Chapter 27
RIDGE
Moonlight filters through the trees as I stand in the practice field at Eros Academy and observe the way navy shadows make the back half of the castle so dark that it nearly appears two-dimensional.
After letting my gaze roam, I land on one of the disarmed tanks students use to practice driving basics.
I sigh.
After an afternoon filled with what seems like a thousand meetings, I’m riding that thin line between wrung out and furious.
Almost done, I tell myself as I spot Jameson crossing the grass.
His shirt is sloppy and untucked, and he looks frazzled as he hurries forward, gait uneven from some old injury I’m not even curious about—because we all have them.
Correction. Any self-respecting alpha has them.
As he gets close, I observe a strange, almost haunted expression on his face, one that makes my lower spine start to buzz. We were supposed to meet to discuss handing off the class load Alpha Team X has been handling, but his haggard look tells me something’s happened.
“Ridge.” Jameson’s voice is clipped, all business. No preamble.
But he forks his fingers through his hair, the gesture a contrast to his tone.
“Jameson,” I say briskly. “What is it?”
“The timeline’s moved up.” The words are like ice water in my veins. “Intel’s confirmed. You and your pack are wheels up at 0600 tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” The word is a strangled gasp. A corrosive combination of fear and panic lashes tightly around my chest and squeezes. “No. That’s not enough time. We have preparations. We—”
“There are no preparations, Ridge. This is an order.”
From the way he says it, I know the order came from the very top.
The queen.
“I’ll deal with the classes. Don’t worry about that. We don't need to debrief on what you’ve covered. I’ll muddle through.” He pauses for a second, awkwardly, as if he expects me to respond when he just struck me across the face with a baseball bat’s worth of bad news.
When I don’t answer, he spins on his heel and scurries off.
I stay frozen, the silence roaring in my head.
Tomorrow. We’re leaving tomorrow.
That means we have to leave her. We have to leave Brylee. I knew it was coming—I fucking knew it—but I thought we’d have more time.
But no. Time isn’t a luxury that alphas in our position are allowed to have.
Tomorrow.
The thought hits me like a physical force, stealing the air from my lungs. A cold, hollow ache spreads through my chest, a void where my heart used to be.
“What’s wrong?”
Kylian’s voice is a whisper right behind me. I didn’t even hear him approach. Didn’t know he knew my schedule. I turn, and his eyes, usually alight with manic glee, are narrowed with concern. Or what passes for concern from Kylian.
I can’t lie to him. Not to my pack.
“We’re leaving,” I say, the words tasting like ash. “In the morning.”
Kylian is silent for a long moment, the air thick with unspoken understanding. He looks back toward the dark castle haloed in moonlight, then back at me. A slow, wicked grin spreads across his face, sharp and dangerous. It’s the look he gets right before blood starts to fly. Usually by his hands.
“Well, then.” He rubs his hands together, his manic grin growing. “Why don’t you come help me with the little project I’ve been working on. Before we go make the world safe for everyone else…let’s make sure it’s safe for her.”
The apartment complex is a shithole, the kind of place where dreams go to die.
It’s perfect.
Kylian and I perch across the street, our shadows swallowed by the deeper darkness of an alley. We stare at the stucco building that’s overgrown with ivy and watch a man exit his car.
Our targets for tonight are handsome alphas who are so full of easy confidence and swagger that they make my hands itch to grab a blade.
The man lets himself into the building, and we move. We flow through the night, two predators on a hunt. Kylian is vibrating with barely contained energy, a giddy anticipation of the violence to come.
We follow the alpha’s scent to a third-floor apartment. The lock is a joke; Kylian has it open with a quiet click of his tools, and we slip inside.
The living room is dimly lit, and the air is thick with the scent of beer and arrogance. And then I see them in the dull blue light cast by the video game on the TV. Two more alphas, identical to the first, sitting on a ratty couch.
Triplets.
Brylee’s ex-lovers.
The ones who betrayed her, who left her broken.
And our victims for tonight.
Kylian’s done well with this little side quest.
Their heads snap up as we enter, their confident smirks faltering as they take us in.
“Who the hell are you?” one of them demands, rising to his feet.
Kylian’s grin is feral.
“We’re the ghosts of your past,” he chirps, his voice deceptively sweet. “And we’re here to collect.”
The first one lunges, a stupid, predictable move.
I sidestep, my fist connecting with his jaw with a sickening crack.
He goes down like a sack of bricks. The other two are on their feet now, but they’re slow, clumsy.
Kylian is a blur of motion, a dance of brutal efficiency.
He takes one down with a kick to the knee and the other with a vicious elbow to the throat.
In less than ten seconds, all three are on the floor, groaning and bleeding.
I grab the first one by the hair and yank his head back.
“Do you remember Brylee?” I ask, my voice dangerously low.
I don’t even know why I ask.
Of course they do.
Are they haunted by what they did to her?
Do they replay those final moments again and again in their heads?
Do they fall asleep to the sound of her screams as the Noths dragged her away?
His eyes widen in fear. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kylian crouches down beside the second alpha. His knife traces a line down his cheek.
“Liar,” he sings. “She was sweet, wasn’t she? Trusting. And you three… You threw her away like trash.” Something dark and malevolent distorts his features before he masks it behind a playful smile.
