Page 104 of Laurels and Liquor

The bullets strike his back, one after the other, and Seth’s arms jerk with the shock of each impact. I climb the stairs, keeping the gun trained on him as he slips to the side, giving Lex enough room to roll away, coughing and sputtering.

“Mine,” I repeat, louder and fiercer.

Seth rolls over onto his back, looking up at me with wide, terrified eyes. He coughs, red spittle covering his lips as he struggles to speak. But my next gunshot drowns out whatever pathetic plea he might have tried to utter. This pathetic excuse of a man has hurt my pack for the last time. He’s proved he can’t be trusted to do the right thing and leave us alone. So he can’t be allowed the chance to run and hide. No more.

No more fear. No more looking over our shoulders. This pack, my pack, has suffered long enough, and it ends here. We have worked too hard for too long for this worm to haunt us. I won’t allow it. My pack deserves better than this, better than him. And I won’t let them hurt anymore. I will protect them, even if it means destroying my soul. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them.

I pull the trigger again and again, sealing his fate. I can’t stop, not until the threat is gone. Seth Douglas needs to be destroyed, once and for all. The bullets stop, and I’m crying, sobbing at the emptyclick, click, clickof the magazine.

“Lydia, enough,voyin.It’s done,” a deep voice calls from behind me.

I know the voice, but my mind is lost in the blood frenzy. I snarl and keep pulling the trigger, but nothing else comes out. I need more. There aren’t enough bullets in the world to make Seth suffer like he’s made me and my pack suffer, but I won’t let something as trivial as that stop me from trying.

“Enough, my sweet omega. It’s done.”

Lex’s voice cuts through the haze of murder, the subaudible hum of her not-quite-bark bringing me back down. Her fingers smooth over mine, gently prying them apart until another set of hands pulls the gun from my grip at last. I tense, ready to turn and protect my pack from the new threat, but then I smell cedar, snickerdoodles, and I relax again. Caleb. I don’t look up as Lex gathers me to her chest, staring at the mess that is Seth’s unmoving body. Blood is trickling down the steps, warm for now as it pools around my toes, but growing colder with every moment. There’s something pulling at the back of my mind, and I whimper, pain I’d all but forgotten resurfacing. My bonds, so frail and close to snapping.

“Thank you, my love. You saved me,” Lex whispers into my hair.

I don’t respond, lost in my head as I try to find the scraps of the tethers to my mates. I can’t feel Lucas at all, and Mateo and Rhett are just blips on the edges of my consciousness.

“He gave me bond breakers. Three doses. I couldn’t—”

“Shhh, it’s okay. We’ll fix this. I promise,” Lex says, low and calm.

Sobs bubble up as the ache of the loss returns. I don’t know how we could possibly fix this. Even in death, he’s won. I want to spit and scream and cry and crawl into my nest, never to come out again. This is grief on a scale I never thought possible.

A groan pulls my attention, and Lex and I turn to see Rhett struggling to his feet. I try to run down to him, but my feet are slick with blood, and I nearly fall over. But Rhett is there, moving faster than I’d expected him to, catching me and gathering me close.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispers, voice cracking as he buries his face into my hair.

“I’m sorry. I’m so—I shouldn’t have gone outside, I should—"

“No, Lydia. Don’t apologize. You’re safe, and that’s all that matters,” Rhett chides, and I can feel his tears against my skin.

“I have the vial, Rhett. I don’t know what—should we go get checked out? I…” Lex trails off as Rhett and I turn to look at her. Her lower lip is trembling as she holds up a half-full vial of clear liquid, the bond breaker. I want to smash it into a million pieces, but that would mean leaving Rhett’s embrace, and I don’t know if I could do that for all the money in the world.

“Call Delano, or Gideon, Lex. They deal with this stuff all the time, right? Maybe they’ll know what to do,” Mateo says, staggering to my side.

Gasping, I lean far enough out of Rhett’s arms to drag Mateo close, clinging to him.

“I got your message, baby girl. I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner,” he murmurs, stroking the back of my head.

I shake my head, heart too full for words. I can still feel him, his relief like sugar on my tongue. He was my first bond, and he’s always been the easiest to reach, and right now, I’m just glad that I can get anything. But I don’t trust it to last, not with how much of the drug Seth pumped into me. I look up at him, tears in my eyes, and I can hear Lex out of reach, talking rapidly into her phone. Mateo gives me a sad smile, like he knows what I want to say. I don’t want to lose him, or any of them. Not after we fought so hard to get to this point.

“I love you so much. Both of you. I’ll tell you every day for the rest of my life, so you’ll always know it’s true, even without the bond,” I manage to get out through my tears.

“Don’t talk like that, love. There might be a way,” Rhett says, cupping the side of my face with one of his warm, rough hands.

I lean into the touch, enjoying what little I can feel of our bond. It’s the weakest, hanging on by a thread. Even still, he’s fighting like hell to hold on.

“I’m not giving up on you yet, Lydia. Don’t you give up on me,” Mateo whispers emphatically into my hair.

I swallow, marveling at the depths of his determination and strength. When I look up at him again, his lips brush mine in a soft but intense kiss. Words fail me, and I blink back more tears.

“Never,” I promise, burying my face in his chest for a moment.

A shuffle of footsteps pulls my head up, and I turn to see Caleb helping Lucas limp over to us, and I suck in a sharp breath. Lex is still on the phone, but she’s looking him over, brushing back his hair and checking for bleeding. He’s got a split lip, and he winces every time he breathes, but it’s the pain in his eyes that strikes me the deepest. I extract myself fully from Rhett’s arms before gathering Lucas to me. He leans heavily on me, and his undisguised sobs break my heart all over again.

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