Chapter Thirty-seven
Now that Ripper was once more dressed, he and Emberlyn walked from corpse to corpse.
Anger thrummed through his blood. Anger and a healthy dose of guilt.
If he hadn’t taken the faction’s bait, if he hadn’t allowed himself to be pulled away from her, she wouldn’t have been alone when these motherfuckers came for her.
Not that it seemed to bother her that she’d mostly dealt with the faction on her own – well, if you didn’t include the goblins and animals. In fact, he got the feeling that she’d relished it. But it bothered him a fuck of a lot.
As did knowing there were goblins in the basement, along with a goddamn portal. But he couldn’t be mad about it because they’d been indispensable tonight.
Around them, his wolves were keeping watch on the Rabid they’d detained. The creatures were still sleeping, but after all the bullshit that had gone on tonight, no one was in the mood to be complacent; they were too on edge.
Pausing near the twins’ parents, she flapped a hand. The protective dome around them lowered instantly. ‘They’re in a coma,’ she murmured. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to kill them.’
He would have been surprised if she had, given how deeply she cared for Paisley and Kage. But if she had ended the couple, Ripper wouldn’t have blamed her one bit. ‘I wouldn’t have pegged them for members of the faction.’
‘Me neither. The twins are going to be devastated.’
At the break in her voice, Ripper rubbed her nape. ‘One of us needs to call them before they find out about this from someone else. Want me to do it? As their Alpha—’
‘I’ll do it. I need to do it.’
Respecting that, he nodded. ‘I wouldn’t have thought Ward and Penelope were faction members, but seeing Ames and Ruben here isn’t surprising.’
‘I wasn’t shocked to see any of them because I don’t trust a single person in the coven. In my view, they were all possible suspects.’
‘This has to have hit Reena hard.’ Ripper looked over to where she leaned against the fence, her strength not yet fully back. Her dull eyes kept bouncing from her sister to her husband.
‘Yeah,’ Emberlyn softly agreed.
Ripper kept pace with her as she began making her way to the High Priestess.
‘I won’t ask if you’re all right,’ Emberlyn said to her. ‘It would be a stupid question.’
‘He wanted me dead,’ Reena murmured in a hollow voice, staring down at Ward. ‘As if to steal my position from me wouldn’t have been vengeance enough, he wanted me dead.’
Ripper frowned. Vengeance?
Emberlyn tilted her head. ‘He was right about you and Carver, then?’
Reena swallowed. ‘Yes. And I don’t blame him for his anger. But there is such a thing as divorce.’
‘Indeed,’ Emberlyn muttered. ‘Do you think he was always part of the faction or that they recruited him; showed him evidence of your affair so that they could use him?’
Ripper started in surprise. He hadn’t known that Carver and the High Priestess had had an affair. But, looking back on some of their interactions over the past year, a few clues had been there.
‘I suspect it was the latter, but I cannot be sure.’ Reena put a hand to her throat. ‘Why didn’t he just confront me? Yell at me?’
It was Ripper who replied. ‘Most likely because you then wouldn’t have trusted him as implicitly as you always have; you might have even considered him part of the faction.’
‘He hid his pain and rage well. It never occurred to me for even a moment that he knew. To think how much he influenced who I should and shouldn’t suspect were faction members .
. . He deliberately ensured that I was confused; that I doubted my own judgement; that I turned my attention away from people like Ames and Ruben. ’
Pausing, Reena shifted her gaze to her sister. ‘Penelope did the same. I trusted her. Just as I did Ethel. So when they supported Ward’s opinions on who could be part of the faction, I allowed them to slide my suspicions elsewhere.’
‘Penelope made clear that she’s the one who wanted to take your role from you,’ said Emberlyn. ‘Did you know she’d had her eye on it?’
Reena took a shaky breath. ‘Growing up, we had both talked of being High Priestess one day. But she wasn’t unkind to me when I took on the position.’ Reena flashed a self-deprecating smile. ‘She claimed to be proud of me, and I thought that she meant it.’
Hearing more vehicles approach, Ripper looked up. ‘The Watchers are here.’
The Watchers dashed out of their vans, their jaws dropping even though they’d been warned of the carnage they would find. Recovering fast, they sprang into action. Some took reports, some bagged up corpses, some moved Ethel and Thad, others piled the Rabid into the vehicles.
Ward’s brother Marvin, however, joined Reena in her moment of grief – as devastated by the situation as she was.
