18. Sage
Sage
Irise out of the river behind the man in black and, using my belt, I flick it as hard as I can at the back of his legs so he drops to his knees. His howl is so very satisfying, and yes, okay, it feels childish hitting him with a belt, but I’m in that kind of mood.
“You have an obsession with seeing people on their knees,” Pix says as he stomps past me. The sexy curl of his lips just makes that bubble of happiness in my chest expand.
The guy struggles up, whining like a bitch. With a snorted laugh, I whip the idiot across the face with my belt, then punch him hard in the throat. He gurgles, his balaklava slides so it’s so skewed I can’t even see his eyes anymore.
This is a new low. Death by belt-whipping. I would die of shame.
“Hurry up, Sage. People to kill, places to be,” Pix says cheerfully and whistles at me like I’m an errant dog.
“Baby?”
“Yeah?”
“First warning.”
“Oooh,” he mocks and disappears out of sight.
I pull out my gun and silencer and put it to this idiot’s chest, aim straight at his heart and put two bullets into him.
He drops like a stone. I check his pulse to be safe, then drag him out of view of the river, just in case there are tourists or someone who doesn’t need this idiot’s death on their conscience.
I pause, looking at the tattooed crow on his inner wrist. What is that?
With a jaunty hum, I jog after my omega. I find him a few minutes later in a clearing locked into hand to hand combat with an alpha that looks even bigger than King. He’s got no chance whatsoever, but my god, the artistry of my omega is a sight to behold. Truly, he is absolutely magnificent.
I lean against a tree, watching intently, admiring, observing, leering, and taking mental snapshots for my spank bank later.
“Watch your back leg,” I say, and have to hide my smile behind my hand when Pix shoots me a look of pure wrath.
“You had better not be correcting my form!” Pix spits.
He throws a punch and gets hit in return.
“If he hits you again, I’m going to step in,” I warn him.
“If you interfere, I will beat your ass.”
“Well, don’t get hit.”
I bite my bottom lip so I don’t smile at the grumpy omega. He is vicious and fast. He pulls out a slim blade that I didn’t know he had. It’s long and thin and incredibly elegant. He stabs it into the massive guy’s throat and gets showered in a fountain of blood.
“Pix,” I say sadly. “That is such a headache to clean up; why did you do that?”
“Because you pissed me off!” Pix snaps and stabs again, then thrice more, glaring at me the whole time. He makes a mess. Deliberatively. It’s adorable. A teeny-tiny omega tantrum.
An alpha comes flying out of the trees and straight at me, roaring like someone having a psychotic episode and discovering they are actually a bear.
“Show me how it’s done then, Mr Trained To Kill. At least I came by my skills honestly.”
“So elitist,” I tease and kick out hard.
The guy goes down on his shattered kneecap. The force of his weight sends him barreling into the tree behind me. He slides the last few feet into the trunk and cracks his neck.
I lift my eyes to Pix, who is working himself up into a rage as he stares at my kill like he’s going to combust.
“That doesn’t count!” he roars.
“Why is it that with everyone else, you are cool and calm, but when it comes to me, you lose your panties every time,” I ask, and okay, yeah, I am provoking him, but he’s so freaking hot when he’s mad.
“PANTIES?” Pix howls.
I like this side of him. I like it a lot.
He rushes me, but I catch his arm, yank him up so he’s pressed against me, and kiss him hard. He opens his mouth, and I slide my tongue in, languidly taking possession of him, his rage, and his beautiful, delicious mind.
When I pull back, he stares at me with his eyes that are super heated.
“Are you aware I have the tip of my blade pressed against your jugular?” Pix says in a low hiss.
“Of course, it made it hotter.”
Pix makes a frustrated noise and removes the blade. “Go find King and Rolly.”
“Your wish, my command.”
I trot off, aware that he’s not following me because he’s getting rid of the bodies, and isn’t that one of the hottest things ever?
Adorable little killer.
Not surprisingly, the two alphas are together and fine with a mound of bodies. They are currently dragging them off into the depths of the forest, making sure they all disappear.
I decide to turn back and look for Blaze, while I make sure there are no more hunters. Who hired them? How did they find us? I have so many, many questions.
So many unanswered questions and lots of random answers that make me uneasy. Going through this amount of trouble, sending a tiny army to die is just a way of testing defenses.
Why does he want her back so badly? Why torture her and leave her there? Is she a message, and if so, a message for whom?
It reminds me too much of my past. Growing up under my parents’ thumb was spent being trained as a killer.
No schools for me, private tutors, I was trained in the art of pain, the language of murder, the calculations of violence.
By the time they made the mistake and realised that my scent was too strong, I was uncontrollable.
A weapon, trained to be the perfect dog, that had far exceeded the strength of the ones who held my lead. They had no choice. I killed everyone they sent to school me. Every person who laid hands on me ended up broken. My parents learned to fear me. I got lucky; I was able to overcome my demon.
She has not been able to overcome hers.
I follow the river around a bend and find Blaze on his knees. A quick scan sends ice through my veins. Roseland is in the water, but Merle is standing with her hair covering her face, not moving or reacting to the gun pressed to her chest.
My heart thuds violently. For the first time, I’m not concerned, I’m scared.
“Push it out!” The guy in black shouts. “And you,” he spits at Merle, “you are coming home to Father.”
