Page 50 of Bane of Hate and Silver (Primordial Inheritance #1)

Carson snarled.

“Go,” Kyle said squeezing the girl’s hand.

She slipped from behind him, running up the stairs.

“You know, it’s frowned upon to covet another man’s wife, even if you’re the Alpha.

” Kyle’s tone was chipper. At ease as he swung the car keys in his hand around one finger.

Carson could kill him right here and now and claim the girl’s body as his own the next minute.

Although, murder without physical evidence of wrong doing was crossing a line even he wasn’t prepared to explain to the pack just yet.

Just as Carson was about to poke around for the damning evidence the two women came down the stairs.

Demetria wearing some hastily thrown on sweats.

The Reynolds girl scooted behind her husband to the door while Demetria walked between them.

“Where are you off to?” Carson asked rotating his hand to slap her soft ass as she moved to pass him.

When she didn’t answer, his hand shot up and out.

Gripping the woman’s throat, he turned her to face him, feeling her swallow beneath his grip.

“Hayley promised to introduce me to her boss today. I forgot,” Demetria mumbled. Carson noted Kyle tensing behind her.

Carson pulled the woman closer, plunging his tongue into her mouth, but making eye contact with the man standing behind her. The threat of what was to come in his gaze.

Satisfied, he released her. Demetria and then Kyle followed the human form of the white wolf out the door.

“I asked you to wait for me,” Kyle called as he followed both women down the front steps.

“There was no time,” his wife shot back as they swapped keys.

Carson sipped his coffee as the recently childless and the soon to be widow walked to the rusty Volkswagen Beetle side by side.

Must be an important interview thought Carson.

He really didn’t understand why Demetria was so determined to get a job anyway.

Even after he took the Reynolds girl as his queen, he’d still let Demetria cook and clean, maybe even fuck for her continued room and board.

However, if it stopped all the bitching she’d been doing lately he’d allow it.

Ricky cried out in pain as Luca lifted him from the back seat.

His supernatural healing was trying to fight against the effects of the silver, but it felt like he was being burnt alive from the inside.

Better if they had let him die in the woods.

All this moving and jostling was making things feel even worse. “Hang on Ricky,” Luca pleaded.

Ricky was carried into Jules’s house and set on the soft, velvet, sofa as carefully as possible.

He looked past Luca and searched for Tasha. She ran into the room after them, clutching the jacket drenched in his blood. Her hands were stained, her clothes and face splattered, and yet, he’d never seen a more beautiful girl in his life.

Moments later, Tasha was again by his side.

She was so strong and so calm considering the trauma he was putting her through.

He might have even told her that he loved her if he’d been able to find the words through the pain.

Just to say it. Even just once. Right now though, there was only one person he needed.

As if on cue, shouting came from the other room. His mother cursed, shoving Luca when she saw him. “Mom,” Ricky choked out softly. Demetria rushed to his side, pushing Tasha away as she dropped to her knees next to him.

“It’s going to be okay, baby.” She stroked his hair. “I’m here.”

For one moment he felt safe, like a child again. Happy that his mother was beside him now.

“I’m very sorry Mrs. Harrison,” Luca said, walking up beside her.

“You beast!” Demetria exclaimed. Standing, she slapped the Beta across the cheek.

Tasha shrieked.

“You did this!” Ricky’s mom shouted again, punching Luca with her fists. The Beta made no move against her. Instead, he let the grieving woman beat him in the chest and shoulders without flinching or moving away from her.

Tasha dropped back to her knees by Ricky’s head.

“Leave…him…alone,” Ricky managed to choke out, drawing his mother’s attention back to himself.

“He didn’t do this,” Tasha added and once again gripped Ricky’s shaking fingers. Demetria stopped and looked down at the teenagers, their clasped hands, Tasha’s disheveled appearance.

“It’s going to be okay, my love,” Demetria whispered, leaving her attack on Luca and returning to her son’s side. This time, she moved in beside Tasha, not in place of her.

“I’m right here. You’re going to be okay.”

Ricky nodded and took her hand. He heard the desperation to believe her own lie. But he knew. He knew she’d lose her son, just as she’d lost her husband. He knew what was happening to him and he knew without a doubt who had sentenced him to this torturously painful end.

Luca watched in a daze as Tasha and Demetria comforted Ricky.

The teenage, human girl was showing an extraordinary amount of strength for one so young.

