Chapter 53

Lucien

“Wait a damn minute, where the fuck is Mason?”

At Xavier’s outburst, my eyes snapped up. In my haste to keep Olivia from making a mistake I was sure would hunt her for the rest of her life, I’d completely forgotten about Mason.

Shit. Xavier was right. Mason was nowhere to be seen.

“Where did he go?” Olivia asked, her eyes roaming the dim space.

“Do you think you killed him along with the others?” Xavier asked her.

“I have no idea. Probably. I wasn’t myself at the time but it’s unlikely.”

Shit. What if she had killed him like Xavier pointed out? Then I’d never get to kill him and watch in satisfaction as the life drained from his eyes.

“No, he’s mine to kill. We need to find him,” I growled out through gritted teeth.

“There are over two hundred bodies here,” Olivia said to me, her face giving away what she was thinking. How were we supposed to go through that many bodies?

“Damn woman,” Xavier muttered, whistling. “You really went through them. Even Lucien haven’t gone this berserk before.”

He was right. Olivia had seemed like a whole new person in her wolf form. I guessed she was after all, seeing as she barely remembered who she had killed and who she hadn’t. Even when I’d gone a rampage and had slaughtered an entire pack so many years ago, earning myself the Alpha Devil moniker, it still bore no comparison to the brutal way she’d killed these men.

“Let’s spread out,” I said to them.

While I understood that a part of me should’ve been angry or even forlorn that my Luna had murdered the rest of my pack, I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything other than elation. Sure, it probably made me seem like I was heartless but I couldn’t care less. I would rather be alone that surround myself with men who didn’t have a mind of their own. Loyalty was the name of the game and they had been terrible at it.

In hind sight, perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised things turned out the way they did. After all, those men had been part of my father’s pack. They’d sworn fealty to him when he was Alpha and somehow, they probably never moved on from it. Since I’d inherited the title and they technically didn’t swear their loyalty to me, it wasn’t out of the ordinary that they had betrayed me.

We would have to start rebuilding from scratch, which was a shame because my father had put so much effort into building this pack and getting it to where it was now but it was time to get rid of the bad eggs.

It was better to rebuild than settle for less.

“I found him!”

Olivia and I hurried to where Xavier was bent over a body staring intently, with Penny standing above him. When we got closer, I took me a few seconds to recognize who I was looking at.

“Damn,” Xavier muttered, then met my eyes.

Damn was right. Mason looked terrible. Half of his face had been chewed off so badly that his bones were visible. Only one eye remained and his eyelid fluttered furiously like he was struggling to open it. His body was covered in bruises as well, some deep, some just flesh wounds. Werewolves had healing abilities but no werewolf had ever healed from an incomplete face.

I looked to Penny, hoping that her face would give out a reaction to what she’d seen. Nothing. Her expression remained blank, unbothered. Just like I’d suspected, she’d never cared for him nor Elena. They had been nothing more than pawns in her game.

“Oh, my God.” Olivia broke out into a sob, pressing a palm over her mouth. “Oh, God.”

Xavier stood to his feet, shaking his head. “Well, I guess that’s that. He’s done for.”

“I didn’t mean to, I swear,” Olivia cried, staggering back. I took her in my arms as she shook with her sobs and for the first time, slightly pissed at her. Not because she’d killed my half-brother but because she’d beaten me to it. I had looked forward to killing him from the moment I learned of his betrayal.

“Don’t sweat it, love. If you hadn’t killed him, someone else would. He had a knack for pissing everyone off,” Xavier told her, his voice soft. I appreciated his gentleness with her because it would take a miracle to convince Olivia that Mason dying was not her fault and he’d deserved what he’d gotten.

“He’s still alive,” Penny finally said, her voice empty. “Sad. You should’ve finished the job.”

Olivia’s eyes snapped to her. “What kind of person are you? How can you be so indifferent? Wasn’t he working for you? This is all your fault!”

Penny snorted. “This is coming from the person that tore out half of his face? You really think you’re in any position to point fingers? Sweetie, you’re just as terrible as I am. You literally just murdered an entire pack of wolves. Get over yourself. You know what they say, like mother like daughter.”

“Shut up,” I growled at her, drawing a fuming Olivia closer to me. “Olivia is nothing like you.”

She laughed, rolling her eyes. “The truth has never been sweet. Deceive yourself all you want but the game is the game. It’s just a shame I surrounded myself with such weaklings. Imagine what I could’ve achieved with stronger allies.”

At her words, Mason began to cough. His eyes remained closed. The weak sound was pathetic but what was even more pathetic were the words that came out of his mouth. “He— help m-me,” he croaked. “Plea—please.”

Penny’s face scrunched up in disgust. “Ugh, this is ridiculous. I should just kill you and get it over with.”

She made to move but Xavier was quick, grabbing her arm to hold her back. “Maybe I should just kill you and get it over with.”

“You can try.”

It was a dare; one I wasn’t too sure Xavier would not jump at. His posture told me that he would try and he would win.

I was about to tell him to calm down and not take her bait but Mason chose that exact moment to cough again. Only this time, his chest heaved violently as the force of the cough raised his upper body from the ground and then threw him down recklessly.

A second later, he stopped breathing.