One by one, fast as lightning, she broke the necks of all the warlocks.
Finally, she traveled to Lori.
Snuffed her out too.
Layton stared up at Rose in terror. “You’re a monster,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Rose admitted as she lowered to her haunches, fire still blazing around her wrists, the weight of the chains pulling on them. “I can be. And this is what you wanted to unleash on the world. Hundreds of thousands of fae who would decimate the human race.”
He shook his head. “Please …”
“Do you know what the difference is between you and me?”
“Please.”
Rose leaned into him. “I know what I am. I see the darkness inside me but it doesn’t define me. But you … you can’t even see your own wickedness. How many people have you killed, Blackwood, in your pursuit of Faerie?”
“I tried to protect you,” he pleaded, his hands raised to his chest in a defensive position.
“You tried to use me. You hunted me. You tortured me.” As Rose pressed her hand against his chest, his pleading changed to anger.
“My coven will have their revenge.”
“Good,” she whispered inches from his face. “Let them come. I look forward to meting out justice for all the innocent people they’ve killed through the centuries.” Pulling her elbow back, Rose thrust her fist into his chest and watched the maniacal light die in his eyes before she yanked his heart right out.
Dropping the muscle, Rose turned to her chains, breaking them off before concentrating on the iron. As soon as her fingertips touched it, pain had her yanking them back. It was like dipping her fingers in flame.
Cursing under her breath, she attempted to push the agony of the manacles to the back of her mind until she’d dealt with Thea. Rose crawled weakly over to her. Shuddering, she whispered the woman’s name as she forced her arms up and her fingers into the bullet wound in Thea’s shoulder.
The wolf jerked, eyelashes fluttering as Rose gritted her teeth and forced her fingers deep into the wound. Thea groaned, her eyes opening just as Rose connected with the flattened bullet.
With a heaving breath, she yanked it out and threw it across the room.
“Rose,” Thea moaned, her focus hazy. “What—”
“Where’s the other bullet?”
“G-gut.”
Holy crap.
Rose’s fingers fumbled to lift Thea’s sweater as she grew weaker with the iron.
“H-hey. Can you break my cuffs?”
Sweat rolling down her back, Rose turned to the shackles around Thea’s wrists. She concentrated and pulsed what little magic she could into the lock. They popped off.
Thea’s hands immediately wrapped around one of Rose’s iron-clad wrists. Gritting her teeth with a growl that sounded as if it came deep from her belly, Thea snapped the iron apart.
Immediate relief from the pain caused tears to burn in Rose’s eyes. “Thank you.”
Instead of answering, Thea did the same to her other wrist, and then slumped back against the wall, her eyes rolling back in her head.
“Thea!” Rose lunged toward her, ignoring the ugly scars around her wrists as she pulled the wolf’s sweater up.
Silvery veins spread out from an inflamed bullet wound.
Shit.
The cry of pain Thea emitted as Rose dug for the bullet was beyond hard to hear, but Rose couldn’t find the damn thing.
“Please, please,” Thea moaned, her lashes fluttering, her face deathly pale. “Stop, stop. You need to go. You need to leave. Th-there might be others.”
“I’m not leaving you!” With her strength returning by the second, Rose searched the room for anything that might work to pull out the bullet.
She didn’t let her mind deal with the bodies.
The people she’d killed.
She looked at Layton and his voice rang in her head. The fucking fae, you moron! Her blood will heal me!
“Of course.” Rose shook her head in disbelief. “I’m such an idiot.” The iron manacles laid near her feet. Where Thea had cracked one open, there was a jagged edge.
This is going to be a whole lot of no fun.
Gritting her teeth, she yanked up the iron before she could think about it, fought through the pain, ripped the jagged edge across her already scarred wrist, dropped the iron, and thrust her bleeding wrist against Thea’s mouth.
Thea automatically opened her lips and sucked at the wound. Rose pressed her wrist harder against her mouth. “More, Thea.”
Watching Thea’s exposed wound, Rose saw the skin move, the flattened silver bullet pushing out of Thea’s body and landing on her thigh. Whoa. Rose threw it away, turning back to see Thea’s skin healing over. The silvery veins disappeared.
Rose dropped her wrist as Thea stared at her, gaze clear and focused, her skin returning to its healthy olive tone. Rose’s blood smeared her lips. “Thank you.”
Rose slumped back against the wall, her wrist stinging as it failed to heal over with its usual speed. She clutched it to her chest and shrugged. “It was nothing.”
Thea snorted. “Right, it—” She stilled, cocking her head. Something warm glittered in her dark eyes as she looked at Rose. “Backup just arrived.”
33
A ninety-minute walk from Fionn’s land, not far from the village of Costelloe, Conall led them to an industrial building that seemed to be some kind of medical warehouse.
It had taken them thirty minutes to run there at Conall’s speed. That Fionn could’ve reached it in ten minutes and anything could’ve happened to Rose in those extra twenty minutes ate at him.
But he had to focus.
There were no humans in the building.
Two wolves guarded the door.
“I can smell Thea from here. She’s bleeding,” Conall snarled before he launched himself across the car park at the wolves. As one braced to meet Conall, Fionn traveled, coming up behind the other.
Almost in unison, Fionn tore out the wolf’s heart as Conall ripped off the other’s head.
They stared at each other, hearts hammering, knowing they could’ve easily just knocked out the wolves. But they’d helped take Thea and Rose and, Thea, at least, was wounded.
Without another word, they burst inside the warehouse, battle ready. Fionn followed Conall as he tracked Thea.
No one else came at them and as they approached a door at the back of the building, Conall looked at Fionn. “I hear Thea and another woman. I cannae hear anything else. No other heartbeats.”
Fionn’s hearing was good but nowhere near as acute as a wolf’s, so he took Conall’s word for it.
The wolf threw open the door, which led down a dank stairwell. They hurried down it, coming out onto a basement level. Conall turned right and jogged down the corridor, Fionn following him.
When Conall stopped at a heavy steel door and tried the handle, he found it locked. He turned to Fionn. “They’re behind here.”
Heart racing at what he might find in the room, Fionn lifted his palm to the door. “Oscailte.” The door swung open and back against the wall. He didn’t want it blasting into the room and wounding one of their mates.
Conall rushed into the windowless room first.
The wolf came to a halt, and Fionn understood why as he strolled in. He was trying to remain as calm as possible while his whole body screamed with the need to release his pent-up worry and rage.
Bodies littered the concrete floor.
Warlocks with broken necks.
Liza Blackwood, dead, neck broken too.
A fucking huge bastard of a werewolf with a hole in his chest.
“Thea,” Conall bit out, hurrying toward the far corner where a brunette was helping Rose to her feet.
A dead Lori and Layton Blackwood lay on the ground near them.
Fionn traveled, appearing in front of Rose, who gasped at his sudden appearance. His mate was pale and drained, and he knew why when he saw her wrists. She clutched the
m to her chest, shivering.
“Fionn,” she whispered, expression slack with relief.
Fury boiled in his blood as he reached out and tentatively took hold of her fingers, pulling her wrists out, hands palm upward. Her right wrist was healing from a cut, but that wasn’t what made him want to hunt down the Blackwoods and kill every last one of them.