Outlaw (Wolves of Royal Paynes #4) - Kiki Burrelli Page 0,56

meant he'd planned on coming into the hotel and wanted to keep everyone as disoriented as possible.

My foot missed the first step down to the main floor, forcing my wraiths to catch and hold me steady. How could I stay steady when my knees knocked so loudly it should've been enough to wake the whole pack? What the hell did I think I was doing, stalking through a pitch-black hotel toward a homicidal killer? I wasn't trying to die or get kidnapped—again—but there were lives at stake, for more than one reason.

I'd had a chance to kill Pierce once and swore when I failed I wouldn't again. It was time to see if I could keep that promise. At the bottom of the stairs, the wraiths switched, giving me a new supply of clean air. We kept to the shadows, creeping along the back wall toward the side door of the sitting room.

The wraith not providing me with clean air pushed the door open, releasing a light yellow fog into the outdoors.

Other siiiiide. Treeeee line.

I exhaled and cursed how shaky the breath was. Is he alone? I didn't dare speak now that we were outside, Pierce was an alpha shifter, after all.

Yeeeesss.

Here for me?

They didn't reply, but that was my answer. Even if I was terrified to face my personal bogeyman again, the choice was simple. The pack was in danger. I needed to protect my pack.

Diesel would never want me to charge into a fight alone, but he'd also never forgive himself if something happened to one of the children.

I crouched, slinking around the side of the house. The ocean roared in the distance, matching the droning in my head. At the last corner, I ducked behind a row of bushes, spotting Pierce sitting in the grass a few feet from the wall closest to the main bedrooms.

Before I could finish wondering why he was sitting down, I was distracted by the thing on his head. Not quite a hat, not quite a mask, it was white like ivory.

Or bone.

The brow of the thing was more pronounced than on a human skull, and the eye sockets were both too long and too narrow. There was no bottom jaw, but the top held a row of fangs, the incisors larger and pointier than the rest. Two gnarled horns shot out of the bone headpiece, spiraling out from opposite sides.

A demon's skull?

Was that what I was seeing? What he was wearing? I'd never seen the thing on his head in his possession before, but if Pierce only wore it when I was sleeping, that made sense.

If that thing had something to do with Pierce controlling nightmares, then I knew what to do. Slowly and soundlessly, I stretched my arm out preparing to flick my wrist the moment my body cleared the bushes.

The wraiths didn't stop me from counting off in my head, but I felt their apprehension. Swallowing it all down, I jumped from my position, sending the links of my whip sailing forward, where the tip wrapped around one of the mangled horns. I yanked back with the dexterity of a fly fisherman and reeled in my catch.

Pierce roared, twisting his head my direction. His eyes met mine, flicking quickly away to where the skull piece had landed on the dirt. My wraiths slithered down my body and I assumed they were going to pick it for me, but they veered away at the last second, hissing as if in pain.

If I'd been in a position to allow terror to fill me, that would've done the trick. Nothing had ever hurt my wraiths. If they couldn't touch the thing, could I?

I wouldn't take the chance. I had more than a hunch that the skull piece was the very thing that had made my life hell, and it wasn't just because Pierce looked like he wanted it back very much that I would enjoy destroying it.

I grabbed a rock, not a word passing between us before I smirked at the rage in his face turning into terror.

He stumbled over the grass between us and my wraiths shot forward punching him back, and holding him down as I lifted the rock in the air and slammed it against the tangled bone.

There was a dull pulse of power—a shockwave that made the contents of my stomach rumble. I managed to keep everything down, looking up in time to see Pierce slide two fingers into his pocket.

"Come!" I screamed the second after Pierce flicked