Page 68 of Pack Ruin
Pulling off my own filthy shirt, I replaced it with that one, then left a set of clothes for Luke on top of the dresser, before carrying more out to the main room. Glen had finished, taken the bowl of silver away somewhere, and was now holding a cup of water to Grigor’s mouth. I took another damp cloth, wet it, and kneeled next to the sofa, ready to wipe the remaining blood away.
“Please don’t,” Grigor rasped. “Never kneel to me.”
“I don’t want you getting blood all over Del’s shirt, so shut it, old man.”
“Old man?” He blinked at me as I pushed his hands away and wiped him down. His skin was healed, only the faintest traces of the silver shot still evident. They would be gone in minutes.
Glen winked at me. “I’ll let you get on your knees for me, Dream Girl.” I reached over and punched him in the groin. Not hard. Just enough to remind him not to be a degenerate.
I ignored Glen while he pretended to be injured, and held a shirt out to Grigor. “How old are you, then? And how did you live this long? I want to know everything.”
“Why?” Grigor’s question was subdued. “It will not make you love me. I’ve done… shameful things.”
“Who hasn’t?” I shrugged, thinking of how many times I’d eaten out of the trash, or stolen bits of food from the rankedshifters. I’d broken dozens of rules over the years. I’d sawed off a man’s head and… “I did a shameful thing tonight.”
Both men waited, and I took a breath, still on my knees. It felt right, for a confession like this. “I killed a shifter with silver. I didn’t have to. I could have knocked him out. I probably could have run, and gotten away. He wasn’t as fast as me; none of these wolves are. But I panicked, and I… I had a weapon, and I used it. But he was just a kid. Not much older than Bo and Leroy. Doing what he was told, what his Alpha ordered.”
I lifted my eyes to Grigor. “The silver I did it with, it splintered in his throat so he couldn’t howl for help, or bark, or breathe. It was a terrible death. An avoidable one.” Probably. I wasn’t certain he would’ve given up without me doing some real damage. Most males saw a scrawny female shifter and thought they could take me, then got pissed when they started to lose to one.
Suddenly, Glen was on his knees beside me. “That wasn’t shameful. That wasnecessary.Joaquin, you said the girls all got out safely? Well, that was because you gave them that chance, Flor. You saved them, and if the cost of that was one shifter’s life…”
“I killed ten thousand.” Grigor admitted. “I killed my father first, then burned his palace, then hunted down every one of his pack—villainous and innocent alike—and erased them from the earth. And I did not mourn their loss. I did not feel regret.”
Glen’s hand closed around mine, and I could tell he was one more confession away from grabbing me and forcing me out of this house, away from the serial killer.
I wasn’t completely against that idea. But then, I remembered something. “Brand’s father said you left your own mate there. In the palace. Did you… burn her along with the rest?” If he said yes, it wouldn’t matter how many of mytormentors’ hands he made into arrangements, I was not going to add him to my mate group.
Brand could help me figure out a way to cut those ties to Luke and Glen.
“I would never have hurt Anya. She was the other half of my magic. My…” He said a word that had far too many consonants and swallowed vowels—and sounded like he was coughing up a hairball—then smiled softly at my expression. “The word is in an old language, but it means witch mate. She was incredibly powerful, far more so than I. When we bonded…”
His hand moved to his upper arm, and I noticed something there. A very faint scar in the shape of a small x, two lines crossing. It looked a little like my scar, only made of two lines instead of five that originated from a central point. “You know that the power a shifter gains from a true mate is what creates the most powerful Alphas. My father was the Alpha of Alphas, ruling over an entire continent. He did not share power.”
“He had a true mate?” Glen asked. “Your mother?”
Grigor shook his head. “No. My mother was not his true mate. My father’s true mate was like your own mother, Lily. Mated to a monster, and driven mad. My mother, she was gentle. From an immensely powerful line of dark witches, but she had chosen to live differently. She taught me all she could.” He closed his eyes. “I haven’t spoken of her for centuries.”
I decided to ask about the whole “centuries” part later. My wolf was sniffing around the painful heart of this story. His witch mate.
“My father hadn’t known my mother was a witch when I was conceived. It was forbidden in that country to mingle the lines.”
Glen muttered, “I thought it was impossible, not just forbidden.”
“Humans cannot procreate with shifters, brother. But witches and shifters share the moon’s magic. It’s entirelypossible, but rare. When it happens—especially when two overly powerful beings come together—the result can be a creature so terrible, it cannot be allowed to survive.” He winked at me.
I scowled back. “Anya. Tell me.”
His amusement vanished. “Yes. I did leave her, I suppose. My father knew what I was, but believed my mother had been a weak witch, since she mostly used her magic for small things. When he discovered I had mated with my Anya, one of the most powerful witches on that side of the world, he sent his warriors to bring her down. They brought her to the center of his judgment hall, where he bound her in chains and slaughtered her. Tore her into pieces so small, no healing magic has ever existed that could revive her. I made a pyre for her out of his palace, and his pack.”
“You didn’t leave her.” I would need to tell Samuel, and make sure the pack history books were corrected.
“We had a child. Anya had taken him to her coven. I hid him in another village, making certain no one would be able to find him. I left no one alive who knew he existed.”
Glen sucked in a breath.
“You killed them, too?” I asked. “Her coven?”
“They were the ones who gave Anya over to my father. They kept our child, but let my witch mate die, because she had rejected their ways.”
