Chapter 130
GRAYSON
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“You’re too calm, Grayson. Tell me what’s going on in your head,” Pierce barks behind me, but I keep walking. My fists are clenched so tight my knuckles are white, and my jaw feels like it’s about to crack. Honestly, all I wanted was to run and kill Riot.
My instincts were screaming at me to tear him apart, to make him pay. To show everyone what happens when you cross me. When you touch what’s mine.
Pierce was still talking, but I wasn’t listening. I continue to just stride to the ground thinking of ways to cut Riot when I’m back on my throne as being the Westwood pack.
I stop dead in my tracks, the air around me practically crackling with tension. My chest rises and falls like I’ve just run a marathon, and my vision sharpens, zeroing in on the trees ahead like they’re prey.
“Grayson,” Pierce’s voice is closer now, cautious. “You need to breathe. Think.”
“Think?” I snap, whirling around to face him. My voice is low, dangerous. “I am thinking. I’m thinking about how Riot’s still breathing after what he did. How he’s out there, laughing, while my pack is-”
I cut myself off, my throat tightening. The image of them flashes in my mind–my pack, my wolves. I failed them once. I won’t do it again.
Pierce takes a step back, his hands up like he’s trying to calm a wild animal. “We’ll get him. But not like this. Not when you’re-”
“Not when I’m what?” I growl, taking a step forward. “Angry? Furious? I’m the Alpha, Pierce. This isn’t just anger. This is me protecting what’s mine.”
He doesn’t say anything, just watches me with those knowing eyes of his. And for a second, I hate him for it.
I turn away, my fists clenching and unclenching at my sides. “I’ll kill him,” I say softly, more to myself than to Pierce. “I’ll kill him, and then I’ll make sure no one ever threatens my pack again.”
Pierce doesn’t respond immediately. He just watches me because he knows better than to argue when I’m like this. Finally, he sighs. “You’re not thinking straight, Grayson. This isn’t just about you.”
1 glare at him, my chest heaving. “It’s “always” about me. I’m the Alpha. If I let this slide, they’ll think I’m weak.”
We keep walking, the forest closing in around us. The air is thick, almost oppressive, like it’s holding its breath. By the time we reach the pack village, it’s already night.
I stop at the edge of the clearing, my wolf senses on high alert. Pierce does the same, his hand instinctively reaching for the knife at his belt.
“Something’s wrong,” he mutters, his voice/low.
Something is definitely wrong. The pack has never been this eerie quiet.
I nod, my jaw tightening. “Stay close.”
We step into the village, and that’s when the smell hits me. Blood. So much blood. My stomach twists, but I force myself to keep moving.
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Chapter 130
There’s something hanging from the well post.
A spine. Still dripping. Still warm.
I don’t say anything. I don’t breathe. I just stare at it while my boots sink into the mud, except it’s not just mud. It’s soaked through. It squelches. There’s something slick under my heel and I don’t want to look at it because I know what it is.
“Holy fuck,” Pierce whispers behind me.
He doesn’t move. He’s not even close enough to see the worst of it yet.
Tam.
There’s a torso near the steps of the meeting house. No head. Ribs split clean down the middle like someone reached in and peeled it open. Heart gone. One lung hanging from the edge like it got left behind by mistake. Bite marks. Human–sized. Wolf–sized. Something else.
“What the fuck happened here,” Pierce chokes behind me, but I can’t answer. I’m not even in my body anymore.
1 step forward. I crouch. My hand shakes and I try to control it. I can’t. I touch the chest, what’s left of it. Still warm. Still twitching. The nerves haven’t shut down yet. They’re still trying to move.
And then I see his face.
Just the top half, lodged in the roots. Like it rolled. Like it bounced..
Jace.
Youngest recruit. Eighteen. Never shifted clean. Couldn’t even take down a deer without throwing up. I trained him. He always smiled when he lost. Always tried again. And now his jaw’s missing. Just–gone. Tongue ripped out. His eyes still open. Still round with it.
Something claws up through my spine.
I hear the crunch before I feel the pain–my teeth grinding down so hard I almost crack one. My hands shake. My claws are already out. I didn’t even feel them shift. I don’t know how long I’ve been kneeling here. I’m shaking. I’m burning.
I smell them everywhere.
Pack blood. My blood. My home.
There’s flesh stuck to the walls. Drag marks across the threshold like someone tried to crawl out before their legs were taken. I follow it with my eyes. Bits of skin, bits of bone, claw marks on the stone, nails ripped out on the steps. They didn’t die fast.
“Fucking hell,” Pierce barks somewhere behind me.” Let’s get out of here!”
I stand up.
I don’t answer.
Because if I open my mouth right now, I’ll fucking scream. I’ll shift and I’ll tear down every tree between here and whatever did this and I won’t stop until I have its teeth in my fist.
Instead, I found myself walking forward to the darkness and finding out the dark is not what I really should be afraid of but what is
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Chapter 130
in it.
(You’re supposed to be in control, Alpha. You’re supposed to protect them. Where the fuck were you?)
I pass a child’s arm. Still gripping a stuffed wolf. It’s been ripped clean at the shoulder.
(Where were you, Grayson?)
I pass a body with its throat chewed open, spine split, eyes gouged out. There’s still blood under her fingernails. She fought.
They all fought.
The wind shifts and I get another scent.
Piss. Fear. They were alive when it started. They didn’t die clean. They died screaming, begging, crawling for the trees like it
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My heart’s not beating right. It’s too fast. Too loud. I feel it hammering in my throat, feel it kick behind my ribs like it’s trying to escape. It fucking hurts.
And then-
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Something splits.
Inside my skull.
A crack like lightning behind my eyes. I stagger, catch myself on a blood–slick beam. My claws punch out. No time to shift. Just my body reacting–feral, involuntary, involuntary–like something is trying to come through my bones.
“Grayson?”
Pierce. Distant. I don’t answer. I can’t. My teeth are clenched so tight I think I hear them crack.
Behind my eyes. Threading into my spine. My wolf snarling so loud it drowns out the wind. My knees hit the ground and I grab my head like I can stop it from splitting open, like I can claw it out.
I scream.
I don’t even know I’m doing it. It just tears out of my chest–raw, brutal, a noise I’ve never made before.
Jess.
My eyes widened in fear suddenly seeing some visions of her. She’s on her knees in the trees.
Blood down her face. Her hands are shaking. Her throat is open. Something’s torn through it. She’s trying to crawl. Her chain is broken. She’s gasping for air that’s not coming.
Her eyes are open. She’s looking for me.
I lurch forward. My body doesn’t care that it’s not real. My wolf doesn’t care. I try to run, try to get to her, but there’s only dirt and limbs and the crack of bones under my knees.
“I’m sorry, baby.”
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Chapter 130
“No–no–JESS-”
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And just like that, the vision’s ripped away. I’m left staring at nothing, my throat tight like I’m still choking on her scream. My chest feels hollow, like someone just scooped out my insides.
“Grayson.” Pierce’s voice cuts through the fog. I don’t even realize I’m shaking until he steps closer. “You okay?”
I blink, my eyes wide, like I’m staring right through him. My mouth opens, but the words stick. Instead, I turn to him, slow, like my body’s not mine anymore.
“Jess,” I stammer, my voice barely there. “She’s–she’s-”
Pierce’s face drops. “What?”
“Dead.”
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