Page 9 of Crave

And Bonnie was going to be devastated. She was one of the few who saw past the bitch persona I showed the world to keep Quinn’s lie protected. She saw too much, and her heart was too big. She didn’t deserve this.

“How did Doc die?” I gasped past the lump of grief in my chest.

“Beheaded by your Packmate.” Wilfred’s top lip curled, like he thought we were all primitive beasts. As if he wasn’t a blood-sucking predator himself.

Micky looked over at him, his eyes narrowed. “We’ll wait for you in the living room. We need to question Errol.”

Quinn stood. “Whatever Wilkie, Green, and Joseph were up to, Errol had nothing to do with it. He’s…” He trailed off, like he wanted to say Errol was beaten down, but then Mikhail would know we were equally as stomped on. “He’s innocent of anything. He keeps to himself, keeps his head down.” Micky seemed to understand what Quinn was trying to say because he just nodded and left.

I climbed out of the bed quickly, pulling on a pair of sweats, then throwing shit into the duffles in my closet. I looked over at Quinn. “Pack everything you can’t live without. We’re never coming back here.”

Green was a murderer, but I had no doubt in my mind he’d done shit on Wilkie’s orders. They’d pushed too far, and I didn’t want to be connected to them when shit exploded.

Quinn just nodded before hurrying into his own room, it didn’t take long before I could hear him dropping armfuls of things into his suitcase.

In a surprisingly short amount of time I’d gathered everything I needed. I sat on the top of my suitcase to zip it up, then I wheeled my life out into the hall. Quinn closed his door behind him, and I could see him heaving deep lungfuls of air. This was the precipice. We took control back at this point. Right now.

We walked to the living room where Errol was sitting on the couch, as far from Wilfred as he could get. Micky was looking between them, like he was ready to spring up and defend Errol if the vampire got a little peckish.

Errol looked down at the suitcases, then at our faces. An expression that I couldn’t define flashed across his face, or maybe it was several emotions all rolled into one. “You're leaving.”

I wasn’t prepared for the guilt that niggled at my heart. “Yes.” I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Errol.” Sorry for so many fucking things. Sorry that he was stuck in this hellhole, sorry he was mated to a psychopath, sorry that we were leaving him behind and never coming back.

Errol stood and made his way over to me. We were bonded, in a very basic way. We were bonded between Betas, but that was basically like when humans spat on their hands and shook on it in the movies. You had to be bonded through an Alpha for the bonds to really cement, but we’d all just ignored that fact. Still, we were bonded enough that when I tried, I could feel his fear and anxiety, but also his happiness.

He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and hugged me tight. “Don’t come back, Omega. Stay away, hide if you have to. There’s nothing good for you here.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. Errol didn’t deserve to be stuck here either. “You should take your own advice, old man,” I whispered. Errol shook his head, tilting his chin slightly so I was forced to look at the ragged scar that was meant to be a matebond mark but was more an example of Wilkie’s savagery. Wilkie hadn’t accepted the bond back, oh no. Wilkie didn’t want partners. He wanted Beta slaves. He’d chained Errol to him, but he had no such chains on himself.

“I have no choice but to be here. I thank the Goddess that it didn’t stick with you two.” Well, it wasn’t the Goddess he had to thank—just a stupidly hot witch in the woods—but I didn’t tell him that.

Mikhail was giving Errol what I considered his all-seeing expression. “I’ll check in with you,” he stated, like offering him his protection was no big deal, no matter how small the gesture seemed.

Errol’s head whipped to the side, his brows high in surprise. But he didn’t have time to ask questions because Wilfred was hustling us outside and over to Mikhail’s ATV. He loaded up our heavy bags like they weighed the same as a feather in the wind.

“We must continue on,” he said to Micky, and my brother grunted in agreement, handing me the keys to the ATV.

“Straight home, Susannah. Things are… difficult out there. The Alpha General is barely hanging on to life, there are factions that have turned friends against each other, and I’m unsure who to trust. Father had nothing to do with the push by Eldridge for leadership, and it’s fairly safe to say that Raiden’s Pack are trustworthy. Otherwise, unless they’re your blood relatives, trustno one.” The unsaid statement was that we couldn’t trust Quinn’s family—like we ever would.

Quinn and I both promised that we wouldn’t stop for anyone, especially not Wilkie or the rest of our Pack, and he and the vampire Wilfred disappeared into the trees. Little did my brother know that I would rather hit Wilkie with the ATV than stop for that fucker.

I was shell-shocked as Quinn hopped behind the wheel of the vehicle. “Holy shit,” he breathed before starting the ATV and heading down the road a little faster than we probably should.

He wasn’t wrong. This was a lot. A coup to overthrow a ruler wasn’t how we operated. It was supposed to be a battle between two Alphas, a test of strength and cunning. We didn’t hurt Omegas. Abduction and maiming, the lack of honor? It wasn’t the Manix way.

Though I’d thought our society needed a shakeup, this hadn’t been what I meant. But despite the uncertainty, despite the fact I felt sick about what had happened to Bonnie and Doc, I could see the light at the end of my own tunnel of torment. If there was going to be a silver lining to this tragedy, I was going to grab it with both hands. I didn’t care if that made me a ruthless bitch.

I’d do worse things to protect the other half of my soul.

6

QUINN

It rained the day we buried Doc. As it should. Everyone was solemn, and grief was a heavy blanket that lay over the entire town. The coup had changed things, though, and now everyone eyed each other with suspicion. Friends side-eyed each other, and no one would look at Bonnie, sobbing like her heart was being torn out of her chest as they lowered the only father she’d ever known into the earth.

No one said anything about how the remaining Legion Generals had found Wilkie not guilty of participating in the coup, despite Green’s actions and subsequent death. There’d been an uproar, but the Alpha General was still injured, so he’d acquiesced to the decision given by the Legion Generals. I wasn’t dumb enough to think he was going to take this betrayal lying down, despite his soothing words of forgiveness and democracy.

Dominic, his second, had no such need for political niceties. He glared at everyone like he was death and vengeance in one pissed-off package, and I didn’t blame him.

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