Page 175 of Scavenger's Oath

She smells like iron, dirt, and terror. Her hair is stiff with dried sweat, it’s salty taste coating my lips.

“That’s the filthy fuck who touched her,” Zane roars.

I glance up as Zane’s shadow falls over the vermin like a stormcloud.

He’s sobbing, dragging his useless legs through the straw with his jeans still around his ankles. His dick has gone soft, but it’s still smeared with her sacred blood.

Zane doesn’t charge.

He drops his chainsaw, letting it cough and stall while he stalks forward steadily. “Don’t die yet. I want you alive when I rip you apart.”

“I didn’t—I didn’t… she—she was…” he wails.

I almost hand Ivy to Phoenix just to help tear the fucker apart. But I can’t bring myself to let her go.

As Zane picks up a jagged piece of broken pitchfork, my heart pounds with a sick satisfaction, watching the worm cry pathetically.

“I’m gonna make you scream exactly like she did,” Zane growls, grinning demonically as he plunges the rusted metal straight into the fucker’s inner thigh.

He shrieks. So Zane twists it more.

Ivy whimpers in my arms. Cupping her face, I gently turn it toward me, away from the monstrous scene. But as I look down at her, panic grips my heart.

Her eyes look vacant, half open like she’s not awake nor unconscious. “Ivy. Ivy, look at me. Shit—fuck—can you hear me?”

“Zane,” Phoenix calls, voice low but sharp.

But he doesn’t seem to be able to hear.

He’s stabbing wildly into the rapist’s groin and upper thighs as he writhes on the floor, desperately trying to protect himself.

“Are you gonna stop him?” I ask Phoenix, unsure if I even want it to stop.

Emotionless eyes meet mine as he shakes his head once. “We don’t take prisoners,” he reminds me, voice deadly.

We watch as Zane stabs again. Then in one gruesomemove, rips the metal upward from his thigh, through his groin, tendon and muscle, until the shrieks morph into a gargle.

Blood sprays outward and I wish I was sitting closer to see what was left of the fucker’s dick.

“You don’t get to die fast,” Zane snarls. “You die like her. Slow, scared and alone.”

He must be in one of his ‘Berserker hazes’. Because the way he’s butchered this guy already… he’ll be dead in an hour.

But he doesn’t stop. Grabbing a handful of Ivy’s attacker’s hair, he pulls his head up. Shoving the piece of pitchfork straight into his mouth, he punches it, driving it through the back of the guy’s skull.

Then Zane drops the body and the bloody shard, staring at the mess as if he’s still processing what just happened.

Satisfaction floods my body, stomach unclenching as I exhale.

That fucker didn’t deserve to take another breath.

Turning, he walks back toward us, blood caked on every inch of his body.

Phoenix leans in, brushing Ivy’s hair off her back, horrified eyes locked on something I can’t see. “Jesus—” His voice is hoarse. “She’s—”

Voice rumbling, Zane looks down at her limp, broken body in my arms. “We need to get her home. Now.”

Her fingers twitch against my arm, eyes rolling aimlessly before closing as her breathing becomes deeper.