Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
RAWLING
I’ve got this.
My wolf was young and untried. He’d never fought another wolf. He’d only downed rabbits and a squirrel in the woods, so he was hardly a battle-hardened warrior. But perhaps what he lacked in skill, he made up for in youthful energetic exuberance.
Coach kept her human form, and my beast ignored her. The others could take care of her if necessary ‘cause she was a squirrel. While the shifter council would take note of her supposed embezzlement, I owed my parents a debt, and she was irrelevant.
I glanced at Atticus’s wolf and wondered, as he was my blood, whether he would partake in the fight. But my wolf said no, my experience of being adopted was not shared by my brother.
Phelan and Jack also took their fur, and the three formed a large circle, with the professor and me in the center. Jack’s hulking bear was closest to the construction site, while my mate’s beast kept his eyes on my wolf.
The professor transformed into his wolf, and his beast’s cunning expression laid bare his lust for blood and revenge. Everything the professor had done was to extinguish my mother’s memory, and after getting rid of me, the last part of her would be eradicated.
And yet while he hoped that would give him what he desired, it would never be enough. Her memory and how she rejected him would go with him to his grave.
The air smelled of wet cement, sawdust, torn earth, and wolf, and the unfinished building cast long dark shadows over us. The professor’s beast had a sprinkling of gray fur on his muzzle, and there was a bare patch on his flank, a result of another fight I assumed.
But his gaze was anything but weak. His wolf studied my beast, no doubt assessing his weaknesses. He was aware, as was everyone at Sombertooth, that my wolf was almost brand-new.
It’s time for him to pay.
There was no warning—our opponent was a wise and wily fighter—and he lunged. My beast leaped, and the two wolves collided. The crunch reminded me of metal falling from a height or two cars smashing against one another. Bones cracked and teeth tore bits of flesh, resulting in blood spurting over us.
When the two wolves hit the ground, they were tangled together, and my head was spinning as we tumbled over the gravel. The professor’s beast recovered first, and he snapped at my wolf’s throat. It could have been fatal, but while blood was streaming over his fur, my wolf didn’t falter.
My beast freed himself, resulting in more blood and skin tearing over his shoulder, but he slammed against the professor’s wolf, sending both careening into a pile of wood.
The professor’s beast clamped his teeth into my wolf’s foreleg, and the pain was intense, even for me who was experiencing it from a distance.
My beast howled, and the sound echoed around the construction site, but he raked his claws over his opponent’s muzzle.
Blood combined with dirt as the wolves broke apart and circled one another.
Professor Shaw’s wolf pulled away, and I wondered if his cold, calculating gaze was the same one he’s given Mika or my parents. His wolf darted toward mine, but mine dropped low and charged. The wolves fell as my beast clawed at his opponent’s chest.
The professor’s wolf bucked and twisted while trying to tear at my wolf’s throat, but my beast bit down hard. The other wolf didn’t give up, and his hind claws raked over my beast’s belly. The smell of blood clogged my head, but my beast ignored the pain.
He bit down again and this time his teeth caught the soft flesh on the other wolf’s throat. Blood flooded out of the wolf’s mouth, and his body convulsed as his legs pawed the air. He jerked violently but didn’t get up. His eyes glazed, and his jaw became slack.
I sensed the life leaving his body, but I wasn’t triumphant. The professor’s actions had caused this confrontation. My beast was just administering the necessary punishment. It was justice, not just for me, but perhaps for Mika too.
My wolf growled as the light went out of the other wolf’s eyes and his body went still.
It is done. We have avenged your parents.
Killing a rabbit while inside my beast was traumatic at first, but tonight, we’d ended a man’s life.
His beating heart was still, and while my family had been in danger from him, I would need days, weeks, and maybe months to process what my wolf had done.
How would I justify this to Eira when she was old enough?
I glanced around for Coach, but she had scuttled off.
Finding her was for the shifter authorities.
Phelan, Jack, and Atticus closed in around me as they took their skin.
I was in my mate’s arms, saturating him in blood from both wolves, while Jack rested against my back mumbling how amazing I was.
