Page 90 of The Blood we Crave

“It’s a dangerous place to be making threats right now, East.” Alistair steps next to me, his shoulder grazing mine. “No daddy or friends to protect you. How will they know anything happened to you if they can’t find your body?”

I scoff, “If there’s one to find.”

“At least I don’t have to worry about you leaving my body parts out in public, Thatcher. We all know you’re just like your daddy, only the weak, innocent women get you off when you’re hacking them up.”

It was no secret that I was a suspect. That the town had deemed me guilty before I could even plead innocent.

“You sure you’re not the one slinging body parts around like cash in a club, East? Must not be easy finding your mother screwing Alistair’s dad, what were you five, six? When you saw Wayne Caldwell putting it down on mommy dearest?” Rook taunts. “Letting out some of those pent-up issues on girls around town?”

Easton’s jaw ticks, another very tender place for our long time enemy. I wasn’t sure if it was a gift from the divine when we found out about their parents’ affair, but I loved seeing that twisted look of misery on Easton’s face any time we brought it up.

“Wouldn’t you know if it was me? Who knows how long you’ve had your little pet trailing me.” He sneers.

My spine stills.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Are you just playing stupid? Or is this just your normal setting?” he asks with a roll of his eyes. “It was clever, ya know? I had this nagging feeling I was being followed, but every time I turned around nothing was there. Not until right before I left the circus tonight.”

I look at Rook, then over at Alistair, this feeling of sheer adrenaline pumping through my veins. This had been a mistake. I hate this punk, but he was smart, and we knew that. Having him followed was a mistake.

And now Lyra is out there somewhere paying for it.

There is a split second where I try to reign in my self-control. Where I attempt to bite down on my tongue and remain the aloof one. The one that never really gives Easton the attention he seeks, but I can’t.

I fractured my control when I landed between Lyra Abbott’s thighs. Anything that had to do with that little bug queen had little restraint.

Sweat slicks my palms, I have never felt so hot. My body overflowing with wrath. Violence humming inside of my chest. This need to destroy everything and anything in my path. It’s never happened like this.

The urge to kill.

Never so quickly, so powerful, that I doubt anything could stop me from shredding the world apart with my teeth. Eating it alive. So volatile that no one. Man, women, child, friend or stranger was safe.

I take two steps before I’m looking down my nose at Easton, my voice an animalistic growl.

“Where is she.”

“Who?” he asks with a cocky lifted brow.

My hands reach forward, snatching the front of his jacket. I twist my hands into the material, lifting him from the ground a few inches, my body shaking.

“What the hell—”

The breath shoots from his lungs as I slam him with as much force as I can gather into the asphalt beneath us. His back smacks with a bang, a groan rippling from his lips as I stand over him.

“Where thefuckis she.”

I’m not asking questions or begging for an answer.

I would kill him, and I would make it hurt. Sit him down in front of his mother and remove each of his ribs one by one. Pull his goddamn spine from his throat and choke him with it.

“You’ve got ten seconds, Sinclair,” I reach into my pocket and click the button on my switchblade, waving it in front of his face. “Before I leave you in pieces.”

“I—” he chokes on the air, “Don’t know.”

My mind had never been able to wrap around the sort of territorial claim my friends had of Briar and Sage. Never understood what it was they possessed that caused the guys to turn into animals ready to snap at the first person who breathed their name.

It had been cheesy and repulsive to me.