Pack Poisoned, page 19
part #2 of Thrown to the Wolves Series
Still, he’s untrained; a poor fit to carry the mantle of a pack’s beta. Unable to conceal his venom, he declares, “We’re even now.”
Kaige uses his boot to turn Carter’s terrified face his way for inspection. Unimpressed, he doesn’t bother to look at Jackson as he responds, “If you think this man is worth that much, you have too much stock in yourselves.” Carter tries to squirm away, but Kaige’s boot on his throat pins him in place. “It’s a good start, though, at least.”
Jackson opens his mouth, but his retort is stolen from him as Brent cuts him off. “He never should have fucked up my pack’s chances at Emmeline anyway. Have Adrian send me a message when you’re done and I’ll arrange a cleanup crew.” With that, he walks towards the exit with his head held high, but on shaky legs.
With a hate-filled glare that promises revenge thrown at each of us, Jackson follows behind. By the time the two are out of the door, the semi is pulling away, brakes screeching in a godsawful way in its departure. I head over to close the loading dock door, and when I return, the crunch of gravel signals the last of the Stonewoods’ disappearance.
“Well, that was fun,” Adrian states with far too much enthusiasm. “I’ll leave you to it, then, because something tells me this is going to take a while, and unfortunately, I have things I still need to get done. Enjoy your revenge, boys. Give me a call when you’re done, and I’ll send Brent the bill.”
With a mocking salute, Adrian strides out of the warehouse and leaves us to it. The reverberation of the heavy metal door slamming shut behind him sets Carter off, hearing his fate sealed with such audible finality. Struggling in earnest now, his shouts are muffled by the duct tape on his mouth, and he manages nothing more than squirming in place.
Chuckling, Kaige removes his foot. “Now, this won’t do.” Crouching down beside him, he pinches the corner of the tape and rips it off of Carter’s mouth in a solid jerk. “It’s no fun if we can’t hear you scream.”
“I didn’t touch her like that, I swear,” he immediately pleads.
Kaige rises up, striding over to one of the empty oil drums and turning it into the best seat in the house. “Don’t mind me, I’m here to enjoy the show. You're the ones owed blood.”
Tilting my head in silent respect, I turn all of my attention on Carter. “You didn’t rape her, you mean? That’s seriously the line you’re going with for a defense? Like we should be happy that you didn’t sink that fucking low before you were interrupted?”
Hair too short to get a good grip on, I snag a fistful of his shirt, slamming him back into the concrete. The dull thud of impact is followed by a waft of blood that draws a satisfied rumble from my chest. Being away from Sabrina always leaves me restlessly agitated, and the tension from this meeting, the anticipation of finally setting something right, hasn’t made it any easier to manage the volatile energy coiled in my chest. The scent of his blood fills my senses, coating my tongue until I can practically taste it. It’d be so easy; we’re less than half an hour away from sunset, and I feel stronger than ever. I could let the shift take over, set my other half loose to sink his teeth into Carter’s flesh, to tear him limb from limb.
But that’d be too quick.
Releasing him, I get to my feet. The kick that I drive into his side has his ribs cracking, the splintering of bone and his howl of pain music to my ears. While I usually prefer to get jobs over and done with, maybe get a sense of satisfaction punishing some of the worst of the men we’re hired to kill, it’s from a place of justice, of making those monsters pay for what they’ve done and ridding the world of them. Cinjin? He revels in dragging things out, lives for their suffering. I can lament leaving a family without their sole provider, no matter what a son of a bitch he may have been, but my brother lacks that empathy. All cruel smiles and twisted games before moving onto the next without letting any of them take up space in his head to haunt him, perfectly at peace with what we do.
At least, until Sabrina appeared. She’s the first thing he hasn’t looked at like a game in over two decades, but rather wants to coax her into playing them with him. To impress her, to keep her at his side and make him remember what it’s like to give a shit about anything.
She gives him a reason to want to be human after he’s been letting his other half run the show for years, and now he’s fighting his way back to us, to her. I think that’s what she saw in him that night, but didn’t understand what she was seeing. She knows Cinjin’s wolf, not him, and she doesn’t understand how to compute that fact. Are we split personalities of the same being, the worst versions of ourselves manifesting, or two separate souls inhabiting the same body?