Phelan peppered me with kisses, saying how bonkers it was for me to have come out here alone to meet the professor.
I could have blamed my wolf, but if I had truly not wanted to confront the professor, I would have climbed into the car with my mate.
Being a shifter, I was healing fast, but I suspected I’d have scars on my chest, back, and legs.
My wolf had killed a professor, so there would be consequences, but for now the stress that had been a companion for months had evaporated.
“How do I explain what happened?” A dead professor wouldn’t go unnoticed, and we could hardly toss him in a pit of wet concrete. We weren’t mafia.
My head was buried in the crook of Phelan’s neck as Jack tapped my back.
“It’s okay, Jack. I’ll face the consequences.”
“No. It’s not that.”
Whatever it was could wait because we had to alert someone, anyone, about the mutilated body covered in congealing blood and dust.
“There’s someone else or something else.” There was an urgency in her tone.
Coach. My beast had downed a wolf so it wouldn’t be a problem to deal with a squirrel shifter.
“M-more like s-something else.” Jack’s voice wavered.
“Gods, you need to see this, Rawling.” Phelan was clutching my hand.
I didn’t want to turn around. This was done and our troubles were over.
Maybe we could stay at Sombertooth, though I might be in prison or banished and my in-laws may have custody of Eira.
If I stayed where I was and walked away, I would have to confront whoever it was.
I was done, and I’d suffered enough trauma for a lifetime. I wanted to live.
But I couldn’t avoid it and stick my head in the sand. I had to meet this head-on. I gulped and glanced over my shoulder. Oh gods, no. Was this from me? He didn’t look the same as the last time.
The man wasn’t human. It was an apparition, or a vision, similar to the one I’d witnessed last semester who’d beckoned me toward the woods.
So all the talk of my heart stopping and killing the hunter in me was hogwash.
I was still a hunter, and as my heart had stopped after the birth, there was now no way of ridding myself of the hunter.
“You have to run.” I shook Phelan’s shoulders. “You and Jack. Get out of here. Take Eira far away and never look back.”
“What? No. I’m never leaving you.”
I pulled away from him. If my beast had to fight and maim him, I would. I’d tell him the mate bond was meaningless and I never loved him.
“Stay back.” I stumbled over the wood that had fallen when both beasts fell onto the pile. “I’m no good for you, Phelan. The apparition is part of me, the hunter part that didn’t die.”
Jack grabbed my arm, but I shrugged her off, allowing my beast into my gaze.
Phelan had to survive for Eira’s sake, and Jack would help him raise her.
Silent sobs wracked my shoulders because I’d never see my baby grow up.
She was my beautiful little girl and she deserved a bright future, one free from doubt as to who she was.
Thank gods, Holden had established the hunter gene was only passed down through the alpha.
“Rawling, no, you’re wrong.” Jack was pointing at something over my shoulder.
“I’ve learned more about hunters than I ever wanted to and now the bad voice that I thought had died has once again taken a ghostly form.”
My heart had to stop, and this time it had to be permanent. I eyed the unfinished construction, thinking I could jump from the top floor.
“I don’t think so.” Phelan turned me around.
The apparition was hovering near Atticus, and instinct told me I should protect him. But he swiveled around, and while he was still the same Atticus, it wasn’t his wolf in his eyes, but something darker and ancient.
He grinned, and it wasn’t a snarky Atticus smile. I shivered because when he showed his teeth, I imagined them sinking into my throat as my wolf had done to the professor’s.
“Atticus, snap out of it. He’s only using you to get to me.” That had to be it. I was the hunter, not my twin brother.
“Oh my gods, it’s not you, Rawling. It’s him.” Phelan shoved me behind him.
But I got out of his shadow. This was no time for hiding.
Atticus didn’t speak and neither did the apparition.
But I shivered because their gaze suggested more blood was going to be spilled.
The bond my twin and I shared, the one I’d refused to acknowledge, tugged, trying to reel me in.
Shit, no. Atticus was the hunter, and the only way to get rid of it was to kill him and restart his heart.
But what if I couldn’t? What if there were two deaths here tonight?