Page 43 of Call of the Ride
My rage boiled at seeing the mistreatment of yet another shifter at the hands of this monster. It was my duty as Yaga to protect the supernatural beings in my forest, but I’d always felt a kinship with the woods—a deep respect for the natural world instilled in me by my mother. While I may have been too young at the time to fully understand the depths of what lay beyond human society, I knew in my bones thatno onehad more of a right to live than any other creature on earth.
I could feel my men readying to fight, their powers spiraling outward, subtly poised for attack, yet they waited for my signal.
“Destroy the others, but leave Matthew for questioning.”
I silently relayed my orders, smiling wickedly as my men stepped into the room like harbingers of doom. No battle cries announced their arrival—the three of them simply picked their targets and delivered death.
A flash of blinding light emanated from Tan’s skin, and when my vision returned, one man was nothing more than a bleached corpse. Punishing heat from Asa blasted another, his shrieks of anguish like the sweetest lullaby to my soul. And Nox’s darkness had thickly enveloped the third, the last glimpse of his face revealing the abject terror in his eyes before he disappeared.
Matthew impassively watched the deaths of his companions, as if his own painful end wasn’t imminent. “Vasilisa, how nice of you to join me, and I see you’ve brought me three new test subjects to play with.”
I scoffed. “If you’re still under the impression that I will join you at your side, you're more delusional than I thought.Thesemen are my fated mates—my Riders. Andyouwere nothing more than a stepping stone inourlegacy.”
“That’s a fucking lie!” Matthew boomed, his confident mask finally cracking to show the unstable man beneath. “I am the only one destined to be your mate—to usher in a new era, where I rule over all living things.” He grandly gestured toward the ridiculous armor he wore, which included a large codpiece. My gaze flickered to an empty display case nearby before drifting upward to where a sign read “The Line of Kings.”
The audacity!
“Just how did you plan to rule?” Nox snorted, outwardly appearing indifferent, even as dangerous emotion roiled beneath the surface. “You’re nothing more than ahuman.”
Matthew threw back his head and laughed, a truly unhinged sound. “Oh, there’s very little left in me that’s human, son. You may think you ruined my progress at the Facility with your little attack, but I’ve been pumping myself full of shifter genes for years. Why do you think your attempt to kill me failed? I’m invincible!”
“That was dumb luck, Matthew,” Asa chuckled darkly. “Nox absorbed the bomb’s blast to protect Vasi, and you slunk away in the chaos like the rat you are. While shifter genes may make you impervious tohumanweapons, you’re still no match for our powers, or Vasi’s claws.”
“Hmm, that may be so,” Matthew hummed, pausing to turn the rack, causing the shifter bound to it to scream in pain. “But if you kill me, you’ll never find out where all theothershifters are being held. Since I’m the only one who knows where these other facilities are located.” I felt the blood turn to ice in my veins as he tapped a finger against his temple with a sickeningly self-satisfied expression.
Equally smug amusement suddenly shot down the bond from Tan, and I found him staring intently at our enemy. “Not anymore, svoloch,” he replied, tapping his own temple in a mock gesture, indicating he’d just stolen what we needed from Matthew’s mind.
You are exceptional, My Bright Dawn.
Taking advantage of the distraction, I shot toward Matthew, swiping his face and throat, drawing a hint of blood. He snarled and lunged for me, but I danced out of reach before targeting his pride with my next attack. Raking my claws over the breastplate of his armor, I shredded it to ribbons, exposing his bare chest—his vulnerable flesh.
His powerlessness.
“You fucking bitch,” Matthew hissed, apparently no longer trying to seduce me. “Don’t think I won’t throw you in a cage, too, once you’ve served your purpose in awakening my powers.”
“How should we kill you, father?” Nox ignored Matthew’s ranting, possessively pulling me against him. “Should I allowmywitch to cut you to pieces, bleeding you out like this poor shifter? Or shall we pump you full of drugs and keep you in a secret lab, subjecting you to inhumane tests until you beg for death? Maybe we should implant a tracking device under your fucking skin and turn you loose in Vasi’s forest, so we can know the exact moment a supernatural creature makes a meal out of you...”
He gazed down at me, and I plainly saw the anguish beneath his anger. The man before us had done terrible things; things he should be tortured for, slowly and painfully. But his death belonged to Nox, for trying to further his mission through shamefully manipulating the one person he should have loved unconditionally. I nodded at my Darkest Midnight, wordlessly conveying he should deliver death in whatever way he saw fit.
Nox swallowed hard, but smoothly slipped back on his mask of impassivity before meeting Matthew’s gaze again. “While it is tempting to prolong your pain—to make you suffer as you’ve forced so many others to—you don’t deserve to go out with anything but a sad little whimper.”
To my surprise, rather than unleashing his darkness, Nox drew his gun and shot his own father through the heart. Matthew clutched his chest, his face a twisted mask of fury and shock as he fell to his knees. And the sound he emitted before crumpling face-first to the floor was deliciously pathetic.
Perfect.
Asa and Tan rushed to untie the injured shifter, one attending to her wounds while the other called Anthia for backup. I remained curled against Nox’s side, silently watching as Matthew’s blood pooled on the floor in front of us, holding space for the closure my Rider deserved.
Chapter 34
Nox
Ace burned my father’s body until it was a pile of ash and Tan erased any evidence of his existence from the face of the earth. Because they were pros—and good friends—they made quick work of it, so I didn’t have to dirty my hands any more than I already had. Ignoring my churning gut, I focused on carrying the shifter to safety, just as I’d done with Anthia when my witch and I escaped the Facility.
Thinking of this now, I couldn’t help remembering the exact moment when I’d faced down a bullet from my father’s gun. The only reason my brains hadn’t ended up splattered all over the Facility’s back hallways was thanks to Vasi’s quick reaction. Because I’d sure as shit been too shocked at the time to defend myself.
My father may not have succeeded in shooting me, but a part of me still died that day. And when I torehistracking device out of my body, any bit of me left that thought of him as family officially bit the dust. It was kind of embarrassing now that I knew just how much the man hadusedme, but a poetic justice had been found. I’d killed my father in the same way he’d failed to kill me, andhewas the one who’d given me the ammunition I needed to do it.
And I don’t just mean the bullets.
