Wild Hunger (The Phoenix Pack #7)(94)

With a snarl of rage, the wolf lunged. He wrestled the enemy to the ground and used a rear paw to slice open his belly while he bit down on his throat. Under him the body went lax and the heart thudded to a stop.

Triumph flooded the wolf. He leaped to his feet in time to watch his Alpha pin an enemy flat on its back and clamp his jaws around a throat he quickly he tore out. The wolf growled his approval.

He took a moment to look around. Through the dust clouds, he saw the savaged bodies sprawled on the ground, throats torn out, bellies slashed open. None belonged to his pack mates. They—

He heard a familiar yelp. Turned to see his pack mate, “Ryan,” being savagely raked by two enemies. One of the scents wrenched a snarl out of him. Morelli.

Laughing hysterically, Cruz said, “I fired at your feet on purpose, in case you’re wondering. I didn’t miss.”

Frankie’s wolf bared her teeth. “Then why bother shooting at all?”

“Once I kill you, it’s over. I’m enjoying your fear. There’s power in causing such fear in another person.”

“Christopher wouldn’t have wanted this,” Lydia said, shaking her head sadly.

“But he’ll forgive it,” said Cruz. “He loved me, like I loved him.”

Frankie snickered, an angry flush marking her cheeks. “You can stop with this bullshit about how much you loved Christopher. You killed him, and then you framed him for my mother’s murder.”

His eyes hardened. “I wouldn’t have had to if Caroline had just left like she was supposed to,” he snapped, defensive. “She didn’t care that she was making him live a lie. Didn’t care that he wouldn’t have been happy with her in the long run.” He shook his head madly. “She fooled him into thinking they were true mates. But I knew that wasn’t true. I told her that. I tried to reason with her, tried to make her see that she didn’t belong here, just like her parents and her brother did. She said I was crazy and that Christopher would never be mine. Before I even thought about it, I’d pulled out the gun.”

As Frankie looked down the barrel of this gun, muscles tight with fear, she had a pretty good idea of how Caroline had felt.

“Oh, she changed her tune then,” he went on with a chuckle. “Promised she’d leave and take you with her if I’d just put the gun down. I believed her. I was going to lower it. But then she dived at me with that damn knife, knocking the gun out of my hand. The next thing I knew, I was stabbing her in the chest with her own knife. But she was making too much noise, so I had to shut the bitch up.”

Frankie’s chest went tight as she pictured it—her mother bleeding, struggling, gasping for breath, scared out of her mind as big hands squeezed her throat. Frankie wanted to kill this motherfucker so bad. “Why kill him? Why?”

“He must have felt her pain through their bond, because he barged inside. She was dead by then, and he was weaving all over the place—the breaking of the mating bond hit him so hard, he could barely walk, let alone think straight. I talked to him, told him that her death was for the best, but it was like he couldn’t even see me. He just kept sobbing her name, begging her to wake up. He thought he could save her. Pulled the knife out of her chest and tried CP fucking R.”

And in doing so, thought Frankie, he’d gotten Caroline’s blood all over him.

“Then he seemed to snap out of it. He twisted and grabbed the gun I’d dropped on the floor. I knew he’d shoot me. He wasn’t thinking straight, you see. I came up behind him and gripped the hand holding the gun. I tried wrestling it from him. He might have overpowered me if he wasn’t weak and disoriented from the breaking of the bond.

“He wasn’t supposed to die. You hear me? He wasn’t. I just twisted his hand so that he was pointing the gun at his own temple. I did it to get his attention. To make him stop, think, and listen. To make him realize that he didn’t want to hurt me. But he kept on struggling and . . . it just went off. And then he was dead.”

Lydia whimpered, and Frankie risked a quick glance at her. The female’s body was trembling, and her breathing was quick and shallow. God, they needed to get out of there. Frankie’s muscles twitched with the need to act—to fight, run, hide, lunge, anything.

An ominous groan of wood made her stomach churn. The cabin shuddered, and dust sifted down through the cracks in the wooden beams of the ceiling, hitting her face and creeping down her collar. She couldn’t even bat at it. If she moved her hands, he’d fire.

The building was becoming more and more unstable by the minute. Every now and then she’d hear something twist, crack, or splinter. It was going to collapse, and then they’d all be trapped down there—that was, if they weren’t immediately killed by the impact.

There were other noises too. She could hear people outside—running around, shouting, and hopefully doing fucking something. Wanting to keep Cruz distracted, she said, “And you were heartbroken by Christopher’s death. So damn heartbroken that you confessed to the crimes. Oh no, wait, you blamed it all on him.” She ignored his growl. “Why didn’t you kill me too?”

“I would have,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were there at first. But then I turned and found you standing in the doorway. I wasn’t sure how much you’d seen, so I told you that your daddy killed her and himself and that I was here to get help. But then you ran, and I knew you’d seen something. People crashed inside—they’d heard the gunshot. I didn’t have time to go after you.” He tilted his head. “I don’t know why you never said my name and told people what you saw. Maybe your little mind just wanted to block it out. Maybe you didn’t know which of the triplets I was.”