By then, it had been too late. Douglas had integrated himself into her life and had already begun sowing the seeds of her destruction.
She cursed her own ignorance with him. She’d been cursing it for eleven years now. She had made the mistake in trusting him, and she was still paying the price for it.
Sometimes she wondered if she would continue paying until the last breath she took. And beyond.
Death watched the light flicker on in the room at the inn. How warm and inviting it looked from the opposite bank of the river. How many memories it brought back.
Too many memories. They were stacked from one end of the mind to the other, flickering across the imagination as pain ripped through a soul that had felt shattered for too many years.
Valentine’s night. It had all happened then. Another anniversary was moving in quickly. Another year without a mate that had brightened every corner of a life that had been dark before that mating.
Death rubbed at arms that were still sensitive, that still ached for touch. There wasn’t a cell that didn’t miss the presence of the mate. It was like a disease, a steadily building fever that eventually destroyed the mind.
It never ended.
Once there had been warmth, laughter. There had been a place to belong. None of that existed now. There was no longer that place to belong or those arms to be held by. There was no longer the kiss that was needed to still the hunger that never stopped growing, never stopped tormenting or torturing the body or the mind.
It had created Death. This horrifying, gnawing emptiness that never went away. That never eased. The agony never eased, it never went away. It pulsed and echoed through the spirit until insanity would be a relief.
Many would think it was insanity now. It wasn’t. Insanity was the inability to accept that what one did was wrong. Death was very well aware there was nothing right here. It was simply justice. And justice was all that mattered for the lives that had been taken. For the lives that could never be returned.
“You were once a handsome man.” Death turned and stared at the bound, gagged victim who lay at the edge of the water.
His eyes were narrowed and filled with loathing. Filled with fury.
A smile crossed Death’s lips. It was a brutal smile. One that flashed with razor-sharp teeth and intent.
Yes, Cash Winslow, a former CIA agent. He had once been a very handsome man. Tall and fit, his hair dark and silky, his eyes deceptively friendly. Once he had been someone Death had trusted. Trusted and been betrayed by.
“I remember that fishing trip we went on,” Death said quietly, looking at the man Cash Winslow had aged into. “Do you remember?”
There were muffled sounds of rage behind the duct tape that covered his mouth.
“I caught the bigger fish. That big ole catfish. You ate with us, planned with us. We ate that big ole fish, tough as he was.” And they had laughed, planned for Breed freedom and lives that were far different from the danger they had faced then.
Death turned back to Cash then, stared into those eyes. Those deceptive, lying eyes.
“You betrayed us all.”
The chill from the river wrapped around a body that had been far colder than this on many nights. Nights when blankets didn’t ease the chill, when even the memories couldn’t warm the ice growing inside.
Death tapped gloved fingers against Winslow’s forehead. His hair was gray now. He was a little over sixy. Aging. He wasn’t as quick as he used to be, nor was he as intuitive. It had paid to allow time to pass before exacting revenge. The victims weren’t nearly as agile as they used to be.
“I remember how close you were with so many of them,” Death sighed painfully. “All of us.”
Muttered sounds came from beneath the tape as Cash struggled desperately. It was pathetic really. He had once been fit and hard, muscular and rather handsome. He was now just a paunchy, overweight, balding old man. With a fishing line around his neck.
He had been bait once before. He had drawn them to the Coyote Breed that had supposedly escaped and needed help over the mountain.
“You came to us. You swore he was a victim, you argued for his freedom and his safety. And you were our friend, we believed in you.”
Standing straight and tall, Death stared down at Winslow with a heavy, broken soul.
“We believed in you.”
There was no more time to waste. Gripping him beneath the shoulders, it was no hardship to lift him and scoot him the small distance to the edge of the river, to the boulders several feet away.
He struggled, but that was okay. The struggle was preferable. That meant there was still some life left in him. When he went under the water, he would suffer. He would know pain, for a few moments at least.