Page 50 of Wild Games
Williams’s hands come up, grabbing at my fur, trying to push me off. His fingers already have no strength left as I release his throat; my job here is done. Already, power is fading from him, bleeding out with his life. His eyes meet mine, wide with shock. He never imagined it would end like this.
“Don’t. Don’t fucking come near me.”
Brought back to earth by Tanner’s panicked voice, I growl as I spin my huge head around to stare at him.
He has Camille, hands twisted in her shirt and dragging her backward into deeper water, one hand searching the pebbled ground for the crystal as he moves. Stupid, considering he’s already seen that it doesn’t work on me, but he’s injured and desperate.
A dangerous combination in a cornered wolf.
23
JAX
As Tanner curses, scrambling away from me and dragging her with him, Camille’s head lolls forward, chin nearly touching her chest. The magic is still affecting her. Her necklace isn’t working well enough to protect her or let her wolf fight off the effects of whatever that potion is.
I need to get rid of that stone.
I drop Williams without a thought, his body hitting the stones with a meaty thud. As I step over him, his hands go to his torn neck, trying to hold in what’s already lost.
Blood bubbles between his fingers with each laboured breath, running down his sleeve and dripping onto the earth beneath him.
Tanner sees me moving toward him, and all the colour drains from his face as it dawns on him that I’m coming for him, too.
He stumbles backward, still tugging Camille with him, using her as a shield from my anger. But nothing’s going to protect him.
“Stay back.” His voice cracks with terror. “I’ll kill her. I swear to the Moon Goddess.”
He means it, or he thinks he does. The desperation in his scent tells me he’s gone too far to back down now. Accomplice to attempted murder, caught red-handed in the middle of a high-profile event trying to alter the outcome with stolen weapons, and now witness to an alpha’s death.
He has nothing left to lose.
The lake bottom drops off sharply just a few feet behind him. Everyone who grows up here knows about the ledge, how the lake goes from knee-deep to over your head in a single step.
Kids dare each other to jump off it in the summer. Adults warn about the undertow that forms where cold, deep water meets warm shallows.
He’s backing straight toward it without even realizing, and taking my mate with him.
I stalk forward, a continuous growl rumbling from my chest. Each step is deliberate and measured, allowing him to see me coming, relentless, unstoppable, and letting his fear build. I want him to understand the price of touching what’s mine.
“Please,” he babbles, still retreating. “It wasn’t supposed to go this far. Williams said we’d just weaken them, making it easier for Ryan to get through to the final. Nobody was supposed to die.”
Lies. Even if he believed them at first, he knew the truth when that wolf nearly died last night. Knew what Williams’s intentions were when they followed Camille to the lake. He knew it when Williams talked about pinning the murders on me.
Camille’s eyes flutter open for a moment, unfocused and glassy. She tries to say something but manages only a weak cough.
“Heorderedme. I had no choice.”
Tanner takes another step back. Water rises to his thighs now, soaking through his clothes. The cold makes him gasp, buthe keeps moving, pulling Camille deeper. Her arms float now, supported by water instead of her own strength.
“I don’t even understand magic.” He’s crying now, tears of frustration and regret. “I have no idea where he got it from, but maybe I can help find out.”
He’s desperate now, grasping for anything, so the lies keep coming.
“I was going to stop him. I wouldn’t have let him hurt her.”
If Camille hadn’t thrown her knife, leaving herself completely vulnerable, Raven would be dead. Tanner is no innocent by-stander.
“I mean, maybe he promised me that I’d get to be beta in the new pack. But who wouldn’t want that?” he argues. I continue to prowl forward. This man is no beta.