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His lips pulled back in a pathetic attempt at a snarl. He had some of what we were inside him, I could see that in the longer fangs, the gleaming eyes, but not enough.

As always, Rick was gonna fall short.

“You stupid fucking bitch!” he screamed at me, his voice so shrill.

Right, so we were back to that then.

I slid out of the way of his clumsy swipe, leaving him to go careening into Peter, who met him head on and slammed that boulder sized fist into my husband’s face, sending him flying backwards.

I watched the moment his skull bounced on the tarmac with a cocked head, but the red in his eyes flared harder, and he was scrambling to his feet moments later.

I licked my lips when I saw blood trickle down the side of his face.

“You dumb slut. You think these fucks you’ve managed to lure in with your sloppy cunt will be enough to stop me?”

He lunged, then lunged again, which I sidestepped effortlessly. I drove my elbow into his exposed back, arrowing in on the kidneys so he dropped like a stone.

“Stay down, you stupid fuck,” I said. “There’s something riding you that I need to get rid of.

” That was the threat, I realised, not Rick.

He was just an insecure, pathetic, abusive fuck.

A nice long jail sentence could maybe have dealt with that, but that wasn’t what kept peeling him off the tarmac. It was the thing inside him.

Lonan , my beast said. The old avatar of the Black Wolf. Twisted, sick thing, his shade does not lie quiet. Exhaust your anger on this man, then bring him to the crone.

But of course, he couldn’t just lie there and take it, could he? I felt a thrill of excitement as he twisted out from under my grip. I was trying not to give into the itch in my fingers and cut this lumbering git into ribbons, but he just kept on coming.

Time to try something a bit more direct , I thought, driving my fist into his stomach as he swiped at me, causing him to careen into Aidan, who caught him with a snap, headbutting him with a brutal efficiency before shoving him towards Noah.

My pale lover glowed in the pool of light as he held a writhing, sobbing, bleeding Rick at arm’s length. Rick tried with every fibre of his being to lash out at Noah, but my lover just watched him scrabble with a faintly amused expression. One that twisted the longer he looked at him.

“I don’t need to do anything to you,” he said, awe creeping into his voice.

“You’ve done it to yourself. You hurt Flick and Kade.

You saw everything that they are and figured the best response was violence.

You’re so fucking pathetic, you’re not even worth it.

There were so many moments of possible redemption, and you shat on every single one of them.

Just die. That’s all you can do right now. ”

He thrust Rick away with a flick of his wrists, sending him careening over into Sen’s hands.

There was no such mercy in my dark lover’s eyes, his red gaze burning into Rick’s. He held him by the collar, dragging him up to his face so they were mere inches apart.

“Show me,” he snarled, his voice a full-throated alpha command. The other man went dead still within his grip, then Rick’s mouth curved into an unnatural smile. Because it wasn’t Rick doing the smiling, I realised. He laughed, spitting blood on Sen’s face, but he refused to look away. “Show me!”

I knew what Sen was seeing by the change of expression.

I felt a pang of something I hadn’t for a while, not since I’d seen Aidan on the table—of loss.

Every time Sen saw me going forward, this would be there.

All my current strength and badassery would be lost under the avalanche of memories.

Of Rick’s cutting remarks and laughing put downs, his mates cackling like hyenas.

Of petty tyrannies, of inspections of my ‘work,’ of aspersions about everything, including my sexual performance, housekeeping, and value as a mother.

And of course, the physical abuse, me screaming, crying, begging.

I strode across the space as Sen’s hand raised, his lips pulled back in a snarl.

“Yes…” a voice said, but it wasn’t Rick’s. “Do it!”

And that’s when I knew where I fitted in all of this.

It wasn’t my revenge trip, my turn to pummel the ever loving shit out of Rick.

The Black Wolf could have killed any of us if he tried that day at the waterhole, but it hadn’t been him.

It was this Lonan, and he wanted Sen to commit this act of violence for a reason.

Power , my Tirian said. Power to take a more acceptable avatar.

“Sen,” I said in a low growl, but he wouldn’t look away, his hand shaking with the effort of holding back. “Sen!”

I’d never used an alpha’s whip before, but I heard my voice crack over the whole square. When he looked up, Sen’s eyes had gone to grey, haunted now with shadows that hadn’t been there before.

“Sen, this is what he wants, whatever is inside Rick. He wants you to kill him. You’re the one he’s wanted all along.”

“But he… He…”

“I know, love. I was there. I went through it and I was strong enough to get past it, and so will you. Give him here.”

“I’ll keep coming for her. Her son, her?—”

My fingers slapped over Rick’s face.

