Page 99

“I took care of your Justin problem,” he says, as casually as if discussing taking out the garbage. “Permanently. You won’t have to worry about him anymore.”

Horror washes over me in a cold wave, stealing my breath.

“My Justin problem?” I repeat my voice barely a whisper. “You... you killed him?”

Finn’s expression shifts, his brows drawing together as he registers my distress.

“He threatened you,” he says as if this explains everything and justifies everything. “He was going to try to take you away from us.”

I shake my head, taking a step back. “So you killed him? Just like that?” My voice rises with each word, and my hands begin to tremble. “You can’t just... You can’t just kill people, Finn!”

His confusion seems genuine, his head tilting slightly as he studies me. “He was a threat to the pack. To my omega. To our future pups.” He stands, towering over me, blood-crusted hands reaching toward me. “I did what any alpha would do.”

I flinch away from his touch, backing up another step. “No. No, no, no.” Tears prick at my eyes, a complicated tangle of emotions knotting in my chest. “This isn’t right. This isn’t how things work. You don’t just kill someone because they sent text messages!”

“Why not?” Finn asks, an edge creeping into his voice, a hint of a growl vibrating in his chest. “He hurt you for years. Broke you down until you believed you were worthless. Made you afraid in your own home.” His eyes flash with supernatural light. “He deserved worse than what I gave him.”

The clinical detachment in his voice chills me more than the fact of what he’s done. It’s not remorse I hear, not regret or conflict—just the calm certainty of a predator who’s eliminated a threat from his territory.

“You...” I struggle to find the words to make him understand. “You’re talking about a human life, Finn. A person. However awful he was, he was still a person.”

“He was a monster in human skin,” Finn counters, moving toward me with predatory grace despite his bloodied state.

I press my palms against my temples, trying to processwhat I’m hearing and what it means. “This isn’t the wild! You can’t just follow animal instincts and kill people who threaten what’s yours.”

“Can’t I?” Finn’s voice drops, dangerous and soft. “What makes your human laws better than our ways? Your police, who do nothing while women are beaten and terrorized in their own homes? Your courts that let abusers walk free to hurt again?”

His words hit too close to home—memories of the one time I tried to get help, the officer’s dismissive glance, and Justin’s escalated rage afterward. But still. Murder. Killing.

“We’re not animals,” I insist, tears now flowing freely down my cheeks. “We don’t just kill. We find other ways.”

“My wolf lives just beneath this skin, always hungry, always protective. Always ready to kill for what’s mine.” He takes another step closer. “And you’re mine. Ours. Worth killing for.”

The possessiveness in his voice, the absolute certainty, makes something in me ache despite my horror. No one has ever deemed me worth such extreme measures. Worth fighting for. Worth killing for.

“You don’t even look sorry,” I whisper, wiping my wet cheeks. “You killed someone, and you’re standing there like it’s nothing. Like it was just taking out the trash.”

“Because for me, it was,” Finn replies, without pretense or an attempt to soften the truth. “He threatened what’s mine. He died for it. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

He reaches for me again, and this time, when I try to pull away, his reflexes are too quick. His blood-encrusted hands close around my upper arms, holding me in place, forcing me to look up into his face.

“Let me go.”

“Surely you couldn’t have loved him,” he says, searchingmy eyes for understanding. “Not after everything he did to you.”

“I didn’t,” I admit, trying to pull away. His grip is firm but not painful. “I hated what he became. But that doesn’t mean?—”

“That doesn’t mean what?” Finn demands, a growl entering his voice. “That doesn’t mean he deserved to die for threatening what’s mine? For promising to drag you back, to hurt you?” His grip tightens slightly. “What would you have had me do? Wait until he finds you? Until he hurts you? And then put my hands on your bruised body, and knowing I could have prevented it?”

“It’s still wrong,” I whisper, but the conviction in my voice is wavering.

Finn’s expression softens slightly; one hand releases my arm to catch a tear with his thumb, leaving a smear of dried blood on my cheek.

“In our world now, we protect what’s ours. By any means necessary,” he says, his voice gentler now. “I’m not sorry he’s dead, Mia. I’m only sorry it’s causing you pain.”

Justin’s dead. Actually dead.

I collapse against his chest, not caring about the blood that now smears across my bare skin. Sobs tear from my throat, ugly and raw, as the full weight of everything crashes down on me.