Page 36 of Wed Or Dead

Lyle grabbed him by the head.

Kayla screamed.

And Lyle broke Curtis’s neck with one powerful twist of his hand. The hunter never even had a chance to cry out.

Lyle let Curtis’s body drop to the floor. Curtis hit with a thud. Shaking his head, Lyle stared down at the hunter’s twisted body. “You shouldn’t have doubted me, kid.”

Ice filled Kayla’s veins. Horror and nausea spun in her gut, and she could taste bile rising in her throat.Dead.“You bastard—why?”

He looked up at her. Frowned. “It’s your fault that he’s dead. You should have just kept your damn mouth shut, and he’d still be breathing.”

Only Curtis wasn’t breathing. He was dead. And how many more would fall before Lyle was done?

How many had he killed over the years?When she’d thought that the hunters had been protecting humans, fighting the monsters…

Oh, God, we were the monsters.

Lyle grabbed the body and dragged Curtis’s limp form over to the cell. Lyle dropped him near the bars. “There. When the body’s discovered, everyone will just think you killed him. Curtis got too close, and you attacked him. We all know how lethal you can be.”

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.Shecouldn’t stop shaking. Tears burned her eyes.

“He got too close, trusted the wrong person, and you snapped his neck.” Lyle snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

Her knees wanted to give way. She stood only because of her desperate grip on the bars. “What do you want from me?”Curtis. Dead.

“I want your wolf.”

She shook her head. “He’s gone. Gage isn’t coming back.”

Lyle smiled. “We’ll see about that.” Then he turned away and headed back toward the holding room door. Was that psycho actually whistling as he walked away and left her with a dead body?

“Gage chose his pack!” Kayla cried after him. “Not me. That’s why he left! He went to keep them safe.” Gage wasn’t coming back.

Lyle glanced over his shoulder. “Then I guess you’ll be the next one to die.”

When he left, the metal clang of the door seemed to echo through the whole room. Through her. She looked over at Curtis. So still. His eyes were closed, his head turned toward her.

He’d been a good man. He hadn’t deserved this end.

She let go of the bars, and her knees buckled. She slipped to the floor and her fingers, still stained with her brother’s blood, rose to cover her eyes.

We’re the monsters.

Why hadn’t she seen the truth sooner?

Gage tracked silentlythrough the compound. He knew where Kayla was, of course. Her scent was one he’d never forget. So he eased through the hallways, slipped around the corners, and tracked back to her as quickly as he could.

Outside of her new holding room, he paused. Inhaled. Kayla wasn’t alone in there. But the one with her…

Shit.

Gage used the key card he’d “borrowed” from the guard station and swiped it across the electronic lock. The lights flashed green, and he shoved open the heavy, metal door.

Kayla was in the cell, on the floor. Her hair fell in a curtain around her. A hunter was slumped close to her. His neck was twisted, and his hands were stretched out on either side of his body.

“I didn’t do it,” she said, without looking up. “I swear, I didn’t kill Curtis.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to tell me that.”

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