Page 44 of Pack Rage (The Splintered Bond #4)

Chapter 43

Fool Me Twice

FLOR

T here was a moment in every fight when you won or lost, and it had nothing to do with what moves you made or which strikes connected. Del had told me over and over that the real battle was in a fighter’s heart. The memory of the last time flooded my mind.

“That’s why you’ll never lose, if you don’t give up. Even if you’re trapped. Even if they get you down. You will get back up.” Del held a cold cloth to the goose egg swelling over one eye, while I squeezed a five-inch gash on my left bicep closed with a clean kitchen towel.

He’d found me a few minutes before inside one of the kitchen trash cans—shoved inside, with trash covering me almost entirely, my arms and legs bound with duct tape, and a piece over my mouth and half of one nostril—when he came in to do his shift. He didn’t bother to ask who’d done it. It was the same shit, different day. I still smelled like old coffee grounds and rancid meat.

I was feeling sorrier for myself than usual. Mama had been running around naked by the fence line, yellin’ about hidden treasures, and I’d been stupid. Instead of keepin’ my head down, I’d run after her, tryin’ to get some clothes on her. She’d slapped my face for my trouble.

That had hurt more than the wolf’s claw that caught my arm when Trevor Blackside’s gang of fucknuggets had jumped out from where they’d been starin’ at Mama.

“How many times am I supposed to get back up, Del?” I sniffled as he got the kit out to stitch the deepest gash. “Is this all life is, being shit on a thousand times, waking up to worse every day? Why should I even bother?”

He let out a long sigh, then turned back, wrapping his arms around me as I sat on the long table and cried. “Girlie, here’s why. This world needs you. It may seem like it doesn’t; you may not believe it now. But I’ve never met a shifter with a heart as big as yours. With as much fire in her belly. All you gotta do is wait for your day to come. Or your night, under the full moon. Someday, you’ll look around and see that everyone in spittin’ distance will be looking at you, maybe not all of them with love. But with respect.”

“Maybe you knocked your head, too, Del. Nobody’ll ever respect me. I’m Southern trash.”

“You’re Southern steel, Flor. You may not be the strongest on the outside, or the fastest—though we’re gonna start training with more weights. You gotta get faster at outrunnin’ those assholes.” He pulled back and stared into my eyes. It was kinda itchy to meet his gaze, but he was proud of me when I didn’t drop my head. “Your spirit is pure steel, Florida Wills. Pure steel, and as bright as a sharp blade. You’re gonna cut the rot outta this world, just wait.”

He let me go, and examined the cut on my arm again. Somehow, it had stopped bleeding already. He grunted, getting up to put the medical kit away. “But first, you’re gonna need to cut the rot out of fifty pounds of old potatoes.”

My arms had been sore after I’d peeled and chopped all those potatoes. No one had noticed the extra salt in them from my tears, though the whole table of males who’d thrown me in the trash had somehow gotten the squirts that night. I’d figured out how, when I saw the empty box of human laxatives in the dumpster.

My arms were even more sore now, though I could draw power from the moon since the dome had fallen, and power from my mates, too. But my heart was what I worried most about, and not just my own.

Glen had watched his beloved father die. Luke and Finn had both killed their own shitty ones, though I would’ve taken my mates’ places in a heartbeat if I could’ve, so they didn’t have to live with those memories. No matter how awful your dad was, there was still that connection to mourn.

Not that I was going to let myself think about that right now. Maybe not for a few years.

But now I was going to have to kill Finn’s mother right in front of him. I’d felt him end his father a few minutes before, and thought it might be the moment when Elina would falter as well. I’d hoped it would be, since Finn hadn’t been close enough to see her fall. But she’d only stumbled once, cursed, and spat a little blood. Her wolf had to be dead for her not to react at all to her true mate’s death.

Or maybe not.

