no information that’s useful to us. It also seems like you’ve told me that you’re under specific orders to kill somebody we’re here to very much non-kill.”
“It would seem that way.”
“Then I’ve heard enough.” Tara shifted and sprang, jaws swinging closed with brutal, animal finality and—a
“Stop!” And fuck, it was me this time.
Transforming once more and rather pointedly wiping blood from her lips while Yelena lay, wounded but definitely still alive—well, undead—beneath her, Tara turned and glared at me. “This is growing farcical.”
“I know, it’s just…” and what was it just? It wasn’t like I’d not seen people killed before. Hell it wasn’t like I’d not killed anyone before. But maybe that was the problem. Whatever Yelena was, whatever she’d done, right now she wasn’t a threat. And I’d been down the pre-emptive-killing route once already recently and I hadn’t liked where it had led, for me or for anybody else. “I’m—I’m really trying to murder fewer people.”
Aaaaand Tara was close to me again. Uncomfortably close. “It is not murder, it is justice.”
“I get that, but”—I squirmed. This was beginning to look like it would end badly—“it sounds like your grandmother talking again.”
A clawed finger came to rest lightly against my throat. “Be very careful what you say next, Kate Kane.”
“Well…” Funnily enough, an angry werewolf telling you to be careful what you say made it hard to get words out. “The thing is—I mean—things are pretty grim right now and I think that there are quite a lot of problems you can’t solve by chewing people’s faces off.”
“She skinned a member of my pack and wears her hide.” Tara’s eyes bled amber. “The only problem here is that she has yet to die in unbearable pain.”
Okay, that wasn’t entirely getting me where I needed to be. “And who would that help, exactly? It won’t bring Tabitha to life. It won’t give your packmates their eyes back.”
“It will send a message.”
I probably shouldn’t have lost my temper, but I lost my temper. “Fuck a badger, Tara, send a message to who? You think Sebastian Douglas will give a shit? You think the King of Shadows, the Queen of Winter will look up from his-her throne for five fucking seconds to hear this one scream? This whole fucking world is full of shitty things that hurt people. Can’t you please try not to be one of them?”
To my genuine surprise, Tara stepped back. She looked from me to Yelena and back to me, her expression not softening exactly, but turning a different kind of wolfish. “And what do you propose I do instead?”
“I don’t know.” This would have been outside my wheelhouse even if there hadn’t been the murdered-her-family issue to deal with. “But she served the Cold and Dark for a long time, surely there’s a way she could be useful to you?”
Yelena looked up. Although she was bloodied and broken down, there was a malicious, almost seductive glint in her eye. “I know many things, werewolf. Things that might advantage you.”
I fought hard against the urge to kick her. “Could you try not to sound totally evil for five seconds?”
“And you expect me to trust this woman?” Tara’s tone was just this side of withering, but In the circumstances I felt I deserved it.
“What if we could make her trustworthy?” I was thinking on my feet here, but between Nim and my admittedly one-sided experience of the fae, I was beginning to come up with a plan.
“Make her trustworthy how?” asked Tara. “She could be dead and I am still not certain I would trust her to rot.”
Cautiously, I made my way to the cellar door, and called for Sofia. There was a sound of footsteps outside as she hurried downstairs with Flick in tow. I tensed—there was still a chance that Yelena could decide to say screw it and go for the squishy fully human people—but she was playing ball so far.
It struck me only a little belatedly that this was probably the first time Patrick and Sofia had been face to face since the official break-up, and that must have been something of a mindfuck for them. “Is everything okay?” she asked. “You all went quiet so we didn’t know if it was safe to come back.”
“No doubt you hoped she had killed me,” observed Patrick. Because of course he did.
Sofia gave him a far more understanding look than I ever managed. “No I didn’t, Patrick. I valued our time together and I’m happy you’re happy.”