Chapter Sixty-Three

“Annecy.” It was a choked whisper. I could hardly believe my eyes. “How did you find us?”

Annecy tore her gaze away from Stride long enough to glance at me. Even in her filthy, exhausted state, she still managed to roll her eyes at me. “I wasn't looking for you. I was following him. I followed him into the gated part of the mansion’s library and heard him recite something from an old grimoire-looking thing and kept following him here.”

She lifted her head, staring at the wolves farther down the street who now cowered under her icy, unforgiving glare. “All of you are traitors,” she shouted. “I gave you homes! I trained you! When you had nowhere else to go, you turned to me! And how did you repay me? By betraying me. What did he promise you?”

Her frigid laughter dripped with disgust. “Fools. I learned a long time ago it's useless to trust any of his promises, and I thought I got the point through to all of you, but clearly you needed to learn for yourselves.”

She swung her head around to me and fixed me under the weight of her stare.

“You have not earned the right to end his miserable life,” she whispered. “Only I have. And I intend to balance the scales here and now.”

“Sure,” Stride choked out. “Might as well give it another try since you failed the last time.”

“Seriously?” Aimes shook his head down at Stride and then crossed his arms. “You can’t even admit when you’re defeated?”

Of course he couldn’t. He had to at least pretend he still had a shred of power in this situation. His pride wouldn't allow for anything else.

“You need to shut your mouth,” Annecy warned. “I've heard enough of your talk. That's all I've ever heard from you. Especially when it came time to tell me why you were rejecting me.”

Her voice cracked a fraction, and for a split second, pain etched across her face.

I felt her pain, her frustration, her loneliness. If she was anyone other than Annecy, I might have hugged her.

“Can we help you?” From behind me, Mom approached. “You look like you could use some food. A bath, sleep?”

“Who are you to patronize me?” Annecy tossed her head, sneering at my mom, then over her shoulder at the other witches surrounding her former army. “You aren't fit to breathe the same air as me.”

Mom surprised me by rolling her shoulders back and hitting Annecy with a look that reminded me of the time I decided fifteen was old enough to sneak a drink from her liquor cabinet. All Annecy needed to do was puke all over her shoes.

“You invaded our street, and rather than seek peace with us, you choose to be insulting?” Mom winged up an eyebrow. “That's a bold move.”

“I'm a bold person,” Annecy deadpanned. “You have to be when you're a wolf who's been rejected by her fated mate.”

“This again?” Stride closed his eyes, shaking his head. “I was telling you the truth when I told you I had no choice.”

“Another of your lies!” she screamed, and the intensity of her reaction made me fall back a step. We all did. “You had the choice, damn you! You knew what it meant when you cast me aside. And even though I begged you on my knees not to reject me, you were still cold enough to turn your back.”

“I don't know what you want from me now. There's no undoing it.” He coughed, a wet, painful sound. “And you've never wanted to listen to my side of things.”

“To hell with your side of things!” she shouted.

The ferocity of her rage made me cringe, and I instinctively took Aimes's hand when the backs of his fingers brushed against mine. Not only did I need his comfort, with Annecy going mental and melting down in front of us, but I couldn't help the rush of appreciation I felt for him when I compared our story to the sorry situation playing out now.

“But you don't know what it's like. Why would you?” she asked with a bitter laugh, circling his prone form. She seemed to gain strength at every one of his labored breaths, like his suffering soothed her somehow. “You've never known what it's like to be on the outside. You were fortunate enough to be born into the pack responsible for destroying so many others. You've never suffered, not for a minute of your life, and all because of who you were born to.”

“That's sort of the way it goes for all of us.” He grunted, pressing a hand against one of many gaping wounds in his side.

He was healing much slower than I was. The gash in my side had almost completely stitched itself back together.

“Some more than others,” she retorted.

“You think any of this was easy…for me…?” Blood bubbled on his lips as he laughed bitterly. “Believe me or don't, it doesn't matter now. But I didn't exactly have a say. Other people had already made plans for my life.”

