Page 34 of Cursed to Be Mine
Three hearts explode inside their chests.
I drop to one knee as my soul screams. Blood spurts from my lips. A grinning face appears in front of me, dragging me back upright.
“Getting old, Kali.” Maddox smacks me on the back, putting a touch of his magic behind it so I hiss in pain.
You fucker.
But my attention is already off him, narrowing onthe nearby trees. I cloaked my girl’s scent as soon as we arrived on scene. Antonio won’t be able to track her now, but still, not having him in my sights sends bolts of unease through me, urging me to move.
To hunt the fucker before he hunts my girl.Again.
“Relax,” Maddox says as he nudges me in the side. “Batman and Robin” –his nickname for the twins– “will get him.”
“He’ll kill them,” I state flatly. “He’ll kill all of us.”
Maddox laughs. “Sure he will. That’s why he ran.” He shakes his head, licking blood off his lips. “Because he was terrified of ripping us apart.”
I glance at him dryly. “You’re a fucking idiot,” I say.
Antonio tracked my girl onone fucking dropof blood. He shouldn’t have been able to smell it coursing through her veins, and I know he didn’t pick up my scent on her skin because I’ve been careful to remove it with magic.
Which means he has consumed fallen wolves at a rate we never picked up on. Mother’s fears of him becoming too strong for us to take him on one-on-one have already come to pass.
Butwhere in Hel’s name is he getting the corpses?
Until four months ago, our gangs were at peace with one another. It was a strained peace that would’ve made the Cold War seem like a teenager’s slumber party with her best mates, but the killing between us was miniscule. But when the wolves finally broke that pact by attacking the vampires, the bloodsuckers failed to deal any solid blows. It’s why we got involved. If the two were evenly matched, we would not have stepped in, content to let the idiots kill each other before we slaughtered the survivors.
So is Antonio killing them himself?
Werewolves are pack animals, but make the pack too large and they constantly go to war amongst themselves, juggling for hierarchy. Wolves aren’t born as alphas, betas, or omegas. They fight for those positions whenever the opportunity arises. And though the bottom rank of omega is rarely held for long, itisa lifelong position, made shorter the bigger the pack.
More wolves equals more bullying.
More bullying equals a higher risk someone takes it too far. And then the cycle to find the new scapegoat starts all over again, triggering a lethal brawl involving the entire pack.
But even if Antonio ate all of the fallen, he would have only consumed the weakest members. They wouldn’t have given him power like this. Besides, constant brawls would have been impossible to hide from us, and they would’ve also caught the attention of the Special Crimes Unit – the only professional agency on Earth that knows about us. The WALL we can basically ignore as they buzz around us like annoying mosquitos, but the SCU are the big game hunters, established thousands of years ago to protect this world from monsters like us. They are our official and only governing body. They know all our weaknesses and run like a well-oiled machine of zombies. You might kill a few, but eventually, theywillbring you down.
Antonio wouldn’t have risked calling them in.
So again, who the fuck is he eating?
And what other surprises have our scouts failed to discover, our spies failed to mention?
My skin crawling, I head off in the direction of my girl, no longer capable of standing still. The budding blood bond between us gives me a trail only I can follow.
Maddox darts in front of me and shoves me back. “You call me an idiot, yet you’ve started a blood ritual with a fucking WALL member? She ain’t ever gonna accept you, bruh.”
“Fuck off.” I move around him.
He shakes his head. “Your funeral. I’m getting the popcorn for when Varius finds out!”
Raising an arm, I flip him off as my pace picks up until I’m running at full speed. Then I’m slipping into my shadow form, to hell with the drain it’ll have on me, with the payment it will suck from my body.
Because although Antonio can’t track her, hecando a grid search.
And with his speed, he could be on her before my brothers find him.
I will not fail her twice.