“And my little dog too? Shut the fuck up.”

I hauled him away from my pack, trying not to be too happy when my claws dug into his skin. He screamed the whole way, thrashing like a little bitch, past the women until I reached the square.

“You relinquish your right to vengeance?” Ophelia asked when I brought him before her, Flora now holding a silvery sickle of a knife.

“You can put an end to what’s inside him?” I replied.

“For now,” Flora answered, stroking the handle of her knife. “Until there is balance, there will be threats like this.”

“Sounds all very Jedi,” I said. “Fine. The Black Wolf asked for him as a sacrifice, for bringing me back. Let's give him over.”

If I was a better woman, I’d have some sort of kumbaya moment where I got Rick separated from Lonan, put him on the path of rehabilitation, and he went out into the world a changed man.

I didn’t. He was broken, Lonan was broken, and if they were the coin I had to pay the ferryman with to stay with my pack, it would be paid.

“The mother is love, nurturing, but she is also dark,” Flora said with a witchy smile. “She is the animal swallowing her young whole, crunching them between her teeth.”

“Right fucking now she is,” I said. “Let’s get this done.” I stamped down on his hand when he started trying to claw at my feet.

If I thought the sounds the women made were ugly before, they were damn near satanic now.

Kiralee and Flora muttered dark imprecations over the backdrop of humming from the other women.

Arelia came forward, placing her hands on her child’s shoulders.

I knelt down and pushed Rick’s chin back, knowing somehow what was coming.

The blade darted down like an arrow from heaven, slitting his throat, the blood spurting black in the darkness and quickly pooling on the concrete below us.

I wavered, then stepped back, feeling suddenly empty. My head felt too big and too full to be supported by my neck. But I didn’t have to.

Strong arms went around me, holding me up as I collapsed, taking the burden from me.

I watched as the circle broke and men surged in from everywhere, moving as one to take the scraps of Rick, then carrying them forth.

The gates that were always locked were flung open, and a long, long pathway lead towards a point of light in the distance.

There were people everywhere as I was carried along, pouring through the gate, spreading through the trees that filled the cordoned off area.

Huge Tirians that apparently lived in this fenced off area poked their heads out from between the foliage.

“They’re the ones who cannot shift back,” Noah said when I stared. “Sometimes trauma…it keeps them in Tirian form, and they live here. We care for them.”

They were skittish, flinching away if people got too close, but eventually, they joined the procession as well.

They walked and I was carried until finally, the bright light resolved itself. Looking like a doorway of standing stones within its irregular arch was a pool of bright blue light, and beside it stood two people.

“Lou and Allen,” someone beside us murmured. “What are they…?”

They didn’t answer, just stood there waiting, their faces and colouring so close as to appear like identical twins. Impassively, they accepted the remains of Rick’s body, nodding to us, then each other, before they tossed it through the glimmering gate.

The crowd cheered and clapped, the freaky fucking mood of the night fading away until it was just night time and I was bone tired. But I got Peter to put me down so I could stand on my own two feet.

People stood around, gossiping and discussing what had happened for a bit, and we were forced to share what we could about what we had seen and done, though all of us were closed lipped about Lonan and Sen.

“How are you all?” Ophelia had asked when she’d approached. “That was tough, Flick, but worthy. Beasts like Lonan feed on sadism and pain. He used your ex-husband to do that, then hoped to use Sen.”

“You saw that?” I asked. She nodded. “So the matriarchs did as well.”

“There will be some blowback from this, but I will deal with it. Go home, be with your son and each other, then come and see me in a couple of days.”

I groaned at that.

“You didn’t think you’d get off that easily, did you? Family therapy this time, I think.”

“What school of psychology do you?—”

Noah’s question was cut off by a great crack at the gate, the blue light within it bursting outwards, forcing everyone back.

But as the light died away, there he lay.

It appeared the gate had reciprocated our gesture, thrusting a man back through the gate.

Quite a different man, he had long black hair and didn’t seem to be wearing a whole lot, sprawled out onto the dirt as he was.

“Father!” a childish voice called out, and Kiralee weaseled her way through the crowd, her mother hot on her heels.

“Sylvan…?”

Arelia’s face contorted as I watched. Pain, need, and disbelief all wrestled with the main player—fear. Finally settling on hope, she crouched down, placing a hand on the fallen man’s hair. He groaned in response, a soul deep sound of pain.

“I must go,” Ophelia said. “But congratulations are in order. You’re free, Kade is free. You have your whole life ahead of you now.”

I looked around at my pack, my eyes tugged to each and every one of them, and smiled.

“Let's go home.”