The third one spits blood on the floor. “She was a weak little bitch who couldn’t handle—”
Wrong fucking thing to say.
He doesn’t get to finish. My boot connects with his face, and bone gives way under the impact.
“Don’t you ever talk about her,” I snarl, my voice barely human. “Don’t you even think her name.”
I grab him by his hair, hauling him up and slamming him back against the wall. His head connects with a dull thud, and he cries out, a paltry, pathetic sound.
“You thought she was weak?” I snarl, my voice a low growl. I press my forearm against his throat, just enough to make his eyes bulge. “You have no idea what strength is.”
We work them over, a symphony of pain and punishment.
We break bones, we carve our initials into their skin, and we whisper all the ways they’re going to suffer if they ever cross her path again.
We make them beg, make them cry, make them regret the day they were born.
But we don’t kill them. Death is too easy. Too kind.
Kylian gets…creative, a whirlwind of gleeful malice.
Currently, he’s straddling the second alpha, humming a discordant tune while he methodically dislocates the man’s fingers. One by one. Each wet pop is accompanied by a high, thin scream.
“Oops,” Kylian says with a bright, terrifying smile. “Did that hurt? My bad.”
He twists the next finger, and the scream gets louder.
“You know,” he says conversationally, looking over at me before refocusing on the soon-to-be-dead triplet, “I’m thinking of a number between one and ten. It’s the number of bones I’m going to break in your hand before I move on to something more…unique.”
The third alpha tries to crawl away, dragging his broken leg behind him. I kick him in the ribs, hard enough to hear them crack. He collapses with a choked sob.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I ask, looming over him. “We’re not done catching up.”
I kneel, my knee pressing into his back, pinning him to the filthy floor. I pull out my own knife, the blade cold and sharp.
“Brylee has a small, crescent-shaped scar on her hand,” I say, my voice dangerously quiet. “Do you know that? She got it when she was first taken by the Noths. When she was tortured. When you turned her over for money. Remember?”
He whimpers, shaking his head against the linoleum.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I murmur.
I press the tip of my knife to the back of his hand, right in the same spot.
“I think it’s only fair that you have a matching one. A little something to remember her by.” I slowly, deliberately, carve a shallow, perfect crescent into his flesh.
He screams, thrashing beneath me, but I hold him fast, my weight an unmovable force.
“Shhh,” I soothe, my voice dripping with false sympathy. “It’ll only hurt until you die. Or until we let you go. Whichever comes first.”
Across the room, Kylian has finished with the fingers and is moving on to bigger things. He’s got the second alpha’s arm twisted at an unnatural angle, his foot braced against the man’s shoulder.
“You know,” Kylian says, his voice light and airy, “I’ve always wondered what it sounds like when a shoulder pops out of its socket. It’s not as satisfying as a finger, but it has a certain…crunch to it. Don’t you think?”
He leans his weight in, and a sickening, wet tear echoes through the room, followed by a guttural shriek of agony.
Kylian giggles. “Oh, yes. Definitely a crunch.”
I stand, leaving the third one to sob quietly on the floor, his hand a bloody mess. I turn to the first one, still pinned against the wall. His eyes are wide with terror, the bravado completely gone, replaced by a primal, animal fear.
“Please,” he whimpers. “Please, I’m sorry. We’ll leave her alone, I swear.”
“Sorry?” Kylian appears beside me, his face inches from the alpha’s. “Sorry is for when you step on someone’s foot. You didn’t step on her foot. You shattered her. You took her trust and her love, and you used it to hurt her. There’s no ‘sorry’ for that.”
He taps the flat of his blade against the alpha’s cheek.
“But don’t worry. We’re not going to kill you. Death is a release. A mercy. And you”—his voice drops to a venomous whisper—“don’t deserve mercy.”
A pair of pliers emerges from Kylian’s pocket along with something else…something that glimmers silver in the moonlight.
“Is that a speculum?” I ask.
Kylian’s brow furrows as he studies it.
“It’s that thing dentist’s use,” he replies, turning to shove it into one alpha’s mouth. “But…I suppose I could use it for other things too.” He winks at the second brother…who’s sprawled on the floor, crying silently. “Maybe on you.”
Once Kylian’s pockets bulge with missing body parts, I lean in, my gaze locking with the nearest alpha’s, though the bruises on his face have reduced his eyes to slits.
“We’re going to leave you now. You’re going to live with this.
You’re going to wake up every morning and remember the feel of your bones breaking.
You’re going to look at your hands and be reminded of her.
Every time you try to hold a cup, every time you try to open a door, every time you smile, you’ll think of Brylee. ”
Kylian grins, a flash of white teeth in the dim light.
“And if we ever, ever hear that you’ve been near her, or talked about her, or even so much as thought her name with anything other than regret…
we’ll come back. And next time,” he says, tracing the line of the alpha’s jaw with his knife, “I’ll peel the skin from your face while you’re still conscious enough to appreciate it. ”
We leave them there, a broken, bleeding mess of their former selves. The silence of the hallway is a welcome reprieve, but the image of Brylee’s face is burned into my mind.
The world is a little safer for her tonight.
And as we disappear into the night, I know this is only the beginning. We will burn down anything and anyone who dares to threaten her.
Without mercy.
Without hesitation.
Until she’s safe.
Forever.