“Please no. Don’t make my son see this. Not like this, not while he’s watching,” she whispered as her eyes darted to him, hovering anxiously on the edge of the loose circle that stood by, witnessing the fight. The onlookers were mainly Mountain and Northern fighters, though there were some powerful-looking shifters I didn’t recognize, big wolves that I hadn’t seen at the Southern Council. Maybe they were from some other country, but they weren’t Ivan’s Russians. No, those fuckers were all across the ring, getting their asses handed to them by Grigor, Brand, and Glen. My boys had some aggression to work out, it seemed like, though when Grigor felt my mind touch his, he immediately sent me a thought.

Do you need us, little flame?

Nah. But Finn might. I was about to make him an orphan, after all.

I jerked my attention back to Elina. She was doing a damned good impression of a defeated woman. The faint scent of ozone I’d smelled earlier beneath the silver, when she’d been moving faster than she should have been able to, was gone. Her narrow shoulders drooped, and her hair fell around her face. Well, around part of her face. A hairpin or something was keeping half her bun from collapsing, and her long-ass hair from becoming an easy handhold for me to slit her throat.

I wasn’t about to fall for her hangdog routine. “You think I should give you more consideration than you and your mate were going to give Bradley and Margarette? You think you’ve earned a death with dignity?”

“I suppose not,” she whispered. “You’re the same as me, after all. A witch, flush with power. Why would you be any more compassionate?”

“You think I’m like you?”

She sighed. “I know it. You’ll see. The power makes your heart cold . It keeps you from feeling what you should. If I had another chance…” She hung her head, letting her sword fall to the ground. A few of the shifters watching let out shocked gasps. “Please, let him look away. Please, don’t let him see this.” I wasn’t sure who she was talking to, or praying to, but I knew what she wanted.

“Fool me once, shame on you,” Mama had said more than once when I was a little kid. It wasn’t until later that I learned there was a second part to the saying.

I turned my head away from Elina, sending Finn a look of apology. His expression was stricken, though Luke, who stood beside him, holding him back, seemed to have figured out what was going on. I liked that. He believed in me. Finn, well, he’d take some training.

I let my head stay turned for one second, two seconds… Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice ? —

Elina fell for my bait and reached into her hair. I thought she might be grabbing a hairpin, but it was far cleverer than that. From the corner of my eye, I saw she had a garrote that had been holding up her bun, a fine silver wire running from one dark wood tether to another, tucked around the bun in a clever arrangement. She held one end in her hand, then sent the loop flying over my head, in a flash.

But I was ready for it. I had my steak knife already on the way up, catching the wire on the serrated blade just as it dropped over my head. With a hard yank, I tore it out of her grip, the silver stink in the air making my stomach churn.

She let out a scream of rage, but I was already using my leg to knock her off balance, hooking a foot behind her knee and driving her to the ground. One of her arms had landed behind her with a sickening crunch. The other I pinned with a knee as I kneeled over her torso. She knew she was defeated, and threw her neck back, though her eyes still sparked with a few defiant flickers of red.

“See? You’re the same as me.” Her Southern accent was back, and her voice sounded far too close to the way mine did.

One wooden end of the garrote was in my hand, the other wrapped around my steak knife. I moved the knife, thinking. I wanted to twist the wire around her neck, to let her feel the burn of silver, like so many of the innocents on this battlefield had. More than any other shifter I’d met, she deserved to have her head taken as well.

But I couldn’t do it. As she watched, I unwrapped the wire from my knife and threw the silver away.

Finn shouted, “No! Flor, don’t let her—” The sparks in her eyes flared up, into a bright fire, and I knew she was planning to use magic against me.

Let her fucking try.

My focus on my five-pointed scar, I tapped into the power that waited inside me, the behrserker rage that I’d first felt at Southern no longer making me a mindless killing machine. Though I expected Grigor was helping me somehow, or maybe Brand, or both of them, as I was now able to channel that strength into my arm.

She managed to say one word. “Fool?—”

“—me twice, shame on me,” I finished for her, though I wasn’t sure that was what she was saying. I drew my steak knife—not silver, just plain Southern steel, swiped off the Alpha’s own table at Southern—across her neck. “Oops.” My wolf had channeled all of her strength, and Grigor had sent a burst at the same time, so the knife had more than done its job.

