Rachel’s mouth curved, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “How would he do that? Only Sentinels have access to the cryogenic storage facilities.”
“The same Sentinel or Sentinels who took Lindsay from Angels’ Point?”
If Vash hadn’t been watching so closely, she might’ve missed the shiver of fear that raised the hairs on Rachel’s arms. As it was, Vash felt a grudging admiration for the Alpha, who was so swiftly piecing together a picture of double-crosses and fractured loyalties.
Rachel ripped open the front of her dress and shifted, and Vash whipped out her blades. Elijah darted forward in human form, catching the snarling she-wolf in the air and deflecting her.
If Vash had harbored any doubts that he was an Alpha, they would have been completely dispel ed. She’d never heard of a lycan able to resist a shift while under attack. Never thought she’d see it.
“Stop it,” Elijah barked, his words cracking like a whip.
But Rachel was beyond caring. She hunkered low and came at Vash again. Vash leaped to the roof of the Jeep to gain the high ground and prepared to slice back, but Elijah pivoted with a roar, grabbing Rachel and crushing her spine to his chest. Standing on her hind legs in lupine form, the female was bigger than he was. She clawed at the air with her forepaws, her jaws snapping over her shoulder.
“Cut it out.” His bare feet skidded on the ground as he wrestled her writhing body. “Don’t make me hurt you, Rach. Don’t— Damn it.”
Rachel’s back paw scraped his calf, eliciting a bel ow of pain and fresh gushing of blood as his injury from the day before rent anew. The potent scent of his blood fil ed Vash’s nostrils. Her fangs descended; her body tightened with hunger. She crouched, her gaze shooting to the mouth of the cave. A witness would be helpful, but she saw none forthcoming.
Elijah hurled the wolf aside again and tore open his button fly. In a split second, he’d shifted into a pony-sized wolf with rich chocolate fur and a lupine face as majestic as his human one was gorgeous. He howled, the sound echoing off the red rock and rol ing like thunder through the canyon.
Rachel slinked across the dusty ground, her lips pul ed back in a snarling display of wickedly sharp teeth. Elijah stalked her, growling low and deep with unmistakable menace. Vash’s breathing quickened. She smel ed the third lycan before she saw him.
In human form, Stephan leaped onto the rooftop beside her and landed nimbly on his feet. “Jesus,” the Beta hissed. “This is the last thing we need.”
“You’re my witness,” she said, before diving off the SUV with her blades leading the charge, her body stretched to its ful length.
The she-wolf pounced with a bark, meeting her halfway. Her katanas were a mere inch from fur-covered flesh and muscle when Elijah tackled Rachel from the side, slamming her out of the way. Vash’s blades sank into the ground where the she-wolf had been a mere second before. Using the anchored swords as leverage, she held the hilts and flipped, her legs arcing over her head and landing on the other side. She hit the ground in a crouch, her boots pounding into the dirt. The sickening crunch of broken bone sounded behind her.
“Fuckin’ A,” she cursed, knowing death when she heard it.
* * *
Elijah shifted forms, the power of his lycan sight diminishing into that of a human’s, then blurring with tears. He stared down at the lycan lying at his feet, watching fur melt into flesh as life flowed out of Rachel’s body from the punctures in her broken neck. Dropping heavily to his knees, he threw his head back and howled his grief.
“Damn it,” Vash snapped at his back. “You should’ve let me do it. It would have been self-defense. The others would’ve accepted that easier than they wil you kil ing a lycan while protecting a vamp.”
A growl at his back alerted him to Stephan’s presence behind him. Bracing for the agony of a bite he wouldn’t defend himself against, he was startled when the expected attack didn’t come and Vashti spoke instead.
“I’m not going to hit him while he’s down, Beta,” she said drily. “You don’t have to protect him from me, even if he does need a smack upside the head for jumping in when I can protect myself.”
“I didn’t do it for you.” Gathering himself, Elijah stood and col ected his jeans, yanking them on. “I can’t afford disobedience now. Letting you two get to each other after I ordered Rachel away would only prove that my word isn’t law, and it needs to be.”
His chest heaving, he swiped his tears away and fought down the rising bile in his throat. An icy lump had settled in his gut, guilt eating through him like acid. He’d kil ed the woman he had promised to protect from harm, the widow of his closest friend. While her death had been certain from the moment Micah died—lycans couldn’t live long after the loss of their mate—he’d never imagined the nightmare of being the hand that dealt the fatal blow.
Stephan shifted, but kept a defensive position between Elijah and Vash.
“Alpha.” His voice was calm and control ed. “How do you want to handle this?”
Elijah faced him. “I’l inform the others. Take whoever you need and see Rachel buried as wel as possible. Then take these cameras and set them around the perimeter in ever-widening circles. If you need help setting up the feed, Vashti wil assist you.”
“I’l take care of it.”
Stephan’s immediate compliance might’ve soothed him, if that had been even remotely possible. Before his Beta walked away, he stopped him.
“Stephan…thank you. For everything.”
Giving a brief nod of acknowledgment, Stephan gathered his clothes from the ground and moved away.
Elijah set off toward the caves. Remorse weighted his shoulders and stung his eyes. He’d never wanted this, never wanted the responsibility of making such brutal decisions or having the power to see them enforced.