of scarecrows ready to hang out in the field—overalls and all.
Twin Left looks me up and down while Twin Right sneers. “You look like a real bitch.”
“I am. Good eye.” I cock my head. “I think that’s what I’ll fuck up first.”
With that reply, I spin toward him, punching him in the eye as promised. Twin Right goes down to his knees with a yelp, both hands covering his face. “You bitch!”
“We already established that,” I say in a bored tone before sidestepping as Twin Left tries to rush me.
“You move slower than a three-legged tortoise,” I say with a taunt. “Are you going to try to hit me, or what?”
Growing angrier, he tries to rush me again, so I dodge once more. Really, I’m having too much fun fucking with him, and Twin Right is still crying about his eye. To be fair, it’s bleeding a little between his fingers. That’s probably gonna give him vision problems for a bit.
When I move before Twin Left can get at me for a third time, he bares his teeth at me and snarls. “I’m gonna fucking kill you, bitch!”
“Are you, though?” I say. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re having a lot of trouble just touching me.”
His lanky limbs start swinging toward me, like he’s attempting to throw me off about which direction he’s going to come, but honestly, this dude is a joke, and I’m tired of playing with him.
Instead of dodging him this time, I surge forward, throwing him off guard, and slam my foot into his gut. He folds over at his stomach with a wheeze, and I grab his hair to hold his head in place as I slam my knee into his nose.
He shouts out in pain, matching the sounds that Twin Right made, and now both brothers are on the ground, crying like a couple of babies.
“That wasn’t even fun,” I complain to them before leaving them behind to go fuck someone else up—hopefully someone with a bit more skill.
Unfortunately, Hugo interrupts before I can. One order issued with his alpha power, and everybody just stops.
I’m almost disappointed. Okay, fine. Not almost.
I want more. I want to shred through these mongooses until I have them all laid out on their asses, but the fighting has stopped, and all of the mongooses are nearly shitting themselves at the sight of Hugo.
I see Reese clinging to Luca. She looks scared but otherwise unharmed. In less than five minutes, Hugo manages to not only stop the fighting, but he also reveals all the sordid sleazy things their alpha has done. Things they had no idea about. Things that make a pack turn on their own alpha.
Kidnapping, selling his own people for money, lying about what he did to Reese...it’s fucking disgusting. I want to kill him myself, but it looks like I’ll have to get in line, because the more Hugo talks, the more their loyalty shifts.
And then the female he brought—Karina—steps forward, cinching his story, and the mongooses lose it.
When Igor and Stinger bring out the alpha and toss him onto the ground, his own pack is so enraged for being lied to that they attack him themselves.
It’s not pretty.
Hugo orders everyone to leave, and I watch as Reese gets led away, wrapped in Luca’s arms, smiling at him like he hangs the moon.
I head back to the truck, listening as Pack Aberrant all return to their own cars, a mixture of relief and victory emanating from them.
But I’m not relieved. I don’t feel victorious.
My body is still singing with rage that I didn’t get to release. This was too fast. Over too soon. I wanted so much more, and now I’m fizzing, like a shaken up soda can, ready to burst.
When Jericho and I get back into the truck and he pulls onto the road with the rest of the pack, my knee is bouncing in restless energy.
I’m fidgeting.
Me.
I haven’t fidgeted since I was five years old and Kaazu stuck me in an empty clothes trunk for six hours with my hands tied behind my back because he caught me chewing on my nails.
I learned to hold still after that. I also learned how to be claustrophobic.
But right now, my knee is bouncing faster than a rubber ball, and I have all of this pent-up aggression. It’s like my adrenaline started to run, only to get cut off at its knees.
Jericho turns onto the highway. “You okay? That was crazy.”