“The water is very cold. Cold enough that hypothermia will come fairly quickly. Which is really too bad. I was hoping to make you suffer just a while longer. I was hoping to taste your blood, but this is the wrong time for that, isn’t it?”
Blood would have been nice. Ripping his throat out would have been so much better than simply watching him drown. But his death needed to leave a message. Bait. There were many who would know what this meant. Many who would see the significance, but none who would know the answer.
“Loyalty,” Death whispered. “It’s repaid. Just as death is avenged. You killed us all.”
He was struggling, fighting. It wouldn’t do any good. There was only one place on the bank that he could reach safety, and she had that covered. He was going to die, and she was going to watch him die.
“You and Watts.” The hiss was filled with hatred, with the brutal need for blood. “You and Watts planned it. You executed it.”
A strong, hard kick to his back sent him tumbling into the water. The splash wasn’t nearly as satisfying as the sounds of screams when their throats came out, but it was better than watching him breathe. It was better than knowing he lived so much as a moment longer.
Gripping the line looped around Winslow’s neck, it was an easy matter to keep him in the deep pool of water chosen for his deathbed.
Wickedly sharp canines flashed in the night as a smile pulled at chilled, chapped lips. He was struggling, fighting the line, searching for a toehold, a way to draw in air, and there was no way to do so.
Tugging at the line, Death hummed a little melody and stared into the cloud-laden skies. It would snow by morning. The Breeds would find an icy corpse, and no trace of the murderer. That was the best way to kill. Without a trace. No DNA. No evidence, just the body to show the passing of life.
As Winslow’s struggles ceased and his body became a deadweight against the line, Death knelt on a boulder and stared into the murky water at the body below.
“Roses are red. Violets are blue. I remember, mate, and how I miss you.”
There were tears in the voice that whispered the words. Tears and grief. Had it truly been more than two decades since life had turned so dark and bleak? It hurt as though it had happened yesterday. An hour ago. It hurt until the agony was like an open, festering wound that refused to heal.
“I miss both of you.”
Death wiped at a face without tears. They had stopped falling so long ago.
Moving slowly, the fishing line was attached to a sturdy limb of a nearby tree, and on its end a photo was attached.
Let them make of this what they would.
Turning to stare into the well-lit window of the room Cassa Hawkins had taken, bleak eyes narrowed and rage built again.
She had mated that Bengal. Damn her. She had mated a Breed. That made it harder. It shouldn’t have. Death hadn’t thought it would. But it did. There was regret, but so little remorse.
A mate would have to be sacrificed. But so many had already been sacrificed, did another really matter? The end result was what mattered. The end result, and the death of those who had destroyed so much.
“Good-bye, Cash Winslow,” Death whispered with a feeling of relief. “Seven down. Four to go. And one to die again.”
CHAPTER 18
Because Watts was part of the Dozen, Cassa. He was part of it, and he’s the one the killer wants.
Dog’s statement ran through Cassa’s mind through most of the night. Pacing the floor at the inn, she fought to understand why a rogue Breed would think she should pay for what Douglas had done so long ago.
He had been part of the Deadly Dozen. She pulled up the old, faded picture on her laptop and concentrated on the faces of the twelve men in poor focus. One face in particular had always caused her to pause, though she had never been certain why.
Now she knew why.
Douglas.
She squinted her eyes and stared closely at the face. It could easily be Douglas when he was younger. The same blunt, squarish features. The same narrow, almost cruel lips. He was much younger. At least ten to fifteen years younger than he had been when Cassa was married to him. He’d been several years older than her.
The murders during the Valentine’s night massacre had taken place eleven years before the revelation of the Breeds. About twenty-two years, Cassa surmised. Valentine’s night, no more than a few weeks from now, would be the twenty-second anniversary of that massacre.
“God, Douglas, what did you do?” she whispered as she closed out the picture before logging into the Bureau of Breed Affairs History section.
There were no stories on that night, nothing to shed any light on what had happened. The truth of that event would have to come from a local source. And she needed something more than the sheriff had given them.