Chapter 65: Chapter Sixty-Five

Three Hours Until the Full Death Moon.

My pep talk for this morning went a little something like this: You get into that fight, Harlow, and you ruin everyone else’s life for once!

That was it. That was pretty much the plan.

Just kidding. There was more to it than that, of course, but that was the gist of it.

We’d waited for tonight specifically since it was the night of the full death moon. The same moon Connolly had slaughtered my pack under all those years ago, the same moon that had powered the witches’ curses on him, the same moon that had spotlighted him when he’d been banished from his own pack.

Fitting that the death moon marked his eventual downfall, then and now, and this time for good.

At around nine, Connolly’s mansion was clearly visible on a brilliant, beautiful March night. Anybody who didn't know the people who made it their home might guess it was a place of majesty and wonder, with peaked roofs visible over the treetops.

Little did they know what went on inside. And what was going to go on if I was successful.

“Let's go over it.” Aimes was deep in let’s-talk-about-the-plan mode, his brow furrowed in concentration as we walked through knee-high brush. “We go in through the dungeon, using the door near the courtyard wall.”

“Can't we just use the door we left through? It would take us straight into the courtyard.”

“Too many windows,” he reminded me.

The view from the windows to the courtyard must’ve been horrific the day of the wedding. I wondered idly how well it had been cleaned up. If it had been cleaned up at all.

If Connolly was living there again after the coup, it would’ve been cleaned—though how many people did he have working for him now? How many of them were dead, or had fled either in fear or in Stride’s footsteps?

When I asked Aimes, he frowned pensively.

“That's a good point,” he said. “Maybe no one’s left.”

“He had a half-dozen guards or so at the wedding, didn't he?” How anyone was still so faithful to him, I couldn't imagine.

Money took care of a lot of problems though. It also caused a lot of problems when you didn’t have any.

“Yeah, and I think at least a couple of them ended up dead.”

“He must have hired more,” I decided. “If only because he can't take care of himself. Who's going to cook his food and wipe his ass and worship him the way he expects?”

Aimes groaned. “No more talk of wiping Connolly’s ass. Ever. I guess we can only hope whoever he hired aren’t skilled fighters.”

“Well, sure, but since when do things go our way?”

Aimes stopped short. I bumped into him from behind and was about to ask what the problem was when he spun, grabbing me tightly and clamping a hand over my mouth.

At first, I couldn't understand why, but it took only a second for me to pick up a scent on the air. I didn't know what it meant. Only that there was someone else in the woods with us.

Then, sounds of pain echoed through the trees from up ahead. It was clear this wasn't somebody we wanted to cross paths with.

Aimes lowered his hand slowly, like he was hesitant.

“Who is it, do you think?” I breathed, not daring to get any louder than that.

“No idea. But whoever it is, they're hurting someone.”

“Stride?”

His features pinched like he was considering this, but he shook his head. “I don't think so.”

We crept slowly in the direction of the scent and the sounds. Anguished groans, angry mutters, a few curses. And laughter. A lot of nasty, cold laughter, the sound grating on my ears.

Aimes held me back when we reached a ridge where the rock had fallen away, leaving a semicircular depression in the earth. We had the high ground and took advantage of that, crouching behind some bushes between a pair of ancient trees that hid us behind their branches.

Below us was a grisly sight: a trio of men shackled in silver, dirty and tattered and weak, the three of them sitting on the ground with their backs to each other, legs extended in front of them. Around them paced four shifters in their human forms carrying torches. Occasionally, one of them would prod the prisoners with their torch while they all taunted and jeered.

“How’s that silver treating you?” the man with the stick asked. “I've heard it eventually stops burning so badly.”

Singed, open wounds covered their wrists, their ankles, anywhere the silver touched.

“Vampires,” I breathed, and then recognition finally kicked into place. “Aren't they the ones—”

“Yes, Ronan and Cassius,” Aimes confirmed in a tight whisper. “And the one with the stick is one of Stride’s friends named Brandon. They grew up together.”

Now that he mentioned it, I recognized him, too. I had seen him during the Full Moon Games, checking out the women vying for their place at the Alpha’s side. Funny how that seemed like a lifetime ago.

“The vampires had an agreement with our pack that we would all work together, but…” Aimes sighed. “Well, it looks like Stride has burned a lot of bridges.”

Yeah, and now the vampires he’d crossed were literally burning.

It wasn’t our problem, though.

“We can go around them,” I whispered. “This Brandon guy and his friends are too busy having fun with their toys to notice us.”

Aimes scrubbed a hand through his dark hair. “I don't know…”

“Are you serious? Ronan and Cassius tried to kill us, remember? Do you think they're going to change their tune if we free them?”

