Chapter 174 The Won't Take a Breathing Body From Here
As the evening lay before them, Leela had once again managed a storm that should have taken her. But here she was on the front lawn, watching as the twins were running Sarah and Toby ragged. The twins' laughter carried on the wind like windchimes caught in a storm—bright, chaotic, and utterly untamable. Leela watched as Caspian tackled Briar into a pile of fallen leaves, their tiny limbs flailing as Sarah and Toby, the newly bonded pair, exchanged glances that screamed we are so not ready for this.
Sarah, ever the pragmatist, scooped Briar up before she could shove a fistful of dirt into her mouth, while Toby—bless him—attempted to reason with Caspian about the merits of not eating worms. "They’re friends," he tried, but then the toddler triumphantly popped another squirming victim between his teeth.
Leela snorted, flicking a stray leaf from her hair. "Good luck with that logic," she called, stretching her arms above her head. The evening sun painted the clearing gold, and for the first time in weeks, the weight of Northcott’s schemes felt distant, smothered under the simple joy of sticky fingers and grass-stained knees.
Inside the holding cell, the air was thick with silence—the kind that clung to the back of the throat like tar. Fennigan leaned against the damp stone wall, arms crossed, while Jax prowled the perimeter like a shadow given teeth. Northcott, hunched on the bench, had long since stopped pleading. Now, he just stared at his hands, as if they might reveal where his meticulously laid plans had gone so catastrophically wrong.
Jax paused by the barred window, the fading light catching the edge of his grin. "Capital’s guards are slow," he mused, tapping the hilt of his knife. "Pity." Fennigan didn’t reply, but the way his knuckles cracked was answer enough.
Northcott’s gaze darted between them, fingers twitching against his thighs like a man counting coins that had already slipped through his fingers. "You—you wouldn’t," he stammered, but the scent of his sweat betrayed him. Pine resin and rot. The stench of a cornered bureaucrat.
Fennigan exhaled through his nose, slow, deliberate. The wolf in his chest snarled, teeth bared against his ribs. He could almost taste the copper-tang of his type of justice. Almost. Instead, he leaned down, close enough for Northcott to see the gold flecks in his eyes. "You mistook my feelings for my mate as a weakness," he murmured. "That was your first mistake."
Outside, the twins’ shrieks of laughter cut through the tension like a blade. Northcott flinched—not at the sound, but at the way Fennigan’s shoulders relaxed, just a fraction, at the noise. "Ah," Fennigan said softly, straightening. "You heard it too, didn’t you? That’s why you came for them. You thought their joy would make me pliable." His smile was a knife wound. "Second mistake."
Jax snorted, rolling a coin across his knuckles before flicking it into the air. It landed with a metallic ping on the stone floor. "Third mistake’s the funniest," he said, toeing it toward Northcott like a bone tossed to a starving dog. "You really thought the Luna was just some soft-bellied noblewoman playing house. Thought she’d crumble when you dosed her with that poison, didn’t you?" His grin widened. "Bet you shit yourself when she walked out that door carrying Caspian and Briar and her little baby bump out there loud and proud ."
Northcott’s throat worked soundlessly. He had been beyond shocked when he saw Leela walk out on her own two feet and looking radiant, not like some dead person. His eyes wide as Jax unlocked the cage.
Fennigan crouched, elbows resting on his knees, and tilted his head. "Do you know what your third and final mistake was?" The words were silk-wrapped steel. "You underestimated my mate. The Luna of Blackwood." His chuckle was dark, delighted. "That’s the funny part. How you all looked down on her with disdain—then tried to move her right into the viper pit where you could make the elementals extinct again." He leaned closer. "Tell me, Councilman. How’s that working out for you?"
Jax twisted the knife—literally—as he drove his boot into Northcott’s ribs, flipping him onto his back like a beetle. "No, no," he corrected, voice dripping with mock sympathy. "The funny part is watching you realize—right now—that you’re never seeing daylight again." He tapped the side of Northcott’s temple with the toe of his boot. "Capital’s guards? They don’t exist for traitors. You signed your own death warrant the moment you touched that poison."Fennigan grabbed Northcott by the hair, wrenching his head back until their eyes met—gold meeting terrified brown. "The capital’s guards will come for you," Fennigan said, voice low and lethal. "But they won’t take a breathing body from here. Not after the games you tried to play with my family’s lives."
Northcott’s breath hitched—wet, ragged, desperate. His lips peeled back from bloodied teeth in something that might’ve been defiance if not for the way his fingers trembled against Fennigan’s wrist. "You wouldn’t," he whispered, but the scent of rot clung to him like a confession.
Fennigan’s grip tightened. "Try me," he said, and for the first time, Northcott understood he was looking at something far older than the man before him—something with teeth. It was like Northcott could actually see the wolf that lay within the Alpha.
Northcott’s breath hitched, a wet, ragged sound. His lips peeled back from bloodied teeth in something that might’ve been a grin if it weren’t so broken. "Then kill me," he wheezed. "Or are you too soft, Blackwood? Too—"
Fennigan’s fist cut him off mid-sentence. The crack of bone against bone echoed off the cell walls, sharp as a gunshot. Northcott’s head snapped back, his body folding like a puppet with its strings cut. Jax watched, unmoved, as the councilman slumped forward, a thin trail of saliva and blood dripping from his slack mouth onto the stone floor.
Jax spat at his feet. "No," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "That’s what’s funny."