Page 21 of Pack Rage (The Splintered Bond #4)

Chapter 20

The Source of Strength

FLOR

S ome moments in life were perfect. Not perfect like when Brand showed me his lake, or when Luke told me he loved me. But perfect in a petty, vengeful way.

Seeing the shocked look on my father’s face up close as he realized I was there, with my knife in his gut, was that kind of perfect. It was just a shame it couldn’t last a little longer.

In his shock, he broke one of Del’s cardinal rules: he let Mama’s short sword fall. It clanged to the floor, and his empty hands flew up and clawed for mine, his eyes boring into my face. “Back away!” he commanded, the Alpha command in his voice as heavy as a sledgehammer.

I didn’t even blink. Instead of moving back, power pinned my feet to the floor, energy that tasted like Brand and Grigor and all the others. I was so much stronger than I had ever been, far stronger than him. Something was happening in the bonds, something that made me think that a vast pool of power was just one thread, one thought, away. It wasn’t there yet, but the energy that thrummed through me felt similar to when Brand had taken on the Alpha position.

“I said, back off!” The Alpha’s hands, tipped with sharp wolf claws now, landed on my shoulder. He twisted at me, gripping me and trying to force me away, though I’d wrapped one of my legs around his to stay close. His blood spilled over my hand and arm, and mine poured down from cuts that seemed to heal as fast as he made them. The blood made things slippery, but I had a solid grip on the knife, and the Alpha couldn’t get a hold on me, no matter how hard he tried.

For a split second, I was a helpless child again, his hands bruising me, his foul breath in my face. The times he’d whipped me, beaten me half to death, flashed through my mind in the space of a heartbeat. Back then, I hadn’t been able to defend myself.

Now, it was time for payback. He was still physically strong, but I was already well inside his guard. And I had a hidden pool of strength from my mates, pressing up like a bubble rising to meet my need. So the next time he tried to reach for me, I slipped my hand out, grabbed his arm, and used that power, twisting hard. His arm popped out of the shoulder socket, and he howled loud enough to make my ears ring.

Maybe I was the right mate for a serial killer. The sound of his pain was like sweet music.

But I had a feeling his dying breath would be sweeter still. All I had to do was deliver the final twist of the knife, and it would shred his heart.

But before I could do it, Mama fell to the floor, screaming in agony. I flicked a glance down at her. She was holding her own abdomen, and blood gushed through the bandages.

Shit. Shit! For a moment, I’d forgotten that she would feel this in her bond. “Toadfucking son of a rat bastard,” I snarled up into his face.

I wanted nothing more than to finish him off, but I couldn’t kill Mama. I knew I would lose her soon, but I couldn’t bear for it to be now, at my hands. I couldn’t lose her yet.

“Flor, baby, do it,” Mama wheezed from the ground. “Finish it.”

I didn’t answer, my mind scrambling to find another way, searching through all of Del’s advice, all of my knowledge. Callaway had to die. He deserved to. But maybe there was some other way.

“You don’t wanna kill your mama, now, do ya?” he dared to ask. “Let me go, and we can talk about this.” He was still trying to use his Alpha voice on me. He twitched again, like he thought it might have worked, and I twisted the knife, snarling as the blade cut into his heart.

“Shut up and lemme think, asshole!”

We all went quiet for a moment, until Mama let out what I thought was a laugh. “See what you did, Calvin? See what you did to our baby?”

“I didn’t make her crazy,” he muttered.

“No, you made her strong.” Mama dragged her hand to her face, wiping away the silver hair that had fallen across her eyes. “You made her stronger than she ever could’ve been otherwise.” She set one bloody hand to the floor and tried to rise, but couldn’t. Instead, she speared my father with her gaze—no, her wolf’s gaze—and spoke. “You tried to break our bond, and forgot that you were on the other end. You ruined your wolf in the process. Weakened him. When you learned she was in my womb, you tried to sell your own child to the darkness. But you forgot it was your own line she cursed. You didn’t want me because I had magic, and you were afraid.”

