Axel
I expected to feel something when I saw her. But instead, I felt nothing. Sure, a warm feeling thrummed through my body asking me to grab her and protect her, but it might as well have been background noise in my head. Watching Rex grab her and pull at her hair made me feel nothing.
Heck, I wanted to take his place. She was the reason Manuel, Isaiah, June, and Rex's mother were dead. Only the members of our pack that had left with Thor had fully made it out in time. Others later joined, but our strength was so weak it made us more wary, and our location had become even more hidden than before.
Because of her, any wrangler was tortured first before questions were asked later. There were some sins that were unforgivable, sins so vile they might as well have been carved into skin.
I hated her. I hated that she still had the guts to get married and wear a red dress. I hated how pale to the point of stone her face still looked underneath all the tears. My chest burned in rage as I glanced down at the softness of her skin, devoid of even the slightest bruise.
She cried, but she didn't know what pain was. Who had she lost? What had she sacrificed? I heard the sound of my teeth grind against each other before I realized just how hard I had been clenching my jaw.
"Let's go!" Rex growled, pulling her to her feet as he practically dragged her by her hair, and I followed, not sparing her a glance as I fixed my gaze on Rex, who seemed to be holding his demons at bay, waiting for the right moment to unleash them.
Mate.
The word echoed in the recesses of my mind and I killed it. I buried it so fast I might as well have imagined it. All that thrummed in my heart was revenge. I wanted her to die and for me to put the hurt in my heart to rest.
I was still naked and could feel the stickiness of the blood on me, which I had no intention of wiping off. I had been in charge of disabling the alpha and most of them, and to do that I had hunted their children, killing most of them as they wept and begged for mercy.
Still it wasn't enough. Just so they could survive, they had handed her over to the Alpha of Moonburn. The truth was that I wanted to burn the pack to the ground, something that would have happened if Thor hadn't sided with Rex's plan, saying that mine was too inhuman.
Rex, for all his anger, was still too soft. He didn't want his revenge badly enough.
But I did.
We moved quickly. The sun had already gone down and the only source of light was that from around the village. Lanterns were lit and hung on trees and around homes. But still we walked past all the homes and the dead bodies we saw, heading to the central part of the pack where most of them had been gathered.
I knew because I had gathered them there myself, with all our men surrounding them and Thor in charge before I went looking for Rex. We had just gotten back to the clearing when the group of them became clear, numbering about two hundred, all on their knees.
Their numbers were much too many for my liking as I frowned, even more incensed when one of them decided to open his mouth and speak.
"Please… you're werewolves too! We've done nothing—"
But I was already moving, heading straight towards him. Grabbing his head and banging it hard against the ground. Hard enough to almost make a dent in his skull. He was a werewolf, he would recover, albeit it would take a while for his brain to settle.
Still, my actions were enough to silence the brewing thought that they had the right to speak. That they had the right to anything but kneel and breathe.
My gaze passed over them and I wasn't surprised to see some of them shove their heads down, lowering their gazes before my eyes settled on others who stared at me in fear, afraid they would be the next on my list.
Rex was quiet as he dropped the traitor woman on the ground right in front of them, a deep silence in the air that smelled of blood and earth. Yes, we had recruited humans to make up for our numbers, but only those we could control. Even then, controlling a pack went beyond killing the alpha.
It was easier to gain the trust of the people before killing the alpha, which was most likely the path Moonburn had decided to go. To have them serve under us we would need to kill the alpha and have them swear a new allegiance oath. It was crude and almost never done if fear could work, but neither I, Rex, nor Thor believed fear was enough.
"Who is her family?" Rex asked, pointing at the traitor who knelt on the ground with tears streaming down her face. There was silence and no one answered, almost like they already knew why we were asking. But no matter.
Summoning my wolf, I went ahead and did a partial transformation as gasps rang out, something that was thought to be extinct.
Ignoring their awe-inspired gazes, I strode forward and picked one of them, grabbing him up by his neck. I saw the urge to fight me and transform in his eyes—but not before I tore his head off his shoulders.
Feeling the warmth of his blood splash over me as I heard screams and gasps, I was stunned to see the traitor woman raise her head with a look of horror on her face. Mumbling a name over and over again as tears streamed down her face.
"Leon!" she gasped, and it delighted me to know that the young man had at least been someone she knew.
Her body trembled and rocked back and forth as I traced her gaze land on the alpha. Him we were going to kill, of course, but I intended to kill anyone that so much as meant anything to her right in front of her.
"I'll ask again! Who is this woman's family?" Rex spoke again as I felt my claws itch, wanting to tear into something—anything—that would make the rage I had felt over the years finally fade.