Page 229 of Psycho Beasts

Xerxes picked the gun off the floor and clicked off the safety.

Jax released Hunter, and he collapsed to his knees, gasping as he grabbed at the organs still being ripped from his body by Cobra.

The omega walked to stand beside his packmates. Rage radiated off all three of them in tangible waves.

There was a loud pop.

Xerxes lowered the smoking gun.

Hunter’s body collapsed, a glowing blue hole in the center of his forehead.

Cobra kept pulling at the organs, blood staining his pale hands as he tore at the dead alpha’s body. His eyes were wide with mania, and he worked in silence.

“He’s dead,” Jax whispered and wrapped his arms around Cobra. “He’s dead.”

Abruptly, Cobra stopped and turned his head around.

He stared at my bloody hands, watched as Ascher held me and whispered words of comfort.

Cobra stalked across the room and reached his hand for my face, but he pulled it back when he realized gore dripped from his fingers.

“Kitten,” he whispered brokenly. “This is my fault.”

I shook myself out of the stupor I’d fallen into. It was slightly traumatizing, and yet weirdly satisfying, watching your assaulter get his organs ripped out and a bullet to the brain after you beat his face into a bloody pulp.

Free therapy.

Jax growled and raked his hands down his face. “Fuck, this is our fault.”

I didn’t think I’d ever heard him swear before.

“How?” I asked with confusion.

Jax sighed heavily.

“After the second trial, when you and Xerxes—” He waved his hand as if he didn’t know what to call our violent sexcapade. “We went to the club and cornered Hunter. We beat him up pretty good and threatened to kill him if he ever hurt you again.”

Cobra snarled, “I didn’t lie.”

Ascher sighed heavily, like he was beyond exhausted by recent events. “We also talked to Clarissa and told her that it was our fault for misleading her, but that we’d never had any real interest. We were idiots who were trying to get a rise out of you after we thought you rejected us.”

Cobra wiped gore off his hands onto his leather and said, “I wanted to beat her up for lying and touching you. I still think we should have.”

“It was more our fault for leading her on, and you know it,” Ascher snarled back.

If I weren’t feeling extremely unwell, I might have marveled at the fact that Ascher, who had once referred to all women as sluts, had recognized that he was the problem and not Clarissa.

However, since I was still in a state of extreme duress, I decided not to be impressed by a man doing the bare minimum.

“So—” I clapped my hands and pointed to the dead alpha at our feet. “—what do we do now? Pretty sure there was a law against murdering other alphas.”

Jax said, “Rule two hundred and three. Punishment by death.”

“But rule ninety-four, punishment for sexually assaulting any shifter is death and disembowelment,” Cobra argued back. “We were in the right.”

I narrowed my eyes and stared down at the dead body. “That feels too easy. We should burn him and flush the ashes down the toilet.”

Ascher laughed, the sound out of place among the death and gore. “You’ve clearly never gotten rid of a dead body before.”

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