonna kill us anyway,” Flint says, resigned.
Birch laughs. “Maybe.” He tilts the knife so the fading light catches it through the trees. There’s a sheen of something on it. “But if I do it now, I won’t go deep enough to kill him right away. I’ll let the aconite do that. Slowly and painfully. You’ll be able to hear his screams as you run.”
“Beth...” Flint tries, but she shakes her head and offers him a small smile.
“I’m not leaving you to die like that.” She turns so quickly, she’s a blur of movement, slamming her shoulder into the tree behind, her howl echoing around the trees.
Her shoulder.
She rubs the joint before bending to grab the cuffs from the forest floor. “You swear you won’t slit his throat the second I put these back on?”
“On the Goddess,” he says, deadly serious. “But I make no promises for later.”
With a defeated sigh, she snaps the cuffs onto her wrists. The second they’re on, Birch stalks over to her and backhands her across the face. It’s not as hard as he punched his own pack member, but she still falls to the ground, spitting blood.
In that moment, I wish Birch had turned me. I wish I could shift, wish I had claws and fangs, because I want to tear him apart.
He turns to me, smiling like he can read my mind. His gaze drops to my throat, to the bite mark he left there. “You want me to turn you, Morgan?” He reaches out to trace over the mark, pressing down enough to make me flinch. “Want to have the strength and the weapons to fight me?”
Yes.
A thousand times yes.
The thought stalls in my head as his fangs slide out.
Oh fuck. Is he?—
“I could,” he says, stroking the mark over and over.
