My nerves were shot, and everything hurt, especially my back. I hadn’t seen it yet, but I was pretty sure it was going to scar. Jaxson had touched it, and then we’d kissed, and…everything went to shit.
That kiss. Kill me now. Never mind the fact that I was scratched to hell and exhausted—or that I’d just killed freaking Billy—I’d never shared a more intense kiss with any guy. Well, not that I’d kissed many guys before, but none of them had tasted as good as Jaxson had.
Heat pooled in my center, and I shifted awkwardly. How could I be horny at a time like this?
Jaxson gripped the oh-shit handle, his knuckles white.
Damn it all to hell, he’d definitely noticed. That meant Tony and Sam had noticed, too. I was getting turned on while we were driving around with a dead man in the back. My cheeks burned, and I silently cursed.
I had to get away from these damned werewolves.
To clear my mind, I concentrated on the look of shame and horror I’d seen on Sam’s face when she’d caught us kissing. That was enough to kill whatever desire had been on my mind.
They all hated me.
Ten eternally long minutes later, Billy’s cabin appeared. The place looked like a war zone. Smoke still wafted through the trees, and bodies were strewn across the ground. I pried my eyes away. I’d seen enough death in the past week to last me a lifetime.
Tony parked, and we climbed out of the car. Jaxson’s gaze was on me, but I stared ahead, silent and cold.
Regina appeared on the porch. She shared a look with Jaxson and then tensed. “Who did it?”
I was guessing Jaxson had just told her in wolf talk that Billy was dead.
“Me,” I snapped. “I killed him, and I’d do it again. He was a psychopath.”
My words came out in a torrent. I was just so tired of everyone silently scrutinizing and blaming me for his death. What did they expect? He was either going to kill me or hand me over to an even bigger psycho.
I shivered and suddenly felt sick again. Billy was a goddamned monster. My family may have driven him to it, but that didn’t give him a pass. Evil was evil.
Regina shot daggers at me with her eyes as I climbed the front stairs. Brushing past her, I opened the screen door and strode into the cabin. I’d come here for answers about who was hunting me, and I was going to get some with or without their help.
46
Savannah
I stepped into Billy’s cabin with Jaxson and the others on my heels.
The scent of cigarettes burned my nose. Maps and newspaper clippings were tacked to the walls of the dingy living room. Apart from a table and stained white couch, the place was devoid of furniture, though I spotted the canisters of wolfsbane stacked in the corner and the piles of guns scattered about.
It was an operations room. An armory.
My pulse quickened as I drew my gaze across the walls. There had to be a clue here pointing toward the sorcerer…
I froze.
Taped to the wooden boards were a series of photographs. Casey, Aunt Laurel, Uncle Pete, and a lot of people I didn’t know, all arranged in a web chart like a family tree. A photograph of me eating at Eclipse had recently been added, and fear buried me like an avalanche.
Billy’s words from earlier echoed through my mind: We’ll slaughter them all.
“What is this?” I murmured, dragging my eyes to the half dozen house plans and the map of the Indies.
I’d assumed Billy had been taunting me when he’d said, You’ll be their undoing. I never thought he’d actually had a carefully executed plan to take out every last one of us.
I ripped the photo of myself off the wall and turned. “Did you know about this?”
Jaxson was staring at Billy’s plans, his expression hardened. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Fuck.”
“I’ll ask one more time,” I snapped. “Did any of you know that Billy was planning to massacre my entire family?”