Page 38 of The Sacred Wolf

He made a meal of checking his cufflinks, and my anger rose.

“You could have done that without murdering anyone,” I said, keeping my feet firmly against the doors to stop Evan and Jayla if they tried to emerge. I realized it had only been seconds since I’d left so I still had plenty time before they looked for me.

Hopefully.

“Could I?” He cocked a sandy eyebrow, turning slightly to look at the bodies lying on the red carpet at the entryway to the theater. He gave a dismissive sniff. “It seems like leaving a trail of bodies is your fate these days, Elyse.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, not because I cared but because I’d seen enough movies to know how to keep a villain talking about his plans while I made my own for getting out of this. Was there a way to keep an eye on him and text Sebastian? I pulled up our chat when Damien turned, but one of the wolves murder-eyed me.

Crap.

Focus! If you are not going to let me out then you need to figure something else out. My wolf was practically whining.

I’m trying!

“I mean,” Damien said, stepping toward me, “Haven’t you noticed that human and shifter deaths have risen since you forgot your place?” He shrugged. “If only you’d done what you were supposed to do, none of them would have had to die. Imagine if those vigilantes on the train hadn’t come across you and Sebastian traipsing about playing human. Would your friends have died?”

For the hundredth time, Charlie’s mouth went round and surprised in my mind.

“I could fix it, Elyse.” His tone shifted into a purr. “You know I could.”

The soothing lap of that voice was like being enfolded into my father’s massive arms when I was a pup, where all seemed right and safe. My muscles softened, and my gaze grew hazy. I wanted everything to be fixed. I did.

“And yet you know nothing of what I can do, at all,” he continued, inching toward me. “But if you could convince the packs to forgive me, to let a difference of opinion, perhaps even a slight overreach, go, I could stop the killings. I could make the humans of Manhattan forget all about us and come up with an alternate explanation for all this nasty business. They’re the most violent creatures on the planet. It would be nothing to turn them against each other instead. Leave us out of it.”

The words sounded so good.

I stepped forward, forgetting the phone in my hand or the swell of my wolf as I imagined the world Damien was proposing. He had astonishing Beta powers. Maybe he could fix all of this.

We could go back to the way things were…

Back to…

Back to when he’d abused his Beta powers, using them to harm his own pack, to control his own Alpha.

Back to when he’d had lied and manipulated, coerced and shamed.

He’d reshaped my family into a tight and painful cage I’d had to break free of.

He’d split me from my best friend and sister and turned us into mortal enemies.

He’d ripped my mother apart, killing my father just as much. All the killing started with him. And now it was going to end with him.

Yes!

Yes.

My wolf and I came to at once, my inner Alpha reasserting herself and shaking off the icy power of his coercion. Damien was to blame, not me. And it was not a difference of opinion or a slight overreach.

My wolf didn’t have to plead with me any longer. With a boiling river of rage rocketing through my veins, I let her free and shifted, my claws landing on the tiles with a pattering series of clicks like a ticking clock. Damien’s time was up.

“Your powers have a limit, Damien,” I thought, the words laced with fury as his eyes grew wide. “I’ve never been as susceptible to them or you, which is probably another reason you hated me, but that’s because I was an Alpha Heir, healthy and strong. And as an Alpha, I have the right to execute you on the spot for what you’ve done to my family, the packs, and these poor innocent humans, including my friends.”

In an instant, Damien shifted, but his grey wolf hunched as if I’d already begun my attack. “Please, Elyse. Have mercy! I only did what I thought was right.”

His fawning was even more loathsome than his attempt to control me. I drew back, preparing to leap. “You did only what suited you, you coward!”

“Please, just wait a moment,” he pled. He pressed his chest to the floor, flattening his ears against his skull, and the wretched wolves behind him stepped back. “You don’t know everything yet. It’s important. You…you don’t want to murder the grandfather of your future pups, do you?”

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