HAZEL
Sothing dragged at my leg.
The sensation registered before consciousness fully returned. A grip, firm and unyielding, pulled forward across a surface that felt wrong. Too slick. Too wet. My head lolled to the side and I tried to form words, but they ca out mangled and thick.
"Whaf... whaf the fuck’s goin’ on?"
My tongue wouldn’t cooperate. The words slurred together like I’d been drinking, but I hadn’t touched alcohol. My thoughts moved through molasses, trying to piece together where I was and why everything hurt.
Burns.
I felt them everywhere. My skin scread with a chemical fire I couldn’t place. I forced my eyes open and looked down at my arms. Red welts covered the exposed flesh, angry and blistered in patterns that made no sense. Was it the powder? That damned powder I’d brought back from Silvercreek? No... No... this wasn’t flour like Delta had tricked with. This was sothing else entirely.
My gaze traveled up to whoever was dragging .
It was Lysander.
"Hey..." I tried to pull my leg free. "What’re you doing?"
He didn’t answer. His grip stayed locked around my ankle, and he kept pulling with a chanical mind toward sothing I couldn’t see yet. That was when I really looked at his face.
Goddess above.
Cuts crisscrossed his features in brutal lines. Swelling distorted the sharp angles I’d morized during all those discussions of hate we had. Blood covered everything. Fresh and dried in layers that told a story I was only just beginning to understand. His left eye had swollen nearly shut. His nose sat crooked. When he breathed, I heard a wet rattle that ant broken ribs.
He stopped dragging .
I felt sothing sticky and warm beneath my back. The sll hit next. Copper, at and sothing primal that my Oga instincts recognized even before my brain caught up.
Blood.
I turned my head and saw him.
Alpha Wenzel lay sprawled on the floor with a gaping hole in his chest where his heart should have been. His eyes which had a strange cloudy color to them stared at nothing. Blood pooled around him in a lake that spread wider than seed possible from one body. The chains that had bound him lay coiled nearby like sleeping serpents.
"What the fuck?" The words ripped out of . "You killed him."
Lysander said nothing. He knelt beside and stared at my legs with an intensity that made my stomach drop.
"You are coming to." His voice held no emotion. "I had hoped to give you a kinder death."
"What does that an?"
He reached for my mouth.
I tried to jerk away but my body wouldn’t respond fast enough. His palm clamped over my lips and nose with crushing force. His other hand gripped my left leg just above the knee.
Then he broke it.
The pain detonated through like lightning. White-hot and absolute. I scread against his hand, the sound muffled into sothing pathetic and small. My teeth found his flesh and I bit down hard enough to taste blood, but he didn’t flinch. He didn’t even loosen his grip. The pressure stayed firm and unyielding while I thrashed beneath him.
He shifted his position and grabbed my other leg.
I knew what ca next. I tried to beg, tried to plead through the hand covering my mouth, but nothing coherent erged. Just desperate animal sounds that ant nothing.
The second break ca faster than the first.
The scream that tore out of felt like it originated from sowhere deeper than my lungs. Sowhere primal and terrified that understood what was happening even if my mind refused to accept it. The pain settled into my bones like molten tal, radiating outward in waves that made my vision blur.
He let go.
I gasped for air, choking on it, while tears stread down my face unchecked. The pain brought clarity rushing back. Sharp and cutting and entirely unwelco. I turned my head toward Alpha Wenzel again, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
"I do not understand why you did this."
"To protect your sister, of course."
My eyes widened. The words landed like physical blows, rearranging everything I thought I knew about Lysander into sothing far more dangerous.
He was capable of it? He was actually capable of it... There was... There was no way.
"Oh my goddess." I stared at him. "You are insane. You did have it in you."
He ignored that. His gaze stayed fixed on so point beyond , like he was already planning his next move and I was just an obstacle to work around.
"I warned you not to sche," he said. "You disobeyed."
I shuddered. The pain in my legs pulsed in ti with my heartbeat, a rhythm I couldn’t escape. "You cannot intend to kill ."
"I do."
"Why?" The question ca out broken. "Why? I only did it to survive."
He tilted his head slightly, and for a mont I saw sothing flicker in his expression. Not sympathy. Not regret. Just cold calculation. He was not buying a word.
My head went several places. I needed to latch on to anything that would tear into his murderous mind now.
"If you had not been so vocal with how much you detested , I would have never made a choice like this."
"No." His voice cut through my justification like a blade. "This is not . This is all you. All your actions led you here."
The truth of it hit harder than I expected. Every choice I’d made, every sche I’d woven, every person I’d stepped on to climb higher. They’d all brought to this blood-soaked room with broken legs and a murderer kneeling beside .
No. I could not give up now. This bastard was an emotional wet blanket. I could hit a mark. Any mark.
"I am soone’s daughter too." I wept.
He sighed. The sound carried no pity, just acceptance of an unpleasant task that still needed completing. "Nothing is going to change what is going to happen here."
Panic clawed up my throat. I sucked in a breath and scread. "Help! Help!"
Lysander chuckled.
The sound froze more effectively than any threat. It held genuine amusent, like I’d just said sothing wonderfully entertaining.
"That would help my case," he said. "You tried to sexually assault my father in his vulnerable state and it did not work. He attacked you and that led you to kill him."
The air left my lungs.
"No."
"They would not believe that." I forced the words out. "I am an Oga."
"That is exactly why they would believe it. It also helps that everyone in this pack knows the woman you are." He leaned back on his heels. "It is not the first ti you have killed. It is entirely possible. You have done worse for less."
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