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REMY

“ J ust so we’re clear,” Lulu said softly as I turned back to the group to get ready for the challenge, “I can totally just suck all the air out of his lungs right now and kill him.”

My eyebrows shot up.

She shrugged at me. “Or set him on fire. Snap his spine. Really, there’s a lot of possibilities.”

“You’ve been hanging out with my mother too much,” Dimitri grumbled, shaking his head.

“I’ve got this,” I assured them, feeling the familiar pull of my wolf as he readied for the challenge.

Skye’s small hand hooked around my pinky finger. It was a tiny gesture, but I knew it was her way of saying she was supporting me in every way, even if she was terrified.

I lifted her hand to my lips, kissing her knuckles as I gave her my full attention. “It’s going to be fine.”

Her green eyes blinked owlishly at me. “Can you just make sure that he actually dies this time? I’m getting tired of him coming back and messing with our lives every time I think I’ve gotten away from him.”

A smirk pulled at my lips. “Sure. Consider it a belated birthday present.”

“We never did get to have your birthday party,” Katy sighed.

“If your friends are throwing you a party, I would like to as well,” Nikolai spoke up. He scanned the group of Long Mesa members. “Are there any other heads you would like? I could post them on spikes around the fence of the house for when you return to visit.”

Skye stared at him. “I probably won’t be back to Russia for a while.”

He waved a dismissive hand. “It’s cold there more often than not. The cold will preserve the heads well. Simply point them out, and we’ll take care of it.”

“No heads,” she said forcefully. “I don’t want heads as a gift. Ever. In any context.”

Nikolai turned to Addie. “Sometimes she truly is more your child than mine.”

Even Addie couldn’t help cracking a smile. She’d been fairly pale since Nikolai broke Allan’s neck, but she slowly seemed to be coming back to life in front of our eyes, especially after a few of the men drug his body off the street.

“Are we doing this today?” Cassian called, annoyance thick in his tone.

I glanced over to where he had stripped out of his clothes and was bouncing on the balls of his feet. I snorted, not at all amused by the show.

“He might be kind of hot if he wasn’t such a complete douche canoe,” Lulu remarked. “And I’m assuming he’s a grower, not a shower because yeesh .”

Skye choked beside me, twisting her face away with red cheeks. “Lulu!”

Lulu’s gray eyes went wide. “What?”

Tate cackled beside her. “Right? He’s like—”

“Are you actually staring at his dick right now?” Dante demanded, a slight growl in his words. “You realize we’re standing right here.”

Tate grinned up at him. “Babe, come on. Even you have to admit you looked.”

“I did,” Ryder added, ticking up a finger. “And I’m also not impressed.”

“I swear, I’m tying both of you to the bed when we get home,” Dante muttered, rubbing his jaw.

Ryder’s eyes lit up. “Promise?”

“I definitely feel like I’m too old for this conversation,” Addie murmured, her cheeks red.

I shook my head, smiling at my friends and glad they were comfortable joking around despite the gravity of the situation.

“Just be careful,” Larkin told me, worrying her lower lip.

“Remy’s got this,” Rhodes said firmly, his eyes meeting mine.

I looked back at him knowingly. I was pretty sure I did have this, but we’d already discussed what would happen if things somehow went wrong. He would grab the others and get them out before things got too bad. If I went down, I needed to know Skye was safe. Thankfully I knew that every person we had brought with us would make sure she was.

Skye tugged on my finger, leading me away from the group.

“Cassian’s a good fighter,” she mumbled, worry creeping into her eyes.

“You think he’s better than me?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my tone.

Her eyes narrowed. “I think he’ll play dirty, and so will the pack. Especially if it looks like he’s losing.”

“I figured as much,” I admitted. I gave into the temptation to touch her cheek, not giving a shit that I could feel Cassian’s eyes on us the whole time.

Let him look. Let him see what he would never have.

“I love you,” she told me gently, lifting up to her toes to kiss me.

“I can’t wait for you to kiss me like that when I kill him,” Cassian called over to us, setting off a round of snickers from the men behind him.

Everything in me wanted to walk over and smash his face in with my fists. I was physically shaking with the need to do something . Being in this hellhole was awful. Looking around at the dirty streets, the cracked buildings, and the occasional scared eyes looking out from dusty windows was infuriating as an Alpha.

But it was heartbreaking as Skye’s mate to know this was how she grew up.

Skye sank back down on her feet, her green eyes filled with fire. “Don’t hold back.”

“I never do,” I replied, feeling the adrenaline pumping through my veins as my wolf snarled and paced, begging to be released.

Skye moved back between her parents as I turned towards Cassian, who was still naked. His limp dick hung like a literal white flag between his legs.

Snorting, I pulled my shirt over my head and stripped out of my jeans. If he wanted a dick measuring contest he would lose in every way.