Does it really matter in the end when she’s already accepted who and what we are, loves us when we can barely pass as human on the best of days?
My brother has never been at war with himself like the rest of us, completely shut down as a kid and withdrew into himself, stepping out of the way as his wolf stepped up to protect him. Fuck, sometimes I wonder if my brother is even still in there somewhere, or if he was devoured long ago.
Sabrina sees that, was nervous about the real Cin fighting his way to the surface. Who can blame her, when even I’m not sure who my brother really is anymore?
“Tell me,” he purrs, flipping open his knife to slice through the bindings at Carter’s wrists. “Those bruises around her neck that my sister came home with; we’re supposed to forgive those?”
“I was desperate,” he whispers, scrambling back an inch once his hands are free. “She was never going to choose me, choose any of us. The only other girls around here won’t be eligible for, what, another five to ten years? I can’t keep living like this.” He winces as his wolf no doubt batters against the confines of its cage. It knows exactly the fate that’s waiting for them, only growing more aggressive in its desperation. If his host dies, he’ll die right alongside him, never once experiencing freedom.
Cinjin slices through the binding at his ankles. “What the rest of us are expected to do; deal with it.”
“Easy for you to say when you have one!” he shouts, getting to his feet, dark eyes wide with nervous fear when we don’t stop him. “Where did you even find her?” As a sudden thought occurs to him, he rushes to add, “Wait, she smelled human at first, right? What if there are more out there like her, and that’s why less are being born to the packs? They’re being born to humans, and we just need to hunt them down-”
“Run.”
It takes him a split second to mentally switch gears, his heart missing a beat before he sprints for the door. Neither of us move, though it takes everything I have to stay in place. Clenching my fist, instead of fighting against the urge as my skin begins to crawl, I feed my other half mental images of what Cin’s planning.
It’s not him or me. We’re two halves working in tandem to bring maximum suffering to the man we want to kill.
The itching sensation lessens a fraction, and I concentrate on a long, slow breath that brings the acrid stench of fear with it. Pacified, he stops fighting me, and I watch my brother from my peripherals, keeping our fleeing victim in my sights. Holding the tip of the blade, Cin lines up his shot before whipping the knife forward, swiftly bringing another to his hand and giving it the same treatment. The blades hit their mark one after the other, slicing into Carter’s Achilles tendons. He goes down with a scream, barely saving himself from a broken nose.
“Bra-fucking-vo,” Kaige praises, his golf-clapping bringing a massive grin to Cinjin’s face.
Shaking his head, he waltzes towards Carter like he has all the time in the world. “Thank you, thank you. Remember that the next time you try to poison my breakfast.”
Kaige scowls. “I told you, I didn’t poison the damn muffins. Like I’d leave something out that Sabrina might grab by accident. And you have a terrible penchant for sharing with her, so it’s too risky. If I was going to poison you, I’d make sure she was gone for the day and watch you eat it. You know, just to be safe.”
This time, I’m the one laughing. I don’t particularly like the assholes that stormed into our lives like the gods’ gifts to earth, but I don’t hate them quite as much as I used to either.
“I’ll be sure to make Sabrina taste test all my food from now on then,” Cin declares distractedly. At this point, we’ve reached Carter, who made it farther than I’d have expected looking at the guy. “Aww, so close to freedom. Another five seconds, you’d have been out the door.” Stepping on one of Carter’s hands, he yanks his knives out of the man’s ankles, chuckling. “Not that there’s a car waiting for you. No, your pack had no problem forsaking you, did they? Abandoned you here and ran with their tails between their legs.” He wipes the blood of one knife off on Carter’s shirt before tucking it away.
Tears are gathered in his eyes as he whispers, “I’m sorry. Please.”
“Please what?” Cin uses his other blade to slice a shallow line up the back of his leg through his jeans, blood beading and trickling from the wound little deeper than a paper cut.
Swallowing, Carter begs, “Please give me a chance to make it up to you.”