Elina’s head fell to the earth and rolled away.

A split second later, I was lifted up into the arms of my mate.I smelled two of them close, bright ginger and cold, sharp magic. A shadow moved on the ground behind me, and Grigor was in my mind whispering, Well done, little behrserk , but I was cradled in Finn’s arms.

“Thank you,” he whispered as he pressed his face to my hair. “Thank you for doing that for me. I know she was evil, but… it would have been hard.”

I swallowed hard. How had I not put that together? That if I hadn’t killed her, Finn would’ve had to kill both parents in one night. My heart ached like it was breaking in a way that would never heal, and I wasn’t certain if it was my own pain I felt, or his. He’d grown up in a pack every bit as bad as mine, just in different ways. Alone in a way I hadn’t realized until I stepped foot onto these packlands.

At least I’d had Del to show me what love was supposed to look like. Finn had only had Tana, and she was gone. I prayed we would be enough to help him heal.

You’re more than enough. His thought was feather-soft, but his pain was still sharp and fresh.

I didn’t know what to say, so I just took his face in my hands and leaned up to press a soft kiss to his mouth. It tasted of blood and salt from his tears, but his gingery scent warmed, covering the stench of the battlefield, and my spirit warmed with it. When I saw the moon shining on his face as he lifted his head, silver beams illuminating his red hair, his eyes sparkling with blue specks of magic among the green, I wondered how such a sweet, quiet moment could exist in this cold, angry world.

“Quiet,” Finn whispered. “Listen.” We both held our breath. He was right. The battle was over. No more swords or knives clanging, no more wolves howling for blood. Shifters began to creep out of the trees, fear keeping their footsteps silent, but hope bringing them into the moonlight.

“Little flame? Brother?” Grigor’s soft question had Finn turning. My other mates stood there, Luke, Glen, and Brand, all in their wolf forms. Luke’s wolf was a shimmering pewter gray, with black tips at his ears and paws. He was as handsome as he was in his human form, and with the same blue eyes. Glen’s wolf was grinning with sharp white teeth and gave a short yip of greeting, but Brand… The vicious scars that marked him now had my throat tightening.

“Let me down, Sparkles,” I said, squirming to get to them.

“Really? Sparkles?” Finn grumbled, but let me go.

My arms were around Brand’s neck first, his fur soft on my face as I hid the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. “I thought…” Guilt swamped me. I’d encouraged him to shift into his wolf form, thinking it would save him. But it had just given Ivan the chance to torture him.

Brand changed in my arms, instantly holding me to his broad chest. “Shhh, wildflower. Shush, no tears. I’m alive. We survived.” He didn’t say we’d won. Victory had come at a cost none of us had wanted to bear, that would haunt us all for the rest of our lives. “We’re still alive.”

“How?” I asked, pushing back and placing my hand gingerly over the massive scar that began at his neck, where my mating mark had been, to his chest. An enormous, roughly star-shaped scar sat over his heart, and I blinked. It was so much like mine, but bigger and with raw edges. “How?” I repeated. There was no way he should be alive.

“Grigor gave me his life,” Brand answered, though his voice was rough, and he sounded… confused about it. “He gave up his?—”

“Something I had no need for anymore, brother,” Grigor interrupted.

“Oh, yes. I see,” Brand murmured, his silver eyes gleaming brightly.

“You see?” I asked, swallowing hard, not understanding.

“He gave up his immortality.” When I gasped, Brand cupped my chin in one massive hand and smiled sweetly, though the fresh scar that ran from his temple across one cheek made me think of a pirate. “I wouldn’t live a single day without you, beloved. None of us would. What use is forever, if you’re not there?”

Though his eyes shone like twin moons, his words fell onto my sore heart like a warm ray of sunlight. “I love you, too.” I smiled back at him, then let my eyes move over every one of my battered, tired, perfect mates. “I love you all.”