He stared back at Myron, seeing the pain on his face and in his eyes. That pain had only grown over the years since Illandra’s death. Since his mate had died on that ill-fated mission. A mission Death had selected her for.
The guilt that weighed him down was heavy. It stacked on his shoulders until there were days he felt as though he would collapse under the strain.
God help him, it had been too long, too many years that he had lived as a shadow, waiting, watching.
“We should take her before he arrives.” Danna’s voice was thick with unshed tears, her scent was thick with a pain she never allowed free.
Death shook his head. He felt the breeze as it moved around him, feathered through his hair, and suddenly the memories were so clear, so crisp. The feel of soft hands rubbing at his scalp, the whisper of her kiss, her laughter. The knowledge that she had betrayed him.
So much betrayal. His life had begun in betrayal, and it would end with it. He had known that for far too many years. Had accepted it.
Serena had died by the hand of those she had betrayed him to, and their child was paying the cost, even now he feared. The child they had cut from her body.
Pain fueled rage. It bit inside his soul with sharpened fangs and tore at his guts with rapier claws. Damn her to hell. She had thought she would be safe, that the bastards that searched for them would keep their word to her. She had never paid attention to the blood they had spilled or the proof of those that had already been betrayed.
Where was the child? Only Watts knew the answer to that. He had taken the baby with him. The Council had never known of the child that disappeared that night. But Watts did. Death demanded its due. The child was all he had left to live for—the child, and the deaths to come.
“Rick, we have to get her away from them before Watts arrives,” Danna argued. “She’s what he’s coming for.”
He shook his head. “That’s what he wants us to think. That he’s coming for her. That he’s coming to take back what belongs to him. Watts has no feelings for this woman, and he doesn’t care one way or the other who she f**ks or mates. No, he’s coming back here to save his own ass, Danna, and we both know it. He’s coming here to kill me. Because he knows he’ll never be safe as long as I live.”
And now that he was free, Watts would want to ensure that freedom. The only way to ensure it would be to kill the one man he knew he would never escape.
Patrick Wallace. Death.
“Cassa walked into this with her eyes open,” Danna snapped. “She knew she would be facing a killer.”
“She doesn’t deserve to die,” Myron argued heatedly. “For God’s sake, Danna, we’ve both lost mates. Do we really want to force another to live as we have?”
“Did they care when we lost our mates?” Patrick kept his voice low, commanding. “We’re still at war, Myron, don’t let propaganda tell you any differently. We use the weapons at our disposal, and that is all Ms. Hawkins is here, a weapon against Watts. How or if she survives isn’t my concern. Finding my child and killing that bastard is my concern.”
“Will it bring them back?” Myron was the one Patrick had always known would falter at this point. He would falter, but he wouldn’t betray them. For that reason he was still alive.
“Nothing can bring them back,” Danna whispered, and they both looked to him, as though he had the power to turn back time and return the laughter to them.
“Nothing can bring them back,” he told them. “All we can do now is make them pay. With each one we kill we learn more. There’s four left to go besides Watts. I want them all dead. Every one of them.”
He would never live to see that final closure. The Breeds would stop him; Jonas Wyatt would eventually figure out who he was. The pills Danna had managed to steal from Brandenmore’s labs wouldn’t last forever.
Patrick had taken a risk in sending the pills to Cassa Hawkins. It had been a calculated risk, but it had drawn her here. She was now distracting the Bengal he was having problems with, distracting Jonas, and soon she would distract Watts. That was all he needed. Just one moment of time to strike.
“If we kidnap her before he arrives, before Jonas has a chance to throw a net around her, then we can draw Watts straight to you,” Danna argued. “If we wait, we could lose out on the goal we’ve been fighting for.”
He stared back at her, his heart heavy. How much she had lost. Not just her mate and her child, but her very soul. Sometimes he felt the vacancy within her, and knew the pain this would have caused his treasured baby brother.
How Raine had loved this woman. His first smile had been because of her laughter. His first night without nightmares had been because of her presence in his bed. His first tears of joy had been the day they had learned she carried his child.
The night Raine died, a part of Danna had died as well. The night those bastards had held her down and the Reaper had stolen her soul, and the life of her child, Danna had ceased to exist as a woman. She had emerged from that hell broken, irrevocably damaged and without the mate who could have eased her spirit.
They had buried Raine without his head, but Patrick had known they had buried Danna’s soul with him.
“Taking her before Watts arrives would be a mistake,” he finally ordered them both. “We wait until he’s here.”
“The risk is too great,” Danna bit out fiercely. “Rick, they’ll be ready for us then.”
“They’re ready for us now.” He shrugged. “They’ll be more distracted once Watts arrives and so will she. We wait.”
He moved away from them, heading up the hill, using the trees to hide his presence, knowing he would blend into the forest in a way that even another Breed couldn’t track.