The Alpha was breathing hard, and fur was sprouting and shrinking back into his arms. His scent got stronger, wilder.

“I was raised in a magical pack. If you’d stopped to ask me what using magic against your own mate, your own child, would do, I would’ve told you. My line, Flor’s and mine, is the most powerful one in existence. If you’d stayed true to me, you could’ve been the strongest Alpha alive.” She gasped. “But you’re… nothing.”

“Fuck you, crazy bitch,” he spat. I yanked at his dislocated arm to shut him up.

Mama started dragging herself across the floor, stopping where the sword had fallen. “When you break a bone, it heals stronger. Harder. When you break a bond… you offend the moon.”She wrapped her hand around the hilt and opened her mouth to say something else, but shouting in the hall had her pausing to listen.

Someone yelled, “What the hell is going on down here?”

Mama nodded to me, her eyes panicked. “Do it now!”

But it was too late. The door slammed open, and an angry Aidan McDonnell stared through his glasses and down his narrow nose at me. In one hand, he held a silver knife. In the other, his son… or what was left of him. Aidan had Finnick’s arms behind him, and was holding him up in what had to be an incredibly painful position. Both of Finnick’s arms could be broken, or dislocated.

“You.” Aidan’s smile was the coldest thing I’d ever seen. “Now this is a welcome surprise.”

My heart raced, and for a moment, I felt like I might pass out.

Finnick was a mess, and I thought he might be an unconscious one, until I saw his head move, like he was trying to look up at me. He wore the tattered remains of a business suit that might have been dark gray, but was as soaked with blood as the rest of him. There was a long slice along his neck that had to have been made with a silver blade. It wasn’t healing, and every time his father shook him—which he did now, like a dog with a rabbit it had caught—blood oozed down onto his collar.

“A very welcome surprise. Calvin, looks like you got yourself into trouble again.” Aidan lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t drop Finnick or the knife. “Let him go, girl, and I’ll make your death quick.”

I adjusted my grip on the steak knife and shifted my grip to Callaway’s thick neck. “Call me girl again, and I’ll make his slow,” I replied as calmly as I could, trying not to let my eyes fall to the floor, where a pool of red was collecting under Finnick’s sagging head.

I wasn’t successful. Aidan sneered. “I should let you kill him and save me the trouble. But I have an Heir upstairs who’s insisting on facing his father tomorrow night under the full moon.” Callaway went very still at that.

Something wasn’t making sense. “You want Callaway alive. Why?”

“It’s not your problem. But if you don’t let him go, I’ll give you a real one. I can head down to the cell and kill that Mountain mate of yours.” He tilted his head curiously. “I wonder if you’d even die from it. You fuck around, from what I hear. The Northern Heir, the Mountain Alpha…” He kicked Finnick in the side of one leg. “This disappointing piece-of-shit son of mine probably had you. I can’t think of any other reason he’d betray his pack. He always did love pussy. Wasn’t particularly picky about whose, either. Whores, both of you.”

Finnick drew a dangerously liquid-sounding breath, but managed to speak. “Don’t... call her… whore.” Aidan kicked him again, hard enough that I thought I heard a bone break.

“Stop hurting him!” I demanded. The Eastern Alpha’s watery green eyes narrowed, and I knew I’d given too much away. I struggled for calm, tightening my grip on my father. “I’ll make you a deal. You put Finnick down and leave, and I’ll give you this sack-of-shit Alpha.”

“You’re not leaving this cell,” Aidan said slowly, like he was looking for a loophole. Did he still not know that Finnick was my mate? “I’m locking you in.”

I nodded, trying to keep my expression blank. “Take it or leave it.”

“Aidan, you oughta kill this little bitch now. You don’t know—” my father started, but Aidan cut him off.

“Done.” He dropped Finnick and shoved him the rest of the way through the door, glancing at Mama as he did. “We’ll never get the smell of Southern out of this room,” he snapped, and I let Callaway go, stepping well away from him in case he tried to attack.

I didn’t need to worry. He scurried away, his dislocated arm hanging limp at one side, his other hand pressed on his bleeding wound. I guess a savage stab to the heart might make even a stupid ass like that think twice before picking another fight.

