Page 16 of Wild Wolf

“Enough,” Rosalie said calmly and Sin extinguished the flames, though he let the pillows whack Pike a couple more times before they fell still beside her. Her usually perfect ice-blonde hair was singed from the attack and she had lost half an eyebrow to the blaze, but she was pretty much unharmed apart from that. I noticed her mouth was open in a scream, but Sin had cast a silencing bubble around her to keep it quiet.

Rosalie took charge, stepping to the side of the bed and gazing down at my old boss. I didn’t think she could see me from this shadowy corner of her room, but there was time for her to notice yet. The Incubus extended our silencing bubble over her, releasing the one that had contained her scream.

“Hello, Warden,” Rosalie purred. “Remember us? The creatures you kept in cages, believing they would never find a way out and come creeping into your room at night like a living nightmare. But that’s the thing about arrogant stronzos in their ivory towers, they never expect the dogs they kick to bite back.” She nodded to Sin as Pike started answering her.

“Y-you have no idea what’s going to happen to you if you kill me,” Pike stammered, looking ruffled for the first time since I’d met her. This was not the control freak woman who had taken pleasure in keeping both guards and prisoners alike under her thumb. This was a frightened wretch in her bed who had finally realised she couldn’t outrun karma forever.

“You can keep breathing if you tell me where Roary Night is being held,” Rosalie offered. “I know he’s not in Darkmore. The news is reporting that he escaped. But I saw him being dragged into a helicopter marked with the emblem of Drav Enterprises. So where has he been taken?”

Pike’s throat bobbed at her words, like the name of that company was her undoing in so many ways. If the press got their hands on that information, she would likely end up in Darkmore herself with the hellions who she had ruled over for so many years. Their welcome would not be warm.

“How do you know about Drav Enterprises?” Pike asked in terror.

Sin pillow whipped her again using his air magic. “You don’t ask the questions here, fish bitch!”

She cowered from him with a whimper. “A-alright. I’ll tell you what I know. I think he’s been taken to Grimolda Isle. I got an invite to the smugglers ball – it’s like a black market where off record deals are made between the types of organisations which don’t exactly conform to the law. Drav Enterprises are going to be showcasing their latest projects. It’s in my nightstand.”

“And why did they take him at all?” Rosalie snarled, making Pike cower.

“I don’t know what they do with the prisoners they take to Psych. I just get paid to turn a blind eye, or to do the necessary cover ups.”

“She’s singing like a baby blue tit,” Sin said excitedly.

“Yeah, this was damn easy actually,” Rosalie commented as she reached into her nightstand drawer and took out a glittering silver invitation, glancing back at us.

“Ready to leave then, love?” Ethan asked.

She nodded and led the way out of the room. I moved for the door, but a gasp sounded from Pike and my name spilled from her lips. “Mason?” she balked, making my pulse thump erratically. “What…what are you doing with them?”

I turned to her as Ethan stilled, glancing from me to Pike with his eyebrows raised. Sin jumped off the bed, thumbing through some jewellery on Pike’s dressing table and pocketing pieces of it while starting to hum his farm song again.

I raised my chin, accepting the fate being delivered to me by the stars and staring Pike in the eyes. I knew what this would mean. Knew the weight of what would happen if she went to the FIB with the news of my whereabouts.

“What do you want to do about this?” Ethan murmured, giving me a look that said he would back me if I decided on her death, but I didn’t know why this asshole was so keen to make me his little buddy all of a sudden.

I didn’t know if it was insanity or mercy that made my decision, but I strode from the room, leaving Pike to do as she would about seeing me here. Ethan kept glancing at me, but I said nothing on the subject, my choice perhaps earning some sort of feelings from him. Trust? Doubtful. Maybe he was just curious why I continued to make foolish choices.

As we made it to the window where Rosalie was climbing onto the sill, Sin came skipping down the hall, covered in blood with his song tumbling from his lips. “With a stab-stab here and a stab-stab there, here a stab, there a stab, everywhere a stab-stab.” He clapped me on the cheek, marking me with his bloody palm print, and I stepped back from him in shock. “She’s a goner.”

“Sin,” Rosalie gasped. “You killed her?”

“Was I not supposed to?” He looked to her innocently. “She’d tell everyone we got out of Darkmore.”

“But everyone knows we escaped Darkmore,” Ethan said in confusion.

“Riiight.” Sin looked at me, his gaze intense and unwavering. “Well either way, dead little fishes don’t whisper to the sharks.” He turned abruptly away from me but left me with the baffling sense that he had killed Pike to cover for me. “Anyway, I put her head in a plant pot. She’ll grow back. Given time and water and the right amount of sunshine. She’ll be as good as new!” He threw himself at Rosalie and a cry left her as he knocked her out the window.

“Rosa!” Ethan bellowed, lunging to the edge and I did the same, my pulse climbing into my ears as I gazed out, finding Sin wrapped around her, guiding them down to the ground with his air magic.

“Fucking psycho,” I exhaled, relieved she was fine, but by the stars, did he have to be so unpredictable?

“He kind of grows on you after a while,” Ethan said, offering me a smile but I only frowned in return, confused by his behaviour.

As he swung his leg over the sill and started climbing down the ladder, I found my feet tracking back towards the bedroom where Sin had murdered Warden Pike. I glimpsed in at the carnage, her body torn to pieces and her head sitting snuggly in a plant pot, the fern dug out to make room for it. He had done this in less than a minute, and the thought made adrenaline puncture my veins. But as I stared at the horrified look in Pike’s lifeless eyes, I felt something toward the rogue Incubus that I never thought I’d feel. Gratitude.

CHAPTER SEVEN

We didn’t hang around in Kalia after Sin had murdered Pike, instead following the lead she’d given us and heading to the strip of land closest to the distant island of Grimolda. The lodge we’d claimed as our hideaway from the world was nestled on a cliffside on the western coast of Solaria overlooking a bay with the glorious blue sea cresting upon the golden sand in lazy, sultry waves.

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