Alpha’s Strength(78)

Beaux shifted into his human form. “That last point is pivotal. Where did you find them?”

“You really are evil creatures, aren’t you? I mean the way you did that. The way your body shifted from one form to another. How can that be anything but evil?”

Beaux shook his head. “Give me your knife, Cyrus. I want to slit his throat.”

“After he answers our questions. Of course, I could contort his body in lots of way if he really wants to know how to shift. His muscles won’t accept the alteration, but he can get to know the pain.”

“I…I...I…that is to say, we had the abominations put down. Slit their throats. They didn’t suffer long. That was less cruel than sending the creatures off to be experimented on, which was what we originally wanted.”

The silence that fell over the moment was so thick Betsy wasn’t sure she could draw in a breath. She forced her body take in air. The information Joe had dumped on them was like a physical blow.

Betsy turned to the other werewolves. None of them seemed as floored as she felt. There wasn’t a scent of shock in the air. For his part, Cyrus remained as calm as after the delivery of the news as before when he’d asked the question.

Was she the only one who hadn’t expected all of those werewolves to be…dead? Tears swam into her eyes. Why was she so dumb about these things? What else could have happened to them? If the werewolves had been somewhere, at least some of them would have escaped by now. Someone would have known about this.

She turned her back on the scene and walked toward the tree line.

“Where did you get them?”

Maybe she should listen to the answer. It would tell her where she’d come from, but all she could think about were all the other babies that hadn’t been as lucky as she had. For some reason, she’d been latent. Perhaps one of her parents had been human, but who knew? Why had she been born without the ability to shift? Her latency had saved her life.

Betsy doubled over. Her hands ached, and she stared down at them before standing back up straight. Without meaning to, she’d shifted her hands again. Betsy sighed. Every time this happened, she ended up going into a haze and losing periods of time. Damn it, she wasn’t going to allow that to happen again.

Why had her hands shifted? She wasn’t in any danger, not that she could tell.

Cyrus’ hand felt warm on her back, and she turned around to look at him. “Didn’t see the dead wolf babies coming.”

“I was afraid that was the case.” He ran his hand over her cheek. “I’ll forever be grateful that you couldn’t shift. You and Lilliana. It saved you.”

“What will you do to him now?”

Cyrus pulled her against him. “I won’t do anything. This is Beaux’s land. And, as it turns out, the werewolf babies came from all over. So none of us have jurisdiction over this. I’m hoping to build some good will with Beaux in case we need him again.” Cyrus smiled, showing a lot of teeth. “He can play hunt the true believer next week during the fool moon.”

“Actually sounds like fun.”

“Betsy.” Cyrus tilted her chin up so she’d look at him. “This isn’t your fault. You didn’t determine who would live and who would die. There’s no need for survival guilt.”

“How did you catch them? I would know, if you hadn’t made me stay in the basement.” It was better to focus on the injustice of being sidelined than to think about all those dead babies…

“I lured them out. They took a shot at me in my human form, and then Beaux’s men and our pack took them out from behind. It was all pretty fast actually.”

“You let them take a shot at you?” She whacked him in the arm. How many times was he going to risk his life without a second thought?

Cyrus rubbed his arm where she’d hit him. “Ouch, woman. You’re a strong werewolf lady. Watch where you put those claws.”

“Like I could ever hurt you.” She laughed. He always seemed to be able to do that. Disarm her temper with a word or a look. How could he make such an awful situation feel better just by being with her?

“It’s your claws. Put them away before you take out your eye by mistake.”

“Oh.” She took in her hands again. . He’d made her laugh, and she’d forgotten that she’d partially shifted. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on with this. Can you help?”

“Sure. Don’t worry. New werewolves have to figure out this stuff one day at a time.”

She knew he was pacifying her. How could it be anything else? It wasn’t like anyone had all that much experience with changing latent werewolves into full-fledged versions as adults. They’d done it with Lilliana, but she had no idea if her sister could partially shift or not. It was sweet Cyrus made the effort, but he might as well have told her the truth—that it was really odd she kept doing that. Even if it had proved a useful tool when dealing with the true believer earlier.