When He's Ruthless (The Olympus Pride 4)

Blair believed him. Or believed that he meant what he said. She just wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t one day get so sick of Noelle’s crap that he’d nonetheless break his promise. “You’d better keep your word. It would suck to have to stab you.”

He grinned. “Yeah, that really would suck. But it won’t come to that; I never go back on my word.” He gently tugged a lock of her hair. “I’ll be seeing you soon, Blair. You need me for anything in the meantime, just pick up the phone. I’ll always come for you when you need me. Got it?”

She gave a hard nod. “Got it.”

CHAPTER TWO

Six years later

It really wasn’t every day that you found a dead body on your porch.

Sitting on her sofa with a cup of untouched tea in hand, Blair only half-listened as several of her pack mates stood around her cabin discussing the messed-up situation. All were varying degrees of unsettled.

Not that anyone here hadn’t seen a corpse before. There was a lot of violence in the shifter world. One-on-one duels. Group attacks. Full-on battles. But this here, well, this was different. The female on the porch hadn’t been killed in a battle for dominance. She hadn’t died in the defense of her pack mates. She’d been shot in the head and … well, hell.

If the victim had been part of the pack, everyone would be raging and swearing vengeance instead of calmly deliberating on the matter. But the fox shifter had been no friend to anyone here. Far from it. Despite that she’d only met Blair once, she’d made an enemy of her for life.

The first words the then-smirking fox had spoken to her were, “Hi, I’m Macy—the woman your mate has been sleeping with for the past six months.”

Blair had wanted to light the woman on fire. Not that she’d believed Macy. Nope. Not even for a second. Luke was loyal to a fault. He’d never betray Blair that way.

But the fox’s bullshit claim had been impossible to simply shrug off—it had sent all sorts of explicit images sailing through Blair’s mind. Images that she hadn’t been able to declare “imaginary,” since he’d bedded Macy long before Blair came into the picture. Blair had learned that little titbit years ago.

Many shifters would have beaten Macy bloody for falsely making such a claim and, essentially, trying to come between mates. But bush dogs much preferred annihilating people’s pride. So Blair had instead cleaned her clock, scrawled “I am a liar” on her forehead, cut huge chunks out of her hair, and dragged her to the bush dogs outside who’d then promptly cocked their legs and peed on her.

Macy had started to come round at that point, so Blair had sucker-punched her again and tossed her into the trunk of the fox’s sleek convertible. She’d driven straight to a popular shifter club, opened the trunk, and stood back with a smile as a once-more conscious Macy had leapt out of the vehicle … only to see that the people lined up outside the club’s entrance were gawking at her. Many had also snapped pictures, and several of those photos were then posted online. One was even made into a meme.

That “incident” took place a month ago directly after Macy slung her false claim at Blair. The redhead hadn’t returned, retaliated, or tried to contact Blair. Unsurprising. Generally, people didn’t strike back after such incidences, because everyone knew that bush dogs mostly played with you the first time. If there was a next time, what was left of your pride would be shredded. Because if there was one thing that bush dogs were experts at, it was the lost art of crushing people’s will to live.

Blair glanced out of the open front door just in time to see two of her pack mates cover the fox shifter with an old sheet. As they then transferred the body to a stretcher and began to carry it away, Blair took a shaky breath. She was far from queasy or easily daunted. But the sight of a corpse holding its own severed tongue while wearing nothing but the shiny red bow that was tied around its neck would turn anyone’s stomach.

The cut to her tongue had been too clean for it to have happened prior to her death, but that didn’t make it any less nauseating. There were no signs of assault or any marks to suggest that the female had been held captive. By all appearances, it seemed that Macy’s death had been a quick, simple execution. As if she hadn’t emotionally mattered to whoever took her life.

Kiesha sat beside Blair and crossed one dark-skinned leg over the other. “I know the fox did a seriously cruel thing to you, but she didn’t deserve that fate.”

Blair turned to the female who was both her close friend and the mate of her brother, Mitch. “No, she didn’t. And I think it’s safe to say that her pack’s gonna lose it.”