“That's no excuse.” She came to a stop near his head and glared down at him with enough hatred to chill my blood. “You took pleasure in rejecting me. Don't deny it. I felt it. I’m your fated mate, damn it. You loved breaking me, and you loved it even more when I reminded you what it meant, this rejection. The more I begged, the more you enjoyed it.”

“Did I?” Stride rasped out. “Or was I putting on an act?”

“How convenient,” she muttered, tossing her head. “No, I don't believe you were putting on an act. You can't lie to your fated mate.”

More bubbling blood, more wet coughing. When he spoke again, his voice was softer and weaker than ever. “Can't I? I sure seemed to have you fooled back there at our wedding.”

An enraged glow sparked inside her eyes. “Fine. You pulled one over on me. What a shame it didn't get you very far. And for all your boasting and swaggering, you're terrible at covering your tracks. I followed you for days—don't pretend you knew I was on your tail.”

“And you!” She whirled to face her former soldiers circled around the street fire up ahead, and none of them had a choice but to see her wrath. They were still trapped by the witches’ magic. “I ought to disembowel every last one of you. After everything we shared, you would do this to me? What did he promise you? How many lies did he tell?”

“What difference does it make now?” I asked, quickly losing patience with her public meltdown. “You obviously came here to do a job. So do it. Take your revenge.”

“Don’t rush me,” she warned, wearing a chilling smile. “I've waited too long for this. It wasn't enough for him to reject me. He had to destroy my plans. Everything I worked so hard to put in place. I'm going to savor this for as long as I can.”

Strangely, there was an almost loving look in her eyes when she turned back to Stride, still lying on the ground. “I'm going to carry this memory for a long, long time.”

“He's suffering,” Aimes pointed out with the slightest throb in his voice for his former friend and pack mate. “End it.”

Stride gurgled a laugh. “Thank you for being in such a hurry to see me go.”

“Would you shut up already?” Aimes snapped. “You never did know how to quit while you were ahead.”

“Enough!” Annecy kicked Stride hard enough to crack bones. “This is funny to you? The fact that you're about to die?”

Stride groaned and screwed his eyes shut. “I came to terms with that before you ever arrived…but something tells me it's not going to happen tonight.”

I winced at the brashness in his tone, the way it almost sounded like he was joking. As if anything about this was funny.

“You don't think so?” She laughed mockingly. “Give it up. You want me to kill you now because it will mean putting an end to your suffering. Why would I do that? Why would I take mercy on you when the last thing you'd ever show me was mercy?”

He pried open his eyes and forced a smile that might’ve looked genuine if not for the gory effect of the blood filling his mouth and coating his teeth. “Are you sure you haven’t killed me yet because you still feel something for me?”

She shuddered in disgust, which only seemed to make him bolder.

“That's what it is, isn't it?” he said, nodding. “I bet you were never planning on killing me after I marked you as my mate. You would have come up with a reason to keep me alive. Because let's face it—in the end, you're all talk. Maybe that's what my wolf sensed about you—that you’re weak, all show and no real substance, and that’s why it was so easy to reject you.”

“Fuck, Stride, just shut up,” Aimes snapped.

“No, let him speak,” Annecy said. “Every word he says makes me look forward to this more and more. You're digging your own grave, Stride.”

The fucker had the nerve to roll his eyes. “The way you make it sound, my grave’s already been dug. Nothing I say will make a difference.”

“You've earned what's about to happen.” The growl in her voice gave it sharp edges.

“Would you just do it already?” Stride demanded. “Or was your intention boring me to death?”

She bared her teeth in a nasty smile. “Very well. If you insist.”

With that, she shifted, her sandy-haired wolf growling loudly, menacingly.

“There she is,” he murmured, and his voice was almost gentle, nearly tender. “My would-be mate. My murderer.”

I gripped Aimes’s hand tightly, feeling his mixed emotions. I didn't envy him one bit, but I had no reservations about watching Stride die. He deserved it.

Still, I braced myself for the slaughter. Everyone along the short street seemed to stop breathing, waiting. Even Mom held perfectly still.

