Page 63 of Cold Foot Curse

“What the fuck is happening in your head right now, Jess?”

“Lots of stuff,” she said, but she didn’t recognize her own voice. It sounded gritty, and growly.

She was surrounded by the shifters of Sister’s Edge, and to her right sat Tawk. Across the table stood Derek, with his arms locked against it, eyes furious. Connor stood beside him, making the entire room heavy with his anger.

“The deal was you come back, and you fucking beg me for a place at my table!” Derek bellowed. “And instead, you are sitting here telling me what you’ll do? You’re telling me? You think you are in control of any of this?”

Samuel sat in the corner with Misty, looking at the floor, like the fucking coward he was. “Hey Samuel, how did you kill Tanner?” she asked him across the room.

“Excuse me?” her brother barked out.

The whispering and murmuring around the room picked up, and Jess smiled. Yep, everyone was going to know now. She was going to clear Kade’s name.

“Jess,” Tawk warned as she stood up.

“No,” she said to him simply, and then flinched back with surprise. “Whoa. It’s really easy to just tell you no. I think this Promise is going to suit me.”

“Quiet down,” Derek ordered, and the room went silent. “Now I know you are all smart enough to see what Jess is doing. She’s trying to divide us, and shake up what we know to be true—”

“Samuel killed Tanner because Misty was fucking him, and Kade took the fall,” she called out in a bored tone. “You can hear the truth in my voice. Now you go, Derek. Make it believable.”

The hum of conversation picked up even louder this time, and from the back, one of the Crew members called out, “Is that true?”

Against the wall, Samuel and Misty had stood, and Misty wasn’t denying it at all. Her cheeks were red, and she looked guilty as hell.

Derek was trying to quiet everyone down, but the animal sides were getting ramped up now, and it was Seth who spoke next. “You killed my brother?”

Samuel held his hands out. “Look, my sister has been traumatized, and she’s been brainwashed by another Crew, and she doesn’t know what she’s talking ab—ack!”

Seth’s hand was around his throat. “Yes or no. Did you kill my brother.”

Damn, she wished she had some popcorn for this.

“Derek,” Samuel choked out, pleading in his eyes.

“How could you lie on your own flesh and blood brother!” Derek yelled at Jess.

“How could an Alpha lie so easily to his entire Crew for this long—”Slap!

Jess gasped as her face hit the table with the power of that open-palm slap from Connor. She was so stunned by the pain, it took her a few seconds to push up off the table. The throbbing in her cheek matched thebum, bum, bumof the locket.

“Hey, man, that’s not cool,” Tawk uttered low, standing.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jess growled at Connor, who stood there with a smug smile tugging at the corners of his thin lips.

“Or what? You’re going to sic Tawk on me? Tawk is with us. His job was to bring you back by whatever means necessary, and he did. He did his job. You are the job.”

Derek was trying to break up a mass of arguing around Samuel, but Connor had stayed. “You will not talk to anyone here like that, do you understand?”

Her cheek felt like her facial bones had been broken. She’d pressed her hand against it like that would cool down the heat, or keep her face intact, but it wasn’t helping. Her eyes were watering, and unintentionally, tears of pain and anger slipped from her eyes. She’d never been slapped like that before.

Fury was a slow boil inside of her blood. Glaring him straight in the eyes, she promised him, “I will talk to you however the fuck I want to.”

Connor was so fast. He was so fast. He grabbed her hand away from her cheek in a blur, and the sting of the blade didn’t even register for a few seconds. A red line welled up on her palm and spilled over her hand, and in horror, she looked up to Connor. “What have you done?”

He grabbed her other hand and clapped a blade into it, and yanked her over the table so hard, her arm felt like it was being pulled from the socket. “I will break you,” he growled against her ear as he crushed her hand around the blade and cut his own hand.

She was screaming. That sound was coming from her. That horrified noise was crawling out of the back of her throat, and she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t halt what was happening.

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