Meanwhile, Emberlyn went inside to call both Paisley and Kage to deliver the grim news about their parents. She returned a short time later, her expression sad and somber. ‘They were crushed,’ she told Ripper. ‘Also furious, but mostly just crushed.’
He draped an arm around her shoulders and nuzzled her temple.
A Watcher from his clan approached. ‘We’re heading off now,’ he told Ripper.
Marvin stirred. ‘I’ll give Reena a ride home and then join you all at the unit.’
Once the Watchers and High Priestess were gone, Emberlyn used a little magick to ‘clean up’ the scene – removing bloodstains and repairing damage to the fence and gate.
Ripper looked from Kerr to Logan. ‘I want wolves patrolling the perimeter of the manor overnight. Once the coven finds out that some of their loved ones are dead, they might get the stupid idea to march over here and confront Emberlyn. It’s unlikely, but I’m not willing to take chances.’
Kerr gave a curt nod. ‘We’ll make it happen.’
‘You just focus on your witch,’ Logan told Ripper. ‘We got this.’
Ripper tipped his chin their way and, seeing that Emberlyn was done magickly cleansing the area, ushered her into the manor.
Closing the door behind them, he planted a palm on it.
‘Now, tell me exactly what happened out there. You only told the Watchers a bullet-point version. I want a full rundown.’
‘Okay, but let’s do this while we shower. I need one in a major way.’
So they headed to her en suite bathroom. As they soaped each other down under the hot spray, she relayed everything. He remained silent, just listening, his anger kicking up the more he heard. Fuck those son of a bitches. And fuck him for not considering—
She flicked him on the forehead. ‘You’re not allowed to be mad at yourself for responding to the emergency call.’
He glowered. ‘I left you.’
‘You wouldn’t have if you’d known what was really going on.’ She rinsed off the soap. ‘Regrettably, I don’t think that the entire faction is gone. No way did it have only eight members.’
He let out a grunt of agreement. ‘Maybe they decided to act alone because the others didn’t back their play. Or maybe they were sent here like sacrificial pawns to “test” you.’
She hummed, thoughtful. ‘Well, I’m quite sure the coven will claim that the faction has now been eradicated – believing that will bring them the most comfort.
But it will also enable the rest of the faction to operate from the shadows in peace, and I don’t know if we can trust that they’ll abandon their plans to knock Reena off her metaphorical throne. ’
Personally, Ripper considered that Reena’s problem . . . providing it didn’t touch his witch. ‘Why didn’t you call me when you knew the faction was outside? Why call on those damn goblins instead?’
Her face softening, she turned off the shower now that they were done. ‘Powerful though you are, it wasn’t a battle of muscle and fangs and claws. It was a battle of magick. You wouldn’t want me involved in a werewolf skirmish.’
Unable to deny that, he moodily frowned as he followed her out of the stall. ‘I might not be able to wield magick, but I could still have helped you.’
‘Yes, you and your wolves could have done plenty of damage,’ she allowed, passing him a towel before wrapping one around herself. ‘But I had two very good reasons for not contacting you.’
‘Oh, do tell,’ he said as he curled a towel around his waist, his voice dry. ‘I’d love to know what you could possibly consider good reasons.’ In his view, there weren’t any.
Rolling her eyes at his tone, she padded out of the bathroom.
‘You have to understand, Ripper. I had a huge score to settle. I’ve been blamed for those bastards’ deeds for years.
They’ve used me as their fall person for as long as I can remember.
You would have ensured it was over with fast. That was not in my plans. I wanted them to suffer.’
His cock went ahead and twitched at the bloodthirst in her voice. ‘And your second reason?’
At the dresser, she swiped a tee from a drawer.
‘I didn’t want my first night as your clan’s Alpha female to be one in which I dragged them into a fight – a fight during which some of them would definitely have been injured and possibly even forced to kill some of the Rabid because, let’s face it, the faction would have made them attack you. ’
‘You don’t know that they would have – wait, back the fuck up. Alpha female?’
‘Yeah.’
The implications of her words settling in, Ripper slowly crossed to her, his heart starting to beat like crazy. ‘You’re saying yes? You’re going to let me claim you?’
She sighed. ‘It’d be easy to let all that’s happened throughout my life make me hold back from you, from what you’re asking of me.
Whenever I’ve given people a lot of myself in the past, they’ve thrown it back in my face.
But you’re not them. I know down to my bones that you wouldn’t hurt me that way.
And fuck if I’ll let those assholes in my past ruin this for me, for us. ’
His chest warming and tightening, he brushed the tip of his nose along the side of her own. ‘You’re sure about this?’
‘Positive.’