“Well?” Stride taunted Annecy’s wolf. “Get it over with already.”

Annecy lowered her head, sniffing his throat like she was looking for the perfect place to sink her teeth.

Yet when she opened her mouth, fangs gleaming…nothing happened. She stood completely still, poised to kill, but instead of taking her satisfaction, she hesitated.

She didn't want to do it. Especially as her wolf, she still felt the connection of their fated-mate bond. I sensed it, plain as day.

“Look out!” Aimes shouted.

He saw it first, probably because he was focused on Stride and not on Annecy’s wolf.

A sliver of glass from the broken window.

With a strangled growl, Stride slammed the shard into Annecy’s wolf’s throat, burying it to the hilt.

I gasped. Mom stepped back and sank her eyes closed.

Stride fought his way to his feet, finding his balance before pulling the glass free.

With a pitiful, high-pitched whimper, Annecy’s wolf collapsed, blood spurting from the wound.

“Damn it, Hannah!” Stride shouted. “You could’ve killed me first.”

It became clear that he’d taunted and stalled to give himself time to heal. Now he was strong again, or at least stronger than he'd been before. Murder flashed in his eyes when he turned to us.

But rather than attack, he simply shifted. He stared at Aimes, who stared straight back. Something passed between them that I wasn’t part of and didn’t know if I wanted to be. Unspoken history. Disappointment. Betrayal.

Then Stride took off, his paws pounding the pavement.

We didn't follow.

Instead, even though she had hurt and taunted me so many times, even though she had lied to me and used me, I went to Annecy. She’d shifted from her wolf at some point, leaving her human form curled on the ground.

Nobody had to tell me the truth. I could see it plainly.

She was dead, finally free of her torment. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed she looked happy, almost smiling at the comfort of eternal sleep.

Aimes and Mom stood by my side while I fell to my knees. I couldn't put into words the pain assaulting my chest. I should have felt relief. I should’ve been glad she was gone after everything she had put us through, but I didn’t.

I still remembered my friend from the Full Moon Games, my confidante. Some of that version of Annecy had to be real. Right?

“If anybody ever qualified as a tortured soul, it was her.” Aimes closed a hand over my shoulder, his touch comforting, his velvet voice soothing. “She should have done it and gotten it over with.”

I turned to him in surprise, looking up into his stony face. “You mean that?”

“Damn right I do.” His jaw tightened, his brows knitting together in a grimace. “Doesn't mean I have to like it though.”

“We'll take care of her.” Mom waved a couple of the witches over, and after a moment of whispered words, the three of them scattered.

After a moment, they placed Annecy’s body on a sheet so they could carry her elsewhere. Though she’d been cruel and dismissive, they treated her kindly, gently. It brought tears to my eyes.

I couldn't bring myself to get up, still kneeling where Annecy had fallen, staring at the blood glistening in the grass. Now I thought I understood how Aimes felt about Stride. Annecy and I weren't exactly friends, and she had done some terrible things.

Still, I felt sorry for her.

“I’m sorry, Harlow.” Aimes crouched beside me, rubbing my back in slow circles.

“The mansion,” I whispered, my eyes glued to the blood congealing in big, sticky patches on the ground. “Connolly would’ve taken his home back as soon as Annecy was out.”

“You’re still thinking about killing Connolly.” Aimes scrubbed a hand down his jaw. “There's no one to hold you to it anymore though.”

I gazed up at him, and he winced at my expression. I could only imagine how murderous I must’ve looked, how done I was, how done I’d been since the start of the Full Moon Games.

“I don't care,” I spat. “It's not about that anymore. Only one person started all of this. He destroyed my bio-mom’s life. He used her and might have killed her for all I know. He destroyed other packs so that his could be the most powerful. He has brought nothing to the world but pain and death.”

I was never so sure of anything in my life, the path in front of me finally clear.

“I'm going to kill him.” I stood tall, my fists flexing at the rage coursing through my blood. “This ends once and for all.”