Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
THE MASKED MAN
I threw up twice on the way to the car and barely had the door closed before I buried my face in my hands and let out a guttural roar.
You wouldn’t be my first choice either, you know.
My alpha gnawed at the chains around its neck and raked its claws along the hot coals of my soul.
I pictured Max the night before, writhing and undone with cum all over his belly.
Then I imagined someone else, an alpha who wasn’t me tending to him while he was needy and vulnerable, fetching him a bottle of water before making sure he was soft and ready to take, hovering above him, pounding into him, knotting him.
Touching him with hands that didn’t deserve to know how soft his skin was.
Keeping him safe and warm in the nest Max made for him, and not me.
The motherfucker probably wouldn’t even know his favorite flavor of Gatorade was Light Blue.
I wanted my first heat with a partner to be with an alpha I cared about. Someone who knew how to take care of me. I wanted it to mean something.
I let out another raw shout. Fuck however long my body had left; if I had to endure Max sharing this heat with someone else, I’d rather take a bath with a goddamn toaster. Actually, no. I’d stick my head in a blender. I deserved it, for being the stupidest person alive.
Why did I keep fucking this up so spectacularly? For the briefest moment, Max was laughing—laughing—in the same room as me. With me.
Well, maybe more like at me, but he seemed genuinely happy to realize I was more than a scary mask and a knife. It even felt like we’d come to some form of understanding. Like he believed me, and was ready to help end this two-year-long disaster my life had turned into.
And then I had to go and say the stupidest shit imaginable.
I thought he’d want to know I didn’t just run to him begging for sex without knowing it was the only way we could fix this. There was already so much I hadn’t told him, so many unspoken truths I hadn’t shared; lying about this felt wrong.
But then he wouldn’t let me explain what had actually happened before making it super fucking clear I wasn’t someone he’d ever want, anyway. Not for real; not without forever associating the way I made him feel with that piece of shit rapist.
Hot rage bolstered me, pulling me out of the pits of nausea and honing the pain in my head like a blade.
If I’d just killed Joseph Weber that first night, none of this would’ve happened. Max wouldn’t have been hurt, and my life would be normal. Lonely, but normal. Our paths would’ve never crossed, because they weren’t meant to.
Someone like Max wasn’t meant for someone like me.
I killed people. Bad people. That was all I wanted in life. And the one time I let myself get distracted by a pretty omega who smelled good, everything fucking fell apart.
Even my breathing exercises couldn’t calm me tonight. I needed something more. Something that hit hard and sharp. Something that lit me up inside.
Max’s laugh flashed through my mind, and I tossed it away. That laughter can never be mine.
No. What I wanted was what started all of this in the first place.
Joseph Weber, dead at my feet.
But first, I wanted to see real fear in his eyes.
I wanted his blood all over my hands and his screams ringing in my ears in payment for poisoning Max against me; for twisting us together in a way that meant I had a taste of what something other than vengeance and pain felt like before it was ripped away in a matter of moments.
Killing was all I was good at, all I was meant for. I didn’t know how to hold a pretty omega gently, or how to show him he could trust me with something as precious as a first heat.
I was meant for blood, and doing the dirty work others couldn’t—not tenderness and love. I burned too hot and too rough for him.
I was meant to hunt.
I found Weber working at the twenty-four-seven diner in town.
It took me a few hours to track him down, which was frankly unacceptable. Turned out I was so distracted in the build-up to asking Max to help me, I hadn’t realized he’d left his old job and started working here instead.
He was probably fired. The pathetic excuse of a human being never showed up on time.
But the night was looking up, because he’d been put on trash duty, which gave me the perfect opportunity to scare the shit out of him.
It was one of my favorite hobbies that didn’t involve sniffing Max’s underwear.
Tucked in the corner of an alley not unlike the one I first saw Max in, I watched as he tossed the two full trash bags onto the ground halfway to the dumpster and lit up a cigarette, leaning against the wall.
Just the sight of him enraged me. He didn’t deserve to be alive anymore, let alone enjoying a smoke break.
I might not be able to count on my body and mind to function at the level I needed to kill him—at least not without drawing too much attention or getting caught—but that didn’t mean I couldn’t send a reminder now and then that I knew what he was, and he lived on borrowed time.
Stepping from the shadows, I showed my masked face.
He startled, tripping over himself until he was flat on his back, scrambling away.
His cigarette fell to the ground, sputtering out on the wet concrete.
He smelled of rotting fear and piss. “Stay the fuck away from me,” he said.
His hands dug in his pockets, and he pulled out a switchblade, brandishing it between us. “Or I’ll fucking kill you.”