Roseland growls, his expression getting dark and awful, but he grabs the paddle, digs it in, and shoves out into the river, which snatches him from view. I don’t dare give myself away.
A cold and deadly feeling fills my chest.
Blaze says something, and the idiot with the gun on my omega shouts at him. I don’t care because she has lifted her chin, and that is not Merle or Kestrel. I can’t tell who it is.
Not until she moves.
Goddamn, she moves like she’s made of liquid fire, like she was born for this. Her arm snaps out, and she brings his wrist down hard across her knee. The bone snaps.
I try to imagine how much force she needed to break his arm, but I can’t. Before I can move, or Blaze can get up, she picks up a rock and slams it into his mouth. He howls, and teeth fall out, sprinkling with ruby red blood on the sand.
“Fuck. Me,” I whisper in pure awe.
She hits again, breaking his nose. When he raises his free hand, she grabs his fingers, spins around him, and snaps them.
He’s choking on blood but still trying to scream when she knees his balls so hard I think they’d probably need a black hole to resurrect them. His scream gets really, really high, but her viciousness doesn’t end. She systematically destroys him, one weak point at a time.
Joints, tendons, nerves. She breaks his ribs, bruises his kidneys, takes out his kneecaps, punches his throat, grabs a stick and blinds him.
In the end, he just lies on the sand and whimpers. She moves fluidly and confidently.
“In your next life, I implore you to think about having some morals and not selling out to a sociopathic monster with an obsession with birds.”
He sobs.
He doesn’t even beg. I don’t think he’s capable.
She picks up a rock the size of her head and brings it down on his skull.
I exhale sharply, my cock so hard I think I might nut in my pants. She is glorious.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Roseland help Blaze up. Rolly, Pix, and King are sitting on a rock, watching and grinning.
She checks him over, then goes to the river and washes her hands and scrubs the blood off her arms.
“Raptor?”
She lifts her head and smiles when she sees me.
“Did you like the show?”
“Oh, Omega…if we weren’t surrounded by enemies, I would knot you so hard right now. I would give you all the orgasms you could ever ask for. It would be a conveyor belt of happiness. You are the most graceful, incredible killer I have ever seen. You are a dancer.”
She preens. “Aww, you say the sweetest things.”
“I say the truth. I am in awe.” My words disappear, and I shake my head, smiling as I choke out a laugh. “I am in love.”
“Woo-hoo, two love declarations in two hours. I am on fire. And FYI, unlike Kestrel, I love to be loved. Give it all to me.”
“No, no, no,” Blaze growls, stepping between us. “No sex in front of the corpses. We are not that far gone.”
“Aww.”
She means it, too.
Blaze grumbles under his breath. “Temptress!”
My smile fades as I turn away from them, mentally descending into the millions of thoughts that are plaguing me.
“Who are they?”
“Those are disciples of the Flock. His sworn devotees come to do his bidding,” Raptor says scathingly. “Useless fucks.”
Her words steal my humor and drag me back to reality with a heavy thud.
It’s been a long, almost three weeks, but it’s time to return to civilization and the real world. In my head, I go over all the complications, all the potential dangers, the threats, the horrible ways we could be undone.
I plan for as many of them as I can.
I would be an idiot to think I’ve prepared for everything, but the act of planning soothes the alpha urge to grab my omegas and drag them back into the forest and disappear off-grid forever.
It’s hard to resist it.
Harder still when I can see the same urge in every other alpha’s eyes.
Roseland stands at the river, watching the water rush past. I approach warily.
“What are you thinking about?”
“You killed our parents?”
Oh, that was not where I thought he was going to go. “I did.”
“Why?”
“Well, partially because they were involved in destroying our home and getting our omegas kidnapped, and partly because your mother decided that it was a good time to kill you.”
Roseland’s eyes tighten but only for a fraction of a second before his expression clears.
“Okay.”
I study him, but there’s no grief, no sadness, or anger, just a calm acceptance.
He turns and finds me studying him, and one of those perfect smiles spreads across his face.
“I’m not upset, Sage. It’s one less threat, I am grateful to you.”
He turns and cups my neck, guiding me closer, then leaning down and touching his lips to mine.
It’s a rare, rare display from Aaron.
One I will cherish forever.
“I’m not upset. Not at all.”
Well, that’s good. Great.
I open my mouth to say something adult and profound when Raptor and Rolly streak past, the pair of them naked as the day they were born, and leap into the river.
I sigh heavily.
“Daddy Blaze, I thought you were watching them,” I snap turning away from my stepbrother.
Blaze huffs at me. “I can’t do it all alone. They are like cats on catnip needing to shit.”
Aaron gets the giggles. I side-eye him.
“Didn’t you get…” I see King and Pix hanging out of trees doing pull-ups.
“Yeah, see my problem? Cats, cats that are high. Cats with a need to shit in a litter box, running around going, Mer-ow and looking absolutely ridiculous.”
“Would you like a hug, Blaze?” Roseland asks.
Blaze glares at him. “Yes, I would like a hug. What do you take me for?”
Roseland chuckles and goes over to my alpha and hugs him. “There, there. Sage will yell at our nasty pack, you just sit here with me.”
Blaze sniffs. “He left me alone.”
“I know, it was horrible. Come on. Sage, go deal with the kids.”
I stare after them, my mouth hanging open, not sure if I’m offended or amused and then, because I was told, I go and drag my omegas and alphas out of the rivers and trees so we can get moving.