“They might,” he reasoned, meeting my gaze before looking back at the pitiful sight below us. “They could be good allies. If they were double-crossed, they’ll want revenge. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?”

“You said the exact opposite once before.”

“I did? Shit. But still. We can at least talk to them and see if they’ll join our side.”

I had my doubts, but he seemed convinced, and I was more than willing to take his lead if it meant the potential for new allies.

We needed all the help we could get.

Aimes motioned for me to back up, so I took several tiptoed paces back while he searched the ground for a throwing stone. Once he picked a good one, he flung it over the ridge and into the semicircle below.

“Who did that?” one of the shifters demanded. “Who's there?”

“I can smell someone,” another wolf replied. “Downwind, but it’s there.”

“Go see who it is.”

“Me? Why should I have to go?”

“Because I fucking said so.”

That had to be Brandon. Only somebody who was friends with Stride would take that ugly, condescending attitude. Like they were so far above everyone else.

Whoever he sent grumbled and complained as they climbed up the rocky slope. I held my breath, hidden behind a tree, while Aimes crouched, waiting. His self-control was unreal—he managed to stay perfectly still until the guy was just beside him, his head swinging around, unaware he had been lured into a trap.

Aimes leapt to his feet, a much larger, jagged rock clutched in one hand, and he brought it down upon the shifter's head. He dropped like a ton of bricks, blood oozing from the wound.

“Did you hear that?” one of the other shifters asked.

Aimes shifted into his wolf at the sound of the approaching footfalls, the shouts, the confusion. He met the pair of men who came to investigate, his head lowered, teeth bared. Even I shivered at the growl that came from deep within him.

“Shit. It's you.” One of them nudged the other one, laughing. “Look who it is. The lost orphan.”

I gasped before I could stop myself, and the fucker turned my way.

Just in time for Aimes to take advantage.

The so-called “lost orphan” jumped with all the power his muscular wolf body afforded and quickly sank his fangs into the shoulder of a now-screaming bully.

The second thug shifted, his fur a tawny brown, his body nowhere near as large or as powerful as Aimes’s. Still, he jumped on the two of them, biting and clawing at Aimes in a vain attempt to free his friend.

I had to do something.

No sooner did I have the thought than my wolf stirred inside me, materializing at my feet before I ever had the conscious thought to bring her forward. Maybe it was seeing Aimes in trouble. She was as protective of our mate as he was of us.

She bolted forward, letting out a hair-raising growl before flinging the tawny wolf away from Aimes. She and the tawny one tussled in the dirt, but not for long before blood stained her white fur.

I caught a glimpse through my wolf’s eyes, saw the wolf fighting for its life beneath us, but the fight didn't last long. Not with so much of his life force spurting from his throat, soaking into the ground.

With that one quickly taken care of, she turned her attention to Aimes and the wounded wolf he still fought off and who wouldn’t die. My wolf caught one of the wounded wolf’s legs and latched on tightly, sinking her teeth into the soft flesh.

His scream chilled my bones. My wolf shook her head violently, still holding on. A sickening, tearing sound jumped his scream of pain up several decibels. A moment later, my wolf turned to me with the wolf’s leg still caught between her jaws, torn free from the elbow down.

“Damn, girl.” I swallowed thickly and turned my gaze away from the grizzly sight. “No need to show off.”

Now there was no hope for the other wolf, nothing for him to do but bleed out.

Aimes backed away, his snout caked with blood. I went to him, but he shook his head, breathing heavily.

I’m fine, he told me. Just winded.

“Come out, come out!” Brandon sing-songed. “Whoever you are, show yourselves. At least let me see who I'm about to fight.”

The three of us stepped up to the edge before the drop-off, my wolf on one side of me, Aimes’s wolf on the other. Brandon looked like a typical, boring frat guy playing dress-up as a hunter.

“What's this? Is that Aimes?” He burst out laughing—a snide, knowing sound that made my wolf growl. “What, you're following her around now? The girl who almost killed our Alpha? Way to turn your back on the pack. I should’ve known. You were never really one of us in the first place.”

He wants you to attack, I told Aimes and pulled my phone from my pocket. He wants to take advantage of you.

He growled softly. He knew that, but it didn't mean the impulse to go down there and tear Brandon's head off was any easier to resist.

“Is this how you have fun?” I called out, pointing to the tied-up vampires with my phone. “It seems pretty sick and twisted to me. I’m just going to start filming some parts of your serial killer documentary, okay?”

“I'm not the one who killed unarmed wolves today.” He sniffed the air. “Smells like a cold-blooded murderer to me.”