Scoffing, he steps on his ankle, applying steady pressure until a few of the tiny bones fracture. “And therein lies the problem, Carter. You didn’t even offer to make it up to her, the only person you should be begging forgiveness from.”
Taking it as his cue, Cin carries on, humming to himself as he carves a series of designs into Carter’s flesh. His shirt is shredded to expose a bigger canvas, and while he bucks and screams, I hold him down while my brother works. When Carter manages to get a weak shot in, I take great pleasure in breaking his fingers one by one.
“You really should learn to keep your hands to yourself, you know.”
Every time he jerks, it drives Cinjin’s blade deeper. He’s trapped between us, flinching away from one pain, and then the other. I lose all sense of time as I move onto the next hand before stepping back from the sniveling man to inspect Cin’s handiwork. Tilting my head from one angle to the next, my admiration only grows for my morbid little brother.
“When we settle down one day, you should look into tattooing; that’s impressive as fuck.”
Beaming with pride, he reaches for his phone before thinking better of it. “Damn. Kind of wanted to show her, but not worth the evidence.”
Kaige saunters over, curious, and his eyebrows jump up to his hairline before he starts laughing. “Is that a couple of werewolves kicking the shit out of Carter?” As Cin shoots him a proud thumbs up, Kaige snorts. “You even added Xs for eyes and his tongue lolling out. Fuck, we can’t not take a picture. The others have to see this.”
Whipping out his phone, he snaps a picture, but doesn’t send it so we can show in person and delete. Still carries some risk, but slightly less of one, and I’m sure Reid or Sabrina can scrub it off the cloud, or whatever they’re doing with tech shit these days.
“Hey, no passing out.” I use the toe of my boot to nudge Carter’s face.
“If you’re open to suggestions,” Kaige trails off, looking way too fucking excited all of a sudden.
“Shoot.”
Grinning like a kid on Christmas morning, he’s already halfway out the door. “Be right back!”
Sharing a look with my brother, he’s shaking his head in amusement. “Fuck, he needs to knock it off before I actually start liking the guy.”
Huffing in agreement, we spend the next two minutes rousing Carter before he blacks out again. A bullet in the shoulder jerks him awake, though it’s got Cin bitching at me for ruining his art.
“Did not.” Gesturing to the fresh blood, I point out, “I added the moon. You’re welcome.”
He’s stunned silent before falling back on his ass, clutching his ribs as literal tears stream down his face. “You-”
There’s no getting anything intelligible out of him between his wheezing laughter, but Kaige returns shortly after. My brother’s hysteria tapers off with a couple of chuckles as he swipes at his eyes, but as he watches Kaige set down the spare gas can from the truck before rolling over the empty oil barrel that he was sitting on earlier, it morphs into stunned silence.
“You’re going to burn him alive?”
“Better! We’re going to waterboard him with gasoline, but so we don’t waste it, we’ll do it over the barrel. Then we can drown him a couple of times, and once his eyes melt or he passes out, we chuck him in, light it, and see if that wakes him up or if he’s really dead.” The undiluted excitement in his gaze is mirrored by the horror in mine, but not Cinjin’s.
No, my brother finally met the one person he might actually contemplate leaving our mate for, if that look in his eye is anything to go by. Kaige painted the psychopath’s wet dream.
“Am I... gay now? Because everything about that idea arouses me. I’ve changed my mind, you can stay,” Cin decrees, hopping to his feet. Turning to me with a massive smile, he asks, “Haul him up while I find something to support his body?”
Rolling my eyes, I don’t object, even if I don’t get the same sick thrill out of this shit that the two of them do. Chucking the lid off of the barrel first, I crouch down. All of the blood makes it harder to get a grip, but he isn’t struggling anymore, accepting that it’s hopeless. Tears stream down his face as silent sobs shake his body, but by the time Cinjin and Kaige are back with another two barrels, I have Carter’s head resting on the lip above the opening.
I take a step back for the rest, letting the two of them work out their demons. Time ticks by with the occasional scream as Carter’s brought to death’s doorstep and back several times, but eventually, he remains silent. Whether he’s blacked out or dead, we’ll discover soon enough.