I surrendered to my wolf, feeling my bones crack and pop as they reformed. My skin itched for a second as the fur sprouted, covering my body. The snarl that tore from my chest at Cassian echoed on the nearly empty street.

Within seconds, his muddy brown wolf was in front of me. Size-wise we were pretty evenly matched. He may have been a little taller, but his muscles weren’t what I remembered. Whatever had happened after he went off that cliff, his body had paid a price.

It wouldn’t be an easy fight, but I also had the edge. Cassian was fighting for himself; I was fighting for my pack and my mate.

He didn’t stand a chance.

But that didn’t stop him from lunging first, his mouth gaping and teeth glinting in the sunlight as he went for my throat straight away.

It was easy enough to jump out of the way and put distance between us. My back foot brushed against something metal as I moved. I glanced back to see an open trap buried in the dirt.

Cassian had tried pushing my back into it. The force of the trap closing would have snapped through the bones in my leg.

Skye was right; they were definitely playing dirty. I started to growl as Cassian moved again. He turned fast, already attacking again with a snarl. This time when he tried to bite me, I ducked low, clamping my jaws down hard on his back leg.

I released it when he howled, getting out of the way before he could use my own hold against me and bite me in return.

Blood dripped into the dirt, and I smiled inwardly. I’d drawn first blood.

The scent of blood in the air seemed to make Cassian slightly less focused and more unhinged. His attacks became less about power and coordination and more about bloodlust. He wanted to taste my blood.

Another advance gave me the chance to bite his shoulder, but I let myself linger too long and he managed to get a decent bite on my side.

I wrenched away, feeling my skin tear as blood seeped from the wound.

Fuck. That hurt more than I liked.

I could practically feel Skye’s worry, the cloying, overpowering scent of her fear filled my nostrils as I shook my head and regrouped a few feet away from Cassian.

His blue eyes were cold, practically dead as he glared at me, my blood dripping from his jaws, but he was favoring his left side now. His gait as he ran at me was awkward and just this side of clumsy.

I stayed still, letting him attack me head on until the last second. I dropped and shifted my weight to the side even as my side screamed in protest. But the move paid off.

He tripped, trying to chase me to the ground as I ducked, and exposed his throat.

I didn’t hesitate to turn my head and clamp my teeth on the underside of his throat. Wrenching my head to the side, I dragged him down with me into the dirt and rolled him under my body.

With a whine, his legs kicked, struggling to find any kind of traction, but all he found was empty air until I released him and stepped back.

I could have ripped his throat out. Maybe I should have, but I wasn’t done playing with him yet. He didn’t get to check out of this fight so fast.

Skye had spent years being tortured and bullied by him. If I could pay him back a fraction of that pain in the next few minutes by dragging this fight out, then I happily would.

Cassian got to his feet, slower. His eyes blinked into focus, but he didn’t attack me again. He knew what I was doing. He knew he had lost.

The only question was how long I would let him suffer.

I pushed off, using the muscles of my back legs to attack him again, this time rounding on his right side. I bit his shoulder, tearing the muscle to the bone.

He retaliated by biting my shoulder, but there was little force behind the movement. His throat had lost a lot of its muscle and power when I sank my fangs into it before. At best he scratched me with his teeth before I twisted away.

I didn’t give him time to recover before I bit his back leg from behind, giving him zero chance to get to me.

My teeth snapped through the tendon into the bone with a sickening scrape that vibrated from my jaws through my skull like a victory gong. His legs gave out with a high-pitched scream, unable to support his weight with the ligaments shredded. He dropped into the dusty road on a cloud of blood and dirt.

Licking my lips, I stepped away from him, watching as he tried to get up but couldn’t.

Part of me wanted to finish him off for good. To be done with it. But another part of me wrestled with the idea of killing someone who was completely vulnerable. Yes, he had done unspeakable things, but I wasn’t sure I should be his executioner.

I had done that to Preston, and while I didn’t really regret killing him, something about taking his life when he was helpless sat wrong with me.

I hesitated long enough for Cassian’s body to change back, his wolf retreating and leaving him naked and bleeding in front of me, curled on his side. Both arms were bloody and his feet twisted at awkward angles from where I had torn the tendons apart. His throat was a steady stream of blood and he coughed more blood into the dirt with a wheeze.

I watched him, still debating on what to do. My wolf craved his death, but the human in me knew this fight was over and he had lost. He absolutely deserved death, but this way felt wrong. The challenge was over and he was helpless.

But he had also come back from the brink of death before, and looked where that had gotten us.

My lips pulled back, exposing my teeth as I went in for the kill.

“No!”

My head wrenched around when Skye screamed, but it wasn’t me she was yelling at. She was looking over my shoulder, her face twisted in horror.

I glanced back in time to see ten of the Long Mesa wolves had shifted and were about to attack me.

Every muscle in my body tensed, bracing for the inevitable impact.