“Self-defense is justifiable homicide. That’s Cold Cases 101. One of your friends is only unconscious because he wasn't stupid enough to try to fight.” I grinned humorlessly, my hand on my wolf who was straining to be free. “You can either be like him, or you can be like the others. Your choice.”

As if to help him with that choice, my wolf flung the severed leg down the slope, where it rolled to a stop not far from Brandon's feet.

“What the hell?” He backed away, his eyes as round as plates.

Then he wasted no time shifting into his wolf form, his golden fur rippling in the breeze as he took off at a full run, far away from us. I'd never seen a wolf move that fast before.

My wolf whined.

“You can maim more later, psycho bitch,” I whispered, and she faded into nothingness, probably to go pout.

I bit back a smile. Poor thing.

“We have no quarrel with you.” Cassius didn't look so high and haughty anymore, tied up as he was on the ground.

“If you did, do you think we would’ve gone to all the trouble of saving you?” I looked back and forth between him, Ronan, and their friend who sat with his head hanging low, like most of the life had been drained from him. “What happened? How did you end up this way?”

“We got word of what went down during the wedding,” Cassius explained. “We were on our way to the mansion to see if there was anyone left, if there was anything we could do.”

“In other words, you're a bunch of vultures, looking to pick the bodies clean,” Aimes said, approaching in his human form.

Ronan rolled his red eyes. “Whatever you say. We never made it anyway. We were surrounded by those filthy dogs along with several others who subdued and shackled us.” He snickered, almost smiling. “We took a few of them out in the process, but in the end, we were too far outnumbered.”

“I don't understand. What happened to the treaty? The pack knows—”

“The pack knows nothing,” Cassius told Aimes with a sigh in his voice. “That's over now. Stride is going his own way, it seems. I only wish he had thought to let us know our relationship had come to an end. It might have been nice if we were warned to stay away, but that's not reality, is it?”

“Can we skip to the part of what happens to us next, please?” Ronan asked, his head falling back. “I'm exhausted, I'm in pain, and I would very much like to know whether I'm going to die this way or be freed.”

The third vampire spoke up, craning his neck to look over his shoulder at us. “What do you want? Whatever it is, it's yours.”

“Way to negotiate, Parris,” Ronan muttered in disgust.

“What, did you think we believed you had a leg to stand on here?” Aimes shook his head. “You have nothing. You're completely screwed if we choose to walk away, and we all know it. So don't pretend you have any power here.” Aimes held up a small silver key he must’ve taken from the unconscious guy. “We will free you and consider the slate clean. But.”

“There’s always a but, isn’t there?” Ronan murmured.

“But you're going to help us. You're going to come with us to the mansion, and you're going to be on our side as we go in.”

“And what, pray tell, do you plan on doing?” Cassius grinned, but there was no humor in his cold, red eyes. “Do I even have to ask?”

“Connolly is back there,” I informed them. “And I'm going to kill him.”

Ronan clicked his tongue. “Lofty goal.”

“Don't pretend this wouldn't benefit you,” Aimes fired back. “Tell the truth. Were you satisfied with the terms you came to when you negotiated with Connolly?”

All three vampires’ faces twisted into masks of disgust and outrage.

“He spent decades slowly tightening the territory we were given until there's hardly anything left for us at all,” Ronan snapped. “Stride was supposed to be renegotiating for us. That was the entire purpose of our pact with him. He promised us.”

Aimes scowled, folding his arms. “If we free you—and that's a big if, because I've still not decided—you are on our side. You fight along with us. If there is any threat to Harlow, you protect her.”

“Why kill Connolly?” Cassius asked, staring directly at me. “And why you?”

Why lie? If we were going to be allies, we had to start from a place of honesty.

“He's my dad,” I admitted.

Ronan blurted out a laugh. “That's as good a reason as I've ever heard.”

Aimes cleared his throat. “Are you in, or are we leaving you here?”

“When you put it that way, it doesn't seem we have much choice, does it? Besides,” Cassius added with a chuckle, eyeing the wolf leg on the ground, “I enjoy my body parts where they are. You can trust us, especially if you can help return our territory to its negotiated borders?”

“We’ll do what we can,” I vowed.

“Very well.” Only now did the desperation leak into his voice.

He was in pain. They all were, and they wanted it to end.

Aimes got to work unlocking them while I stood back and turned toward the mansion. Did Connolly have any idea we were coming?

Even though he’d run the other way, it occurred to me Brandon could contact Connolly and warn him, but that was a chance we had to take. I wasn't about to back down now, not after we had come so far.

Not after I knew exactly the sort of torment he had caused both my moms, my coven, and my pack.

Enjoy your power while you can, Connolly.

Because I'm coming for you.