Page 31 of The Kill

Hearing Mandy’s footsteps on the stairs, I smile.

Even though I’m pretty sure I know what’s coming by the speed at which she’s approaching, I’m still looking forward to seeing her. She bursts into the room, and stops, hands on hips, looking at me with suspicion and a glimmer of hope that she imagined it.

Because my mate is a good person. And I am anything but.

“What did you say?” she whispers, her big brown eyes pleading with me to deny the words I uttered right before I left her.

“I said we’re going to get revenge.” I sigh as she folds her arms across her chest and shrinks back, already pulling away, as my words settle in her mind and the fact that I’m not joking sinks in.

“Against…?” Worry washes away her earlier relaxed demeanour. “You promised, Tyson. When I came here, you promised you’d leave Blake alone, leave Steel Pack alone. It’s my home now. Noah’s home. You can’t…”

Her voice gets more and more unsteady, her concern that I’m about to do something dastardly to her friends rising. It hurts that her mind went there first, after what just happened between us, but I can’t blame her considering all she has probably heard about me. Before she knew who I was.

“I won’t go back on my word. The only reason I wanted the pack in the first place was to make things right.”

Mandy stills, and I smile, sad but also impressed that she figured it out so quickly.

“You only wanted to become alpha of the Steel pack so you could get revenge for what Lee did to me?” Her voice is barely more than a whisper as she puts the pieces together. “But you didn’t know I was there.”

I shrug. “That didn’t matter. They deserved to pay anyway.” Just because she wasn’t around to see it, doesn’t mean I didn’t want justice for her anyway. “And I might have been hoping you’d hear he was dead and come back.”

Her eyes widen, incredulous, but when I don’t even blink, her expression changes and she frowns at my neutral expression.

I’m not kidding around.

The only thing that mattered to me was that the men who forced my mate from her home, injured and scared, paid for what they did. It only dawned on me years later that she had shifted, knowing she was with child, risking both of their lives, so desperate was she to get away.

“You weren’t going to kill Blake?”

I was finally strong enough, in control enough, to take the pack from Blake and go to war. Seth and Lucian were old enough to look after themselves if the worst happened. If it all went the way I hoped, they could join the pack and finally belong to a proper family, a big family, instead of just being stuck with me.

At least, that was the plan. Until my idiot brother turned out to be not quite the smug, entitled prick I’d built him up to be in my head. And the mate that I hoped he’d fuck things up with showed herself to be loyal and brave. And they didn’t run when I threatened them and showed them how close I could get.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to, but I did want to get rid of him. I could have while Jenna was poisoning him, but it seemed… cowardly. I thought he’d step down when he mated, after all that moon madness business, and Zoe turning into a wolf; but, no. So, I did entertain just killing him to get it over and done with, briefly.” When I shrug again, Mandy lifts a brow, surprised that I’m openly admitting to all my scheming. “Let’s just say I have some unresolved anger about being left to die in the woods and nobody asking questions when they never found a body to bury.”

My tone is sharper than I meant for it to be, so I cough, trying to soften my voice before I speak again. “Then the more I stalked him, the less I hated him and the more I remembered that we were friends as kids. It just got harder to do. But don’t tell him that. He’ll be insufferable.”

The idea of killing him became less palatable the more I saw him interacting with the pack and hiding his illness from them. When he started preparing to leave the pack, rather than take a mate other than his fated, I had to give him some credit. Especially when it turned out he was right: she was close by. Zoe proved herself a perfect luna, turning into a white wolf and saving his ass. Fated mates are to be treasured, after all.

So, I changed the plan.

It turns out vampires do have some scruples. Inconvenient, but probably a good thing.

“You know who it was, that helped Jenna?” Eyes bugging out of her head, Mandy rushes into the room, forgetting she’s trying to keep her distance from me. “Tyson, you have to tell him. Or tell me! What if they try to kill him again?”

Stepping back, I drag my gaze away from her pretty face and choose to focus on the view outside the window. I know exactly who it was, and that person is going to pay, but when I want. I don’t need Blake getting in the way of my plans.

“Blake can’t know just yet. I need to make sure he’s not going to meddle. It would be just like my brother to ruin my fun.”

“Your fun being your plans for revenge…?”

Maybe fun was the wrong word. Mandy tilts her head and studies me, like I’m some kind of alien species, and she can’t work out whether I’m friend or foe. It’s probably a pretty accurate assessment. I barely know myself sometimes.

“Can we not just start over? Forget about anyone else and just concentrate on this? Getting to know each other?”

Mandy isn’t convinced revenge is necessary, but I am. They took so much from her, from us. It’s not something I can let go. I need to prove to her, and to Noah, that I can protect them. That nothing will ever harm them again. The spectre of Lee’s father coming for his own retribution can’t hang over us for the rest of our lives. And if Anya’s words of warning mean what I think they do, someone is already close to finding me.

“Blake could help you…” Mandy’s voice takes on a pleading tone as she reaches for me, and I step back.

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