Aidan let Callaway past, then shut the door, never dropping his gaze from my face. I made sure to drop mine, though I didn’t feel compelled to. I’d already let him see too much of what I was capable of. There was no need for him to know I could stare him down.

And Finnick needed me. As soon as the door closed, I snatched up a clean napkin from the table and rushed to his side, cradling him on my lap as much as I could without making him bleed even more, and pressing the wound closed as much as I could.

“Fuck, Finn, this is bad,” I said, my voice too high.

His head lolled to one side, and I thought he was going to speak, but it wasn’t his voice whispering. “Let me see him, baby.” Mama was at my side, her arm pressed over her abdomen. She was almost as wrecked as he was.I made room for her, though, and she placed a hand on his throat. “Not good,” she murmured. “When they’re that deep, the silver can get into the blood. Still, maybe…” Closing her eyes, she hummed low.

Her body gave off a surge of heat, like she’d turned into a space heater or something. Static electricity made all of the hairs on her arms stand up, and then she went rigid, falling over on top of Finnick.

“Mama?” She didn’t answer, but she was still breathing. I lifted her carefully off him and carried her over to the sofa. She was so light, it was like her bones were hollow, and when I put her down, I noticed how much paler she’d grown in just the past few hours.

“Flor?” I whirled to face Finnick, who was sitting up now as well, one hand on his neck. “Your mother… healed me?” He let his fingers fall, revealing the long silver scar along the base of his neck. It was still red on the edges, but the bleeding had stopped.

For some reason, seeing that scar broke me. I started crying, ugly, wracking sobs, my whole body shaking. So I didn’t even see Finnick move, didn’t know what was happening when he shifted me onto his lap, cradling me. “Hush now, Wills. It’s going to be all right. I’m alive. You’re alive. We’re going to get through this.”

I couldn’t stop crying. Finnick’s scent of ginger was almost erased under the blood. There had been so much blood today. But his long fingers on my hair, soothing me, and his murmured words of comfort helped me to get control of myself.

“How, Finn?” I asked, staring up at him. “How are we going to get through this?”

“One breath at a time, I suppose. That’s how I’ve been surviving,” he answered. He drank me in with his eyes, and for an instant, his hand dropped to my neck, to the mate mark he’d put there, before he snatched it away. “Sorry.”

I stared up at him, aching to touch him, to grab his hand and place it back on my neck. But a deep insecurity filled me, and a deeper ache inside that came from my wolf had me holding still. “You said that before. Right after we bonded. You said it was a mistake, and that we shouldn’t have done it.”

He kept his eyes on mine, though his were filled with pain. “I’ve said worse. Hell, I’ve done worse. I tried to reject the bond entirely at Southern. Flor, I…”

I waited for him to finish, but he’d fallen silent. The space between us was filled with unspoken accusations, and explanations that might never be enough. Memories and fear and anguish. The moment at the lake, when I’d known he was touching another woman, flashed back like it had just happened.

“Tell me. I felt what you did. It hurt me, Finn. It hurt me worse than a beating. I need to understand why you did it.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, a single tear tumbling from his pale lashes, then opened them and spoke. “The first time my parents whored me out was when I was fifteen.”I gasped, but he went on, staring into the wall like he was watching a movie of his past. “She was the wife of a businessman Father wanted as an investor. I was scared. I’d never had sex before, and she was far older than me.”

His lips twisted. “She liked young boys. Father made the deal, but she told him in front of me I wasn’t a good lay. When she left, I swore on the moon I wouldn’t do it again. He locked me in a cell for a week with no food or water, sending Torran to give me some… encouragement to take back my vow. I did. I went back to my room, and a week later, another woman walked through my door.

“It got easier. I got good at the sex, and at hiding my disgust. I hated them all, and some of them seemed to like that. I was also learning all I could about finance, the markets, how to help the pack succeed. I told myself once I had more to offer, something more valuable, the whoring would stop. It didn’t, of course.” He sighed. “I was doing what they demanded; I was earning money for the pack. But instead of getting praised for it, Father detested me more every year. When the day came that I would rather be beaten to death than touch one more woman, I confronted them both.”