I chuckled and moved closer, my boots heavy on the pavement. From the way he held the knife, it was immediately apparent he had no idea how to use it. “Not before I kill you.”
He got to his feet, the whites of his eyes stark in the dark alley. “I’ll call the fucking cops, then.”
I shook my head and gripped the hilt of my own blade. Thankfully, I had a spare since I’d left my favorite at Max’s. “You won’t do that, either. They’d ask too many questions about what really happened that night, wouldn’t they? And all the others before then.”
His face paled, highlighting the raised and jagged scar slashed across his cheek. The one I’d given him.
We hadn’t spoken like this before, and I was glad for the opportunity to let him know just how much I really knew.
“We didn’t do anything wrong. They were in heat. They wanted it,” he said, voice pathetic and warbled. “Especially the last one. He was panting all over me for months. He would’ve liked—”
I had him pressed against the wall with my knife at his throat before I could blink. The sharp tip pricked his skin, and a tiny rivulet of red spilled down his neck from the cut.
I’d moved too quickly, though, and the world spun around me. My vision tunneled, and nausea roiled in my gut. Honestly, I couldn’t tell if it was from my unsuppressed rut symptoms or the way he fucking smelled, like sick and nicotine.
“Finish that sentence,” I snarled. “I dare you.”
Dangerous. This was dangerous. Anyone could walk by and see the commotion. I hadn’t parked far enough away from the scene, and I hadn’t checked for security camera angles.
All the things I usually planned meticulously went out the window. I was losing control.
Weber’s nostrils flared. “You smell like him. I remember it; he was delicious. What was his name? Mike? Mack?”
Fuck. I’d also forgotten to change so that exact thing couldn’t happen. I bared my teeth.
“Max,” he said with a nasty grin. “That was it.”
I snarled. “Keep his name out of your filthy mouth.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Clocking that he was under my skin, Weber smirked. “Did you just want him for yourself? Is that what this was about? You could’ve asked to join in. I would’ve happily given you a turn after I’d fin—”
I saw red, and punched the hilt of the knife into his temple so hard his head bounced off the brick. He crumpled to the ground with a groan.
Kill him, my alpha snarled. Kill him and present his dead body to our mate. Show him we can protect him, we can defend him.
With fucking delight.
Except, he didn’t deserve a quick death, and Max wanted to see his final moments of fear. Vision still red and pulsing, I cocked my head to the side and planned.
I’d knock him out and throw him in the trunk.
I knew a few spots along the shore that were remote enough no one would hear him scream.
I’d pick Max up and go somewhere so we could take our time.
I’d open Weber up from gut to throat, reveling in his pain until he bled out all over the ground, and then weigh him down and dump him in the lake, where no one would ever find him.
Yes, that would be good.
Then mate will want us again, my alpha whined. He’ll see how good we are at keeping him safe and spend his heat with us and give us pups and we’ll be a pack, and you can knot him every day.
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I burned with acute, desperate want, and it all started right now. I angled the knife, heart racing as I readied myself to hit him in the head again, anticipating his delicious screams—
The back door of the diner swung open with a clang. “Joey!” someone called. “What the fuck is taking so long? Get back in here.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I backpedaled into the shadows, leaving Weber in a heap on the ground.
“Tell him I said hello,” he wheezed with a taunting grin.
Rage rippled through my muscles. It bubbled over, and I stabbed my knife into one of the trash bags he’d hauled outside, ripping a giant hole in the side until spoiled food spilled everywhere. Doing the same to the other, I left him to clean up the mess with a curse.
Spiraling out of control, I at least had the presence of mind to ensure he wasn’t following me before I made it back to the car, again roaring into my hands when I slammed the door shut.
What was wrong with me? Hunting was the one thing I was good at, and I’d fucked that up tonight, too. I’d let him taunt me into revealing too much and acting before I was ready.
I’d let my own fantasies get in the way of reality.
My breaths came shallow and quick. I hadn’t hyperventilated from the adrenaline dump of taking out a target in a long time; not since those first early kills, when I was so afraid of getting caught I was a wreck for days after.
Then, I had someone to center and focus me. The ice to my fire. The chilling calm to my storm. I dug my phone out of my pocket, thumb hovering over his name on the contact list, before I sighed and locked it, tossing it into the passenger seat in defeat.
That was a long time ago. Priorities shift, as they should. He had far more important things to protect now, and my chosen calling was only a liability.
So, I worked alone. There was no one to call to help me calm down. No one to hunt with, and no one to help me through this rut.
Feeling more lost and alone than I had since I was a boy who just wanted to get ice cream with his mom, I drove off into the night.