Page 77 of Knot All Is Ruined: Part 2

“Actually,” I cut in. “I’m the one who shot those Northern soldiers.”

He turned his attention to me, snarling as he got to his feet, charging at me. However, Colonel Nems didn’t get very far as the sound of a gun going off next to me splintered through the night. The pathetic man before me jerked and fell to his knees, clutching his chest. Blood began to seep through his fingers and then out of his mouth as he turned to stare at his son.

“What have you done?” he wheezed.

“What I should’ve done the moment I found out you didn’t give a shit about me or my mother. This is what it looks like to protect those you love,” Cris answered as he stepped up to pull me behind him. “She is my lover and my family, who I promised to protect with my life. Obviously a concept you’d never understand since you only think about yourself.”

“You have no idea who you’re going up against. General Rasvan won’t forgive this, and he’ll do everything in his power to crush you like the bugs you are,” his father said, spitting a wad of blood at Cris’s feet.

Unfazed, Cris squatted down and locked eyes with his father. “Good, that’s exactly what we wanted. Let the coward hiding in his city come find us. Maybe then he’ll fight us like a man.” Finished with what he wanted to say, Cris rose and took my hand. “Let’s go. He doesn’t deserve to have anyone around to see him die.”

“Wait,” I said, digging my heels in. “I have a question for him.”

Cris nodded but didn’t let go of my hand as I faced his father. “Tell me, are you the one who gave the order to attack the outpost?”

“My first failure in twenty years,” he admitted. “Then I tried to fix it, except some fucking breeder had to keep getting in my way, always slipping through my fingers. I knew if I could get a hold of you, I’d have Lucian by the balls. Let me guess, that old hag tipped you off about me, didn’t she? I knew I should have killed her, but I didn’t think she’d survive those wounds at her age long enough to say shit.”

Anger surged through me, and I yanked out of Cris’s hold and slammed my fist as hard as I could into the bastard's face. Once, twice, three times until he fell to the ground. “That old hag was more of a man than you could ever be. In fact, you’re not even worth insulting like a man, you fucking cunt.”

Finished, I grabbed Cris’s hand and marched back out into the main section of the base just as two night watchmen ran up to us.

“We heard shots fired?” one asked, panting.

“False alarm. It was just a big fucking rat that scared me,” I explained.

“Did you kill it? I fucking hate rats,” the other soldier muttered.

“Yeah, it’s dead,” Cris assured him. “We’ll be heading to the mess hall just so you know someone's there now that we startled you.”

They gave their thanks and continued on their patrol, leaving Cris and me alone. I turned to look at him reaching out through our bond to see how he felt, but the connection was blocked. He pulled me into a hug and buried his face in my neck. “I can’t face this right now. Let me have tonight to myself, and we’ll talk about it with everyone in the morning, okay? Right now I just want to make sure you get something to eat, then head back and curl you up in my arms, so I know the images playing in my head aren’t true.”

“Okay,” I answered, hugging him as tightly as I could. “Thank you for saving me and know that I love you so fucking much.”

“I love you too, with all my heart.”

Sleep came fitfully even though I knew I was safe and tucked into bed with Cris, Petru, and Toma. My mind raced with everything we’d discovered and confirmation that Colonel Nems had been the person behind the attack on the outpost that set this whole ordeal into motion. In a twisted way, I should be grateful. If there hadn’t been an attack, I never would have run. Without running, I wouldn’t have met my pack and found the happiness I lived each day. Yet no matter how I looked at it, he’d been the cause of so much death and perpetuation of this war.

Why the General used him to remove Lucian didn't make sense. While he was the heir, it wasn’t like he’d been the poster child of the future who’d turned their back on him or their manifesto. For my own peace of mind, I settled on the fact that, like Cris’s father, General Rasvan had lost his mind. His fear of someone trying to take his place and kill him had rotted his brain to the point that he was seeing things that weren’t truly there. Of course, now he’d made his worst fear a reality by pushing Lucian to the decision where he had no other choice but to kill his father.

I must have fallen asleep at some point because I was jerked awake by someone pounding on the door to our apartment. They continued beating on the door until I heard someone open it, and low tones of someone talking drifted through the partially closed bedroom door. Moments later, Sorin walked into the room with an expression that told me they had found Cris’s father; only there was something more.

“Cris,” Sorin said brusquely. “Do you know anything about a dead body being found this morning behind the supply building?”

He rolled on his back and tossed an arm over his eyes. “It’s my father.”

This admission had Toma and Petru sitting up in bed to look over at their Beta.

“Why the fuck am I hearing about this from the morning watch and not you?” Sorin demanded.

“Because I didn’t want to face the reality that my father is a traitor who attempted to rape Dani before he tried killed to her,” Cris stated, his tone detached, clearly trying to distance himself from the whole thing. “He left me no choice but to shoot him.”

“I’m going to need you to explain this in a little more detail for the rest of us,” Sorin warned. “Everyone needs to get up and get ready anyways. I received word that the militia left the city in the middle of the night.” With that announcement, he turned on his heel and left the room.

Cris groaned and rolled out of bed, not looking at any of us as he got dressed.

“Cris…” Petru started but stopped when Cris held up a hand.

“I’m only talking about this once, so please just wait until then to say anything,” Cris pleaded, grabbing his boots and leaving the room.