Author: Sasha Summers
Category: Paranormal
Go to read content：https://readnovelfree.com/p/36954_9
“The pack,” he kept on, “I won’t take chances. You said the Others aren’t coming—”
“Not now. But they will look for him eventually.” She nodded at the corpse. “Cyrus will. He was important to Cyrus, to his pack.” She swallowed back the rage that choked her. Cyrus appreciated the bastard’s skill set, a skill set Ellen had endured far too often.
“Was he important to you?” It was a simple question, without any judgment. Hollis had the infuriating ability to stay rational under even the most trying of circumstances.
“His death was,” she muttered. Countless hours had been dedicated to imagining ways to exact her revenge on Byron. Each fantasy was more detailed than the last, offering a temporary balm to the aching hole in her chest.
“He deserved to die?” Calm, assessing, clinical.
Whispers: Interactive StoriesMake your own choices and decide what happens next!
“Yes.” Her gaze met Hollis’s, un
flinching, wanting him to understand. Needing him to understand. “But not like this. Not quickly, cleanly, drinking in fresh air, on a battlefield.” A hard knot lodged itself in her throat, making her next words garbled and thick. “He should have suffered. Alone and broken. Choking on fear and begging for mercy that would not come.” As she had.
Hollis stepped forward, his hands hovering inches from her shoulders. Her wolf craved touch, comfort, and support. From Hollis? Yes. From Hollis. Ellen frowned and shied away. Until Cyrus was dead, she’d earned no right to comfort.
The distant roar of a truck engine announced the arrival of the rest of Finn’s pack.
“Will you tell them?” It was hard to look at him then. Lying to one’s Alpha was no small thing.
“Tell them what? Something happened, but I have no idea what.” He studied her, those green eyes sweeping over her face. “What can I say?”
She shook her head, avoiding his gaze at all costs. “They were alone. The pack, for now, is safe. They need to know that, as long as we dispose of the evidence, no Others are coming.” Which was good. Finn’s pack, Hollis’s pack, had much to lose. Namely children. Something the Others had been unable to produce for more than two decades. While she belonged to neither pack, she would protect Finn’s children. Her species was a proud race. Finn, Hollis, and their pack honored that. That, alone, earned him her loyalty.
Hollis was watching her again. “Glad to hear it.”
Her nod was stiff, fighting back the drive to hunt, to fight, to run. To do something. Anything was better than standing here, knowing too much, feeling too much, with no hope of relief anytime soon. Finn and his pack had been treating her as a guest, but that didn’t mean they would let her leave. And she’d have to leave if she was going to defend those worthy of protection.
It was time to confront her past, time to face her demons. Her gaze fell to Byron. Demon. Only one remained. Cyrus. No matter what the cost. She had to kill him.
…
Hollis was beyond fucked up. Answers mattered to him. Information, facts, logic—things that led to answers and understanding mattered. Protecting his pack, all of his pack, mattered. And he relied on having the right answers. Ellen had them, more than he did anyway, so why was she holding out on him? She was a never-ending string of complex questions that had no clear-cut fucking answers. It was driving him crazy.
As was the way she was acting this very moment.
Slumped down in the rear passenger seat, wrapped in his shirt, her forehead pressed against the truck window, oblivious to the conversation taking place in the front seat. She was quiet. Calm. No sighs or sarcasm or biting comebacks. Today had shaken her. Badly.
And nothing shook Ellen. At least, not in the time he’d known her.
This was a woman who flaunted her scars, naked and unashamed—a visual “fuck you” to anyone who dared look at her with sympathy or pity. It was an almost daily occurrence, one he enjoyed far too much. The woman was exasperating. But she was fierce and strong in a way he admired even if he couldn’t understand. To see her like this, huddling in his clothing, almost dejected, was not only unnatural, it was distracting.
Even his packmates—Mal and Dante—kept glancing back to check on her.
Regardless of his medical and psychological training, he wasn’t equipped to understand what she’d been through. What could he possibly do or say to offer her comfort? Absolutely nothing. When it came to Ellen, he was consistently out of his element.
And what he’d witnessed today… It—she—defied logic. Ellen had placed her hands on Byron’s corpse and the air around her changed. Almost charged. Yes, electrified. Enough to spark. Her skin had flushed, her breathing slowed, and something happened to her. Rapid eye movements and muscle spasms, similar to deep sleep. But she’d been fully awake. Talking. Screaming words that squeezed his heart.
You took everything from me. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that meant. Still, ideas were already forming. Ellen was a fighter for a reason. A very skilled, very lethal fighter at that.
You took her from me. Someone important. Someone very important.
Whatever happened, her words had been a revelation—her body jolted from the shock of it. Byron was dead, but, somehow, he’d told or showed her things.
He knew about Byron the butcher. Mal had spent months imprisoned, tortured by Byron at Cyrus’s orders. But what had they done to her? Who was the “her” Ellen had mentioned? The raw pain on Ellen’s face… He’d never seen pain like that. Whatever Cyrus and Byron had done to her had left a lasting impact.
And Hollis didn’t like it.
Now that his temper had cooled somewhat, part of his brain was working through what had happened in the clearing. Obviously, it worked through touch. But what sort of connection was it? And why hadn’t he known before now?