Crying quietly now as she sat with the dying werewolf.

Young hands clasped tightly, with all the strength the boy had left.

Even so, Luca could tell Ricky was weakening.

His eyes began to open less and less, and the groans of pain started to stop altogether.

There was nothing to be done. It was almost over now.

Hayley, Kyle, and Monica were all sitting and standing around the kitchen counter in silence. Waiting for the end.

Luca stood at the door of the living room, watching as Tasha took her fingers and brushed them against Ricky’s sweat-slick forehead.

Maybe as a reaction, his eyes opened once more.

He held her gaze for a few seconds. Luca was struck with horror again as Ricky’s eyes closed, his grip on Tasha’s hand slackened, and he slipped into unconsciousness.

“Ricky?” Tasha asked but received no response.

Torturous screams escaped from Demetria’s throat as she shook her son’s shoulders, gripping him tightly.

“What can we do?” Monica asked quietly as she came up beside Luca.

“Nothing,” Luca replied. “There is nothing we can do.”

Monica placed a comforting hand on his arm. He looked down at the touch and noticed he was covered in the boy’s blood. His hands, arms, shirt, and much of his jeans were soaked with the leaked life force.

Tasha began to cry softly. Monica gave Luca’s arm one more squeeze and walked over, wrapping the teenager in her arms.

After another moment, and a glance back at the scene, Luca walked from the room and into Jules’s bathroom.

The blood-soaked shirt made a splat on the tile before he stepped into the shower.

Numbly he watched as the red liquid slid over his torso, drenched his jeans, and dissolved in the stream of water that disappeared down the drain.

In a surge of anger, he punched the wall.

The shower tile obliterating around his fist.

The desire to kill Carson surged through him. Trying to execute him was one thing, but to brutally murder a child was another level of evil. “He’s just a kid!” Luca shouted at no one. Knees giving out he slid down the wall, under the stream of water.

Luca startled when there was a hesitant knock at the bathroom door. “Are you decent?” a feminine voice asked.

“Yeah,” Luca barely whispered.

Hayley opened the door slowly. He stared up at her, not having any words to say.

“I know,” she said. Leaving the door wide she walked into the shower, crouched under the stream, and wrapped Luca in her arms. Kyle followed, turning off the water and joining his wife in the embrace.

Luca dropped his head onto their shoulders and hugged them both tightly, finally letting out all the pain he was feeling.

Jules and Nick had settled onto the hard couch in the common area of Gabriel and Eileen’s hotel suite to wait the sunny day away. They looked like complimenting bookends, each facing the other as they were.

Jules blinked, trying to keep her eyes open. Sleep was calling her, and yet, she was refusing to give into it. Wanting instead, to continue getting to know her twin once more.

Nick yawned through his last comment. Her ability to understand the babble seemed to mean their innate twin connection was still strong.

“Well, I never gave up on you.” A playful glare was directed at him as she used her bent leg to kick him lightly around the knee.

“I only disappeared, didn’t I? You weren’t told without a doubt that I was dead.” Nick paused. “They found two sets of remains Jules.”

Jules raised her eyebrows at this. She’d never returned to their sleepy hometown, once Hector had gotten his clutches into her. He must have planted a second body in the ashes.

As they had caught each other up Jules had chosen to skip over the first hundred years she’d spent as a vampire. Determined to leave that part of her past in the past permanently.

Nick yawned again, obviously fighting the same call to rest that she was.

She shifted higher on the arm of the couch, looking past her knees toward Nick. He was lounging across from her, hands behind his head holding it upright and legs stretched out, taking up most of the space on the couch.

“Any epic romances worth mentioning?” Jules asked him, wondering if her brother was still the same indecisive, fluid, flirt he’d been in his human life. “Girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses?”

“Me a spouse? As if I could love with that kind of commitment.” Nick laughed loudly. “You. Same question.”

“I just started something new actually,” Jules admitted. A blush would have colored her pale cheeks if a vampire could.

“Someone special?” Nick prodded.

“He could be,” Jules replied, thinking momentarily of Luca and Aboit.

“Tell me more,” Nick instructed, smiling mischievously at her.

“His name is Luca Cain and he’s a werewolf,” Jules said, feeling a little defensive.

Nick sat up higher. “No way! My little sister is dating a dog.” He laughed loudly.