I had no idea if the council had passed judgement on Donald or only sent an enforcer to keep an eye on him. It didn’t matter now. He’d admitted to killing Todd. That was enough to have him finished.
I wasn’t an enforcer here and now. I was a male whose mate had been threatened. We protected what was ours fiercely, and I was within my rights as mate alone to end Donald’s life.
Any male shifter would do the same.
I leaped on him, rolling us several times until he was beneath me. I bit his flank, and his wolf pushed me off. We circled, snarled. I tasted his blood on my tongue. It dripped from my teeth.
As we moved, I saw Rob walk out of the darkness to stand in the periphery. Rand did as well. Then Colton and a male I’d never seen before. I assumed he was the enforcer. They stood sentinel, arms crossed, legs spread. Doing nothing but watching. No one would take this from me.
This was my fight. My battle.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Becky. Shit! I didn’t want her out here, seeing this. She stood with Boyd—his arm around her shoulders—in the cabin’s doorway. She was wrapped in the blanket from the bed and had her boots on her feet.
Donald launched at me, his fangs sinking into my leg. The pain of his sharp bite shot through me, but I rolled, got free. Put my body between my mate and the vengeful wolf.
“Clint.” Her wobbling voice cut through the darkness, straight into my chest.
Goddammit. I didn’t want Becky watching. Didn’t want her to find out about us this way. To see what I was about to do.
Fuck—why did Boyd let her witness this? She was safe with him, with the others in a large circle around us. But Becky wouldn’t understand.
I was not human.
I was a shifter. A black wolf. I was a killer in both forms. Now she knew it all from the words Donald and I had shared and again in action. And I had to kill again. In front of her.
I had to see it done. She and the baby would be safe. Even if she never forgave me for what I am and what I’ve done.
It was over for Donald. He just didn’t know it yet.
As for me, it was over, too. I knew it all too well.
21
BECKY
What the fuck? What. The fuck?
I couldn’t process what was happening. One minute, we were in bed, the soft hazy afterglow of wild sex surrounding us. The next, I was rolled onto the floor and practically shoved beneath the bed because someone had kicked in the front door.
Clint had acted so quickly. His instincts to protect me were strong. As I’d laid there… naked, I had to wonder if he’d acted so fast because he’d been expecting it.
Who was anticipating someone kicking their way into your house?
This wasn’t a big city. We weren’t even in Cooper Valley. We were above Wolf Ranch in the flipping mountains. There were no houses, no people around for miles. In fact, the nearest place was probably Audrey and Boyd’s or the main house. If any of them came to visit, they’d knock.
I’d gone from stunned and confused to stunned and scared. The guy… Donald… had accused Clint of some really bad things. Shooting his cousin in the head? I’d expected Clint to deny it, to say there was a mistake. He hadn’t.
He’d admitted it.
Clint was a murderer. The crazed guy, the one who I hadn’t even seen since I was shoved under the bed, had every reason for revenge. As I’d laid there, I hadn’t been able to reconcile the Clint I knew from the Clint this guy described. The way only minutes before he’d been inside me, coaxing an orgasm from my body.
Way back at the bachelorette party, he’d hoisted that handsy guy up by the throat but hadn’t done more. He hadn’t even defended himself or fought back when he’d gotten his nose broken. With Todd the other night at my house, he’d done the same lift-by-the-throat move but hadn’t hurt him. With me, Clint had always been gentle… except when I hadn’t wanted him to be. But even then, he’d checked in with me.
But murder?
Things went from bad to worse when Donald stated he planned to kill me. A death for a death. Was this what Clint had been expecting? Was this why he’d shoved me behind the bed to be protected?
That had all been crazy, but it had gone from that to insane.
They’d fought and gone out the window like in a movie. When I realized they weren’t coming back, I tugged the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around myself and ran into the front room to watch from the other window. It was then I saw Donald’s dark form change to a wolf.