Using his belt to hogtie him, Cin eases Carter’s body into the metal barrel knees first. When he’s done, Kaige passes him a lighter, and my brother grins at his new best friend before flicking it open. Waiting until we’re several steps away, he tosses it, making the shot on the first try without issue. A sudden blast of heat threatens to nearly singe off my eyebrows even from here, and I’m forced to take another few paces back.
“Well, that’s a bummer-” Cin’s lament is cut off by a shrill scream, putting the smile back on his face. “Oh, yay, he was just unconscious! You owe me five bucks.”
Kaige withdraws his wallet and passes the money over without looking away from their human bonfire. “I can’t say I’m disappointed to lose this one.”
We stay until Carter’s screams fall silent, making sure the fire is holding steady to ensure there’s no chance of any miracles before we leave it to burn itself out until Brent’s cleanup crew arrives. Grabbing my bag out of the truck, I use a water bottle to hose off as much of the blood as possible before stripping. We use our old clothes as rags, returning inside long enough to chuck them in the fire.
“So, home?” Cin hops in beside me as I claim the driver’s seat, riding shotgun.
“Not yet.” Checking the time, I’m thrilled that it’s not as late as I feared, several hours left before the place closes. “Need to swing by the mall."
Kaige pulls his door shut as he climbs into the back seat. “What for?”
“I need to pick up Sabrina's gift.”
Cinjin eyes me suspiciously. “She doesn’t like gifts.”
Firing up the engine, I put it in gear. “No, she doesn’t like expensive gifts.” Kaige mutters something in his confusion, and I cut him some slack for once. “Her mom did a number on her, so the bar is so fucking low, it’ll make you want to help the Slaughters track her down so you can punch her in the face. Sabrina just doesn’t want to have to worry about food or being homeless, and anything beyond that makes her uncomfortable, like she doesn’t deserve it, or should feel guilty for accepting it.”
Strumming my fingers on the steering wheel as I get us back onto the road, thoughts of an even smaller Sabrina enduring all of that bullshit, of stumbling around alone in the woods, hungry and-
Stop. She’s alright, and she’ll never deal with that again. She has us to take care of her now, even if that looks differently than I previously imagined. We’ll tell her she’s amazing and deserves the world until the day she finally starts believing it, then every one after.
“She’s getting more comfortable living in our house instead of her apartment, but I think that’s more of the exhaustion and everything going on that’s helping soften the adjustment. Like the luxury is counteracted by all of the stress and baggage that comes with it, so it averages out as actually being okay to enjoy. She doesn’t want to be pampered, she wants to be respected, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”
Holding my phone up and wiggling it, I brag, “She gave me a cheat sheet when she came to stay with us, and we’ve been so busy not dying, we’re slipping in treating our mate the way that she deserves. I plan to remedy that before we lose another day, because gods know, that woman could have her pick of the lot.”
“So, what are you getting her?” Kaige asks, leaning closer with rapt interest that should piss me off, yet... doesn’t.
Aw, fuck.
Ignoring that train of thought for now, I meet his eye in the rearview mirror. “You’ll see. But if you want a peek at the list, it’s going to cost you. So tell me, Kaige; if the Slaughters only wanted to mate off their daughter to one of you for an alliance, and they have one now with Damian, why are you all so anxious to get her back home as quickly as possible?”
Chapter 12
Cinjin
Pivoting in my seat to face him, I look at Kaige in a new light. Until Bo had mentioned it, I hadn’t considered things from that angle. I was more upset about those three wanting to take my mate away from me, of everyone currently trying to kill us, and the whole fucking hellhound adjustment.
That I’m not allowed to enjoy the benefits of.
Shaking away the cynical thought, I focus on the foreign alpha’s face; namely, his eyes. While people claim that they’re the windows into a person’s soul, it’s ten times harder when said person doesn’t have one. If they can keep their facial tics and heart rate in check, the only way to check if a wolf is a liar is via their pupils. The black spreads like ink into our irises when our wolves have more of a hold over our frame of mind, so the more defensive or upset they get, the smaller the sliver of color in their eyes becomes. Most times it’s nearly imperceptible, especially if you don’t know to look for it, but thus far, I’ve only ever witnessed two exceptions to the rule.
