Chapter 67

I tilted my head as I danced toward Raymond. “Like my dress?” I asked, grabbing handfuls of the fabric and twisting this way and that. “It’s my funeral dress,” I stated demurely. “Thought it would be fitting.”

I pinned him with a beatific smile. “I figured I would wear it tonight to forebode your little family reunion. I’m sentimental like that.”

His face fell briefly, but it quickly hardened with anger.

“How dare you, little bitch,” he spat, closing the space between us. I held my ground, unwavering, only tilting my head so I could assess his face hovering too close to me. “Who are you to speak of an heir's death? My son's death?” he spat.

I retrieved my dagger without breaking his gaze and leaned up, pressing the tip of it against his throat. I recoiled at the proximity, but I reveled in the breath stolen from him as my steel met his flesh.

I slipped something wrapped tightly into his pocket and whispered to him, “I was responsible for their deaths, so I may speak on them.” I tried to fight my annoyance at having the same idiotic conversation with him and his mate.

He pulled back laughing, but I grasped him by his stupid fucking button-down, shaking him so he looked at me.

My face was impassive cool, and his was anything but. “Check your pocket,” I whispered, not able to fully suppress my glee before taking a step back.

He froze for a second in anger and disbelief.

I waved a gloved hand at him. “Go on.” I feigned boredom as I studied my dagger in the dim sunlight, polishing it with my gloved fingers even though there were no marks. Ezra had it perfect, and I fought a smile, pushing down the still strange butterflies that accompanied thoughts of him.

His eyes slit, but he fumbled in his pocket and eventually pulled out the handkerchief. I clamped down on my disgust, forcing myself not to react to the whisper of the scent I had engraved in my memory.

His hands shook as he looked down into the white handkerchief stained with his son's blood. He glared at me, his anger palpable. “No,” he whispered, looking back down at it.

When he looked back up at me, a hard rage settled on his face. He had accepted the truth far sooner than his mate did.

“No!” he shouted, but his voice broke, and he attempted to lunge at me.

I moved to sidestep him, but he remembered himself first before he fully committed. He stumbled, struggling to right himself.

“I don’t believe you,” he spat before he was upright again.

I lifted a shoulder. “Your mate didn’t either.” My face twisted into an impassive frown, flipping my dagger in my hand. “But I guess that’s because I played my role so well.”

I met his eyes; my rage filled them, but my half-smile was anything but impassive. “You wrote me off as someone who needed protection.” I closed the space between us, raising my chin to meet his stare. “But I was the one you needed protection from.”

His face twisted into abhorrent disgust, but there was a hint of something in his eyes that told me he still wouldn’t let himself fully believe me. Self-preservation or ignorance, it didn’t matter. His end would be the same.

“The others should be almost entirely thawed now,” I mentioned, with a raise of my shoulders. “Those in the river.” I frowned. “I will admit it was tricky deciding where to place them, but I knew that winter would slow their decay and buy me some time.”

I brushed past him. He was frozen for a moment before he twisted to try to face me. I started a slow circle around him, gaining complete control. It was a beautiful thing. I knew this would make a great show.

But more than that, this was the position, the hold I always pictured I would have on him. Every time he made comments about me or my family and I had to bite back my words, I pictured this moment.

When he would be forced to submit to me. When I would get to tell him everything I had done to hurt him. When I could reveal just how poorly he had messed up.

“The visiting Alphas son, who had his throat slit right past where the new house met the old.” I pursed my lips, glancing at him.

“Dominick with a sword through his chest, in the part of the maze blocked from the audience.” I gave him a look that I hoped seemed sympathetic, even though I felt anything but.

My rage crackled at my words, at the memory of the wrongs I had righted myself.

“Hudson, though, might have been the most satisfying,” I admitted with a hollow laugh. “But at least you still have a piece of him.” Raymond clutched tighter to his son’s finger in the handkerchief.

I had almost completed my circle around him, he hung on my every word.

I didn’t know how much the audience heard, and if I were smarter, I wouldn’t have admitted to so much seemingly undue bloodshed.

But this was my life’s purpose coming to fruition. I would not bother with things like morals or politics at this moment.

He was shaking now, but I saw him try to control his more primal side so he could pick apart my words and try to find something that would make my pretty little speech false.

But he wouldn’t.

And I think he knew that well before he let himself believe it.

I paused standing back where I started, folding my hands demurely. “But it had to be done, you see. I had to start to repay a blood debt….” I cocked my head. “That was owed to me.”

His mouth was a hard, thin line, but his eyes flickered between black.

“Are you ready now?” I asked him.

I lifted up my dress and unstrapped my dagger holder.

I searched for Ezra in the crowd, and he stepped forward, hands outstretched. I walked towards him, adrenaline pumping now mixed with the heady bloodlust.

“Do you mind?” I asked. My voice was my own again, but it was small and choked as I held out my dagger and leather straps.

Ezra met my gaze, dropping his mercenary stare for me only. “I will keep this safe to return it when you are done,” he said.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Always,” he promised.

I wanted to crumple into his arms, but we both had a role to play. Raymond was looking dumbfounded between Ezra and I. Ezra didn’t even look his way before he faded back into the crowd.

“Shall we, Raymond?” I drawled, twisting my braid into a tight bun.

“I, we,” he stammered, his eyes blazed as he stepped towards me. “Who are you,” he demanded.

“You know you I am.” My voice rang clear and rippled with power. I am the heir of The Blood Moon pack, one of the oldest packs broken from The Moon Goddesses' original pack.”

“I am the daughter of Alpha Christian and Luna Lilian.” I stepped toward him.

My rage lapped up, and I let it roam free.

I lowered my voice. “I am death.” I met his eyes. “I am vengeance.”

He balked, sneering down at me, but I could smell his fear. It mixed with my anger, and I felt it become a living thing. It hardened around me like armor.

“You should not kept me alive,” I spat, the fiery vengeance flickered with each word. “Then your sons would have still been debasing these lands.”

The fire within me took hold, but I was its master now.

His eyes widened, and a thousand emotions flickered across his face. He decided to settle on one he knew well but could not control—anger.

He huffed, clinging onto the last bit of desperate hope he had that his entire downfall could have been stopped by killing one, in his eyes, pathetic child.

A loud sound and shattered glass stole my breath, until I realized what it was, I was not expecting it to be that loud. I closed my eyes and reveled in the timing of it. The Moon Goddess must be trying to claw her way back into my good graces.

Raymond clutched his chest as he fell hard to his knees. I grasped his shoulder and leaned down to whisper in his ear, “And there goes your mate.”