His voice broke. “Father said it was fine. They’d just let Tana take over for me with those duties. They had a deal for Chinese silks, and the man was alone with her in the parlor. When I ran in to see if it was true, the bastard had her on his knee. Tana was twelve. She was terrified.”

“Oh, Finn.” My heart was shattering for him.

“I cut a deal. Tana would be safe until she was eighteen, as long as I did what they demanded. But that day, I started laying the groundwork to get her out. I had everything in place, but when I stayed in Northern to be near you, and didn’t return when Father called, they let me know they were giving her to one of the worst shifters at Eastern. I had to come back, even though I knew what was waiting for me here.”

I needed to know one thing, one detail. I didn’t want to, but I had to ask. I swallowed hard, forcing the words out. “You were forced to sleep with another woman, to keep Tana safe?”

“I didn’t sleep with her. Physically, I couldn’t .” He twisted his head to the side, as if he couldn’t look at me. “I did… I was intimate with her. I did my job.”

He was shuddering with the effort of holding back his emotions, and I placed my hands on his face, turning him back to me. “You didn’t want to do it. You got Tana out. She’s safe. Finn, look at me.” His expression was tortured as he obeyed. “Would you ever do it again? Will you?”

“Even if you never let me be in a room with you again for the rest of my life, I will never touch another woman. Even if you never let me touch you or kiss you again. I’m yours until I die, though I don’t deserve you. I’m tainted, Flor. That’s why I said what I did. Why I pushed you away. I’m not worthy of you.” A tear rolled down his cheek, then fell to the floor.

He fell silent, but I kept my hands on his cheeks, considering. Nothing he’d said was untrue, except maybe that last part. “I’m the one who gets to decide if you’re worthy. And you’re not tainted.” He took a breath to argue, but I placed a finger over his lips. “You were coerced, Finn. I’ve met so many shifters, in almost every pack now, who were forced to do things they didn’t want. Some of them were female, some male. The pack didn’t protect them, just like yours didn’t, and they had to do a whole lot of things to survive.”

“My wolf knows,” he rasped. “I can’t let him surface. He tried to bite off our tongue. He tore off every inch of skin she touched on my arms, my shoulders. Every time I fell asleep, he rose and made sure I knew I had failed him. Failed you. But he couldn’t get us… clean.”

I shushed him, worried at the sudden scent that reminded me of the more feral wolves from the Tenebris pack for a moment. He really believed that he was to blame. “Now you listen to me, Cityboy. Nothing you did to survive, to save your sister’s life, could touch the core of who you are. Nothing they ever did to you—with words, or actions, or magic, even—could change your heart. You’re not their tool anymore. You’re not their torturer, or their spy, or their strategist. Finn, you’re my mate.” And it was time for him to start acting like one.

He trembled under my hands as I traced his plush lips. They were my favorite part of his face, and I’d stared at them far too long at Northern, wondering what it would feel like to have them on me.

“Kiss me, mate.”

He pulled back. “No. I can’t… I can’t touch you with my…” His wolf rose, gold flecks surfacing in deeper green irises. “No,” he growled. “Filthy. Dirty.”

I let my own wolf rise, as much as she could, and growled back. She glared at his neck, for some reason. “Mate. Claim. ”

His wolf seemed confused for a moment, though not as confused as I was, but a moment was all it took. My teeth lengthened, and before I knew what was happening, I had my head buried in his neck and his flesh in my mouth. His blood was wild ginger and salt, spicy and clean, as I bit down.

Mate, my wolf snarled as she marked him again, this time where the whole world would see. Finnick’s arms came up to hold me close as I licked the fresh wound, tasting his blood. Then he pressed his lips to my neck, to his own mark, murmuring something that I was almost certain was a prayer.

“I don’t deserve you, Florida Wills,” he said after a long moment.

“I think you do,” I replied, my hands on his face again as I pushed back to examine those sexy lips again. “And I deserve a second kiss.”