Darkest Wolf(11)

“It was a brilliant move. The curse made it so no one can look at me without trouble.

I’m brutally ugly to look at. Except, of course, for you.” Because I am your mate.

“Yes, that. Right.” She clenched her fingers. He wished he could read her mind. Was she getting on board about the mating or did she still deny it, even after he could speak to her telepathically?

“I am basically powerless and bound to serve the woman’s twin daughters forever. I do whatever they want. If I object in any way, then she’ll kill my mother and the others.

This thing we’re doing—running away—constitutes objecting. Even now my mother and the others could be dead. Although, I don’t think they are. I think I would somehow know if they were killed. It would feel like a piece of my soul had been ripped apart.” And if your mom and the other witches make any moves, then you stay permanently in your cursed form.

“Exactly.”

It’s exactly what his own father, Kendrick Kane, would have done. Place everyone in an impossible situation and watch as they struggle for the rest of their lives. If he was honest, it’s what he would have done. Divide them up and make them all responsible for each other’s lives. Then, as soon as you are fixed, we will go to Miami and handle this.

“I don’t see how you can possibly think you can take care of this.” I am devious and manipulative. I don’t always do what is right. But I will do what you need. I will fix this for you. Rex hadn’t wanted to tell her the truth about himself, at least not this early in her knowing him. But she needed to understand how serious he was about what he’d told her. He would fix this. One way or another.

They travelled in silence and Rex felt gratitude for the silence. It gave him time to plot. The coven leader would have to be removed. Forcibly. The good news? She wouldn’t see him coming. Even if her daughters managed to warn her—and he suspected they had not yet told their mother of Elizabeth’s disappearance or Elizabeth’s mother would be gone from the world—she wouldn’t know exactly what he was capable of.

If Rex had to, he would shoot the woman in the head. She might expect a wolf but she would get a man. He’d watched humans throughout the years engage in meaningless violence. One thing he had learned: Sometimes one crack of a gun could solve all your problems. The action might be a disgusting thing to think—even worse to do—but if his claws couldn’t save Elizabeth, then a man-made device of war would.

Will the curse lift automatically if the witch who cast the curse dies? That had been how it had worked, sort of, with the witch who had cursed Westervelt. She’d had to die, but a blood ceremony had to be performed to truly lift the curse from the land.

“No, she has to remove it.”

Then she would remove it. Can your mother hold the coven together once she regains control?

“You make it sound like it’s some kind of military thing. The coven is our home, our community, and our spiritual center. She is meant to be leader because her powers make us stronger.”

You’re the one who used the word coup. I would venture to guess you don’t think of it all that differently than I do. Like a pack, any organization requiring leadership, unity and obedience is going to function something like a military unit. My father was wrong about many things but he wasn’t incorrect about how to handle groups.

“Rex?” Her voice sounded tentative.

They rounded the corner of a clearing. Rex could hear human sounds getting closer.

Elizabeth would be able to notice them herself shortly. Good, he would get her help and then they would get out of there. Yes, Elizabeth?

“How many witches have you killed?”

So now they’d gotten to the heart of the issue. Nothing would ever be easy between them. Not with this issue so prevalent and important. He’d never expect her to understand what his pack had been driven to do. To save Tristan they’d all do it again. But in a million years, none of them could have foreseen the decisions they’d been forced to make over the years. Had they crossed a line? Maybe. Personally?

She stroked his fur, and he wondered if she did it knowingly or if it was some kind of unconscious nervous gesture.

“Yes.”

I have never personally killed a witch.

“Oh.” Her voice had lightened up, and sadness ate at his gut because he was going to have to bring her back down to the nervous state she’d been existing in.

But I would have killed the one who destroyed everything. I was involved in her kidnapping. And any witch who comes to cause my family harm will have to fear me as acutely as they do any of my pack mates. In our war, everyone who is not with us is an enemy.