Page 158 of Specter Bred

“Assholes,” she muttered under her breath.

Then she crouched beside Alec, dug a small stack of polaroids from his front pocket, and tucked them into her own before straightening again.

Redwood knelt in front of Grizzly, shaking so badly a strong gust of wind could’ve knocked him over.

“I—sir, you killed them! I—this isn’t what you think. She came on to us! The same way she did to you!” he stammered, tripping over the words as his gaze kept dropping to the bodies of his friends.

He was scrambling now, desperate and pathetic, throwing out anything he thought might convince Graves not to put him down beside them.

“I could ask Archer if that’s true,” Graves said, his voice dropping into something cold and lethal, “but I will not insult her by pretending your word carries the same weight as hers.”

He stepped closer, keeping the pistol trained steadily on Redwood’s chest.

“You really are fucking stupid, aren’t you? Somehow you found out Maeve, and I are involved, and this was the move you made? You put your hands on her, dragged her out here, and thought I’d what—hear you out?”

His mouth twisted without a trace of humor.

“You should’ve been smart enough to know there was only one way this ended once I found you.”

“Sir, I don’t know what you mean. Really, I swear—she came on to us. She said she’d lie if we didn’t give her what she wanted.” Redwood kept talking, each excuse more frantic and less believable than the last, his words tangling over one another as he tried to build a story fast enough to save his own life.

Graves stared at him for a long moment, then his expression changed. “You know, the second I saw Redwood on the candidate list, I knew who you were. Or rather, who you were related to.” His voice had gone eerily calm. “Your cousin trained with my sister. Did you know that?”

Redwood’s face blanched. “No, sir. I wasn’t close to him. Barely knew him—”

“He’s lying,” Maeve cut in.

Every eye snapped toward her.

“He knew about Stephanie.” Maeve’s voice was hard and steady now. “He told me exactly what his cousin did to her. Then he told me they were going to do the same thing to me.”

Redwood’s head whipped toward her, trying to stand, panic twisting instantly into rage. “You fucking bitch—”

Graves moved before he could say another word. He drove Redwood to his knees again and shoved the barrel of the pistol between his teeth.

“Every fucking word out of your mouth has been a lie,” he said, his voice low and terrifyingly controlled.

“I knew exactly what kind of alpha you were the second I laid eyes on you. Too stupid to see the bigger picture and too fucking arrogant to realize just how stupid you are.”

Redwood made a strangled sound around the gun, but Graves only leaned closer.

“Your cousin paid for what he did to my sister. It wasn’t a direworg that tore him apart. I did.”

His eyes never left Redwood’s.

“I just made sure it was violent and messy enough for Command to believe a direworg had done it. In fact, every soldier who hurt my sister paid for it with their lives.”

Graves pushed the barrel deeper, forcing Redwood’s head back as fear flooded his face.

“And now you’re going to pay for what you tried to do to Maeve.”

“Please don’t kill me, sir,” Redwood begged around the barrel, the words wet and barely intelligible.

Graves stared down at him for a long moment before a humorless laugh escaped him.

“Kill you?” He pulled the pistol from Redwood’s mouth. “I’m not going to kill you.”

Redwood sucked in a ragged breath, relief washing over his face so quickly it was almost comical. “Thank you, sir. Thank you. I’ll leave. I’ll drop out tonight, I swear. You’ll never see me again. I’ll—”