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Her forearm shattered.

She opened her mouth to scream. I slammed a hand over it.

“I don’t want to hurt people, but people keep hurting me,” I told her, marching her backwards, toward the den opening. She bucked and writhed, trying to wriggle out of my grip, but my strength was a hundred times hers, all wrapped up in a neat little Adam Vex package. “My heart makes me ruthless.”

Her eyes widened, realization sinking in. She’d had her chances, and now came the consequences.

At the mouth of the den, I dangled her over the edge and the hundred-foot drop to the ravine bottom.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “Truly.”

I let go.

She screamed, but her scream quickly faded the farther she fell—then abruptly cut off.

It was over.

I thrust my hands into my pockets and huffed.

Should I have felt more, instead of just empty sadness for the waste that had been Jenny’s life?

Victor’s hand settled on my shoulder again. I took it, and placed his arm around my waist instead, leaning back against his chest.

“We can only save those who wish to be saved.” His powerful voice reverberated through me, chasing away the hollowness, making itself at home somewhere in my soul.

“She didn’t have anyone.” What I didn’t say was how I could have been her . . . and I could be again if Victor and Zee were ever taken from me. Alone, afraid, enraged . . . I’d be like her, but a thousand times worse.

Victor placed a soft kiss on the top of my head. “Come now, do not dwell on it. We have fulfilled our vow; it’s time we moved on.”

Twisting in his arms, I peered into his eyes. “How are you so calm? How have you lived so long without crumbling under the weight of it all? Do you . . . not care, Victor? Is that how you face every day?”

“I’ve lived many centuries, seen a great many atrocities, and I’ve learned to quickly push the pain aside.”

“Oh.”

“That does not mean I do not feel it.” He grasped my face. “It’s always there, waiting to consume me. We must not let it.” He kissed me hard and quick on the forehead.

Burying my face against his chest, I welcomed his arms closing in like a safety net. We were going to be alright, because we had each other. Nobody could take that away, not even my brother.

CHAPTER 14

“Our pack owes you a great debt, Adam,” Galbraith grumbled from his seat at the bar table. Chatter from the pack bubbled around us, along with chinking glasses and occasional laughter, while a baseball game streamed on the wall-mounted TV.

It had been a few days since we’d dealt with Jenny and gotten Galbraith to safety. Duke was doing okay. He’d had his puncture wounds cleaned and wrapped, but refused painkillers, so he glared from a barstool, eying us as though waiting for a true reveal in which we’d been the killers all along.

Galbraith had gotten his leg stitched back on by Mia, the vet. It turned out Duke’s licking had helped, kinda like vampire saliva helped heal their bites, and Zee claimed victory over Victor for knowing more than him regarding werewolf tongues.

Everything appeared to be back to normal for this part of the rural north west.

“But maybe don’t make a career out of sleuthing,” Galbraith suggested, taking a swig of his beer.

I chuckled into my whiskey. We hadn’t really been all that good at solving a murder, but despite our chaotic methods, we did get the job done. And nobody else had died, regardless of Jenny’s best efforts.

“You ever need a favor, Adam of the San Francisco City Pack, we’ll be here,” Galbraith said.

I nodded our thanks. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. These people had already gone through enough, especially Zander. He chatted at the bar with Zee, the pair of them engaged in lots of arm waving—Zander’s still in a sling—and back slapping.

“Where are you headed now?” Galbraith asked.