HAZEL

Something dragged at my leg.

The sensation registered before consciousness fully returned. A grip, firm and unyielding, pulled me forward across a surface that felt wrong. Too slick. Too wet. My head lolled to the side and I tried to form words, but they came out mangled and thick.

"Whaf... whaf the fuck’s goin’ on?"

My tongue wouldn’t cooperate. The words slurred together like I’d been drinking, but I hadn’t touched alcohol. My thoughts moved through molasses, trying to piece together where I was and why everything hurt.

Burns.

I felt them everywhere. My skin screamed with a chemical fire I couldn’t place. I forced my eyes open and looked down at my arms. Red welts covered the exposed flesh, angry and blistered in patterns that made no sense. Was it the powder? That damned powder I’d brought back from Silvercreek? No... No... this wasn’t flour like Delta had tricked me with. This was something else entirely.

My gaze traveled up to whoever was dragging me.

It was Lysander.

"Hey..." I tried to pull my leg free. "What’re you doing?"

He didn’t answer. His grip stayed locked around my ankle, and he kept pulling me with a mechanical mind toward something I couldn’t see yet. That was when I really looked at his face.

Goddess above.

Cuts crisscrossed his features in brutal lines. Swelling distorted the sharp angles I’d memorized during all those discussions of hate we had. Blood covered everything. Fresh and dried in layers that told a story I was only just beginning to understand. His left eye had swollen nearly shut. His nose sat crooked. When he breathed, I heard a wet rattle that meant broken ribs.

He stopped dragging me.

I felt something sticky and warm beneath my back. The smell hit me next. Copper, meat and something primal that my Omega instincts recognized even before my brain caught up.

Blood.

I turned my head and saw him.

Alpha Wenzel lay sprawled on the floor with a gaping hole in his chest where his heart should have been. His eyes which had a strange cloudy color to them stared at nothing. Blood pooled around him in a lake that spread wider than seemed possible from one body. The chains that had bound him lay coiled nearby like sleeping serpents.

"What the fuck?" The words ripped out of me. "You killed him."

Lysander said nothing. He knelt beside me and stared at my legs with an intensity that made my stomach drop. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"You are coming to." His voice held no emotion. "I had hoped to give you a kinder death."

"What does that mean?"

He reached for my mouth.

I tried to jerk away but my body wouldn’t respond fast enough. His palm clamped over my lips and nose with crushing force. His other hand gripped my left leg just above the knee.

Then he broke it.

The pain detonated through me like lightning. White-hot and absolute. I screamed against his hand, the sound muffled into something pathetic and small. My teeth found his flesh and I bit down hard enough to taste blood, but he didn’t flinch. He didn’t even loosen his grip. The pressure stayed firm and unyielding while I thrashed beneath him.

He shifted his position and grabbed my other leg.

I knew what came next. I tried to beg, tried to plead through the hand covering my mouth, but nothing coherent emerged. Just desperate animal sounds that meant nothing.

The second break came faster than the first.

The scream that tore out of me felt like it originated from somewhere deeper than my lungs. Somewhere primal and terrified that understood what was happening even if my mind refused to accept it. The pain settled into my bones like molten metal, radiating outward in waves that made my vision blur.

He let go.

I gasped for air, choking on it, while tears streamed down my face unchecked. The pain brought clarity rushing back. Sharp and cutting and entirely unwelcome. I turned my head toward Alpha Wenzel again, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

"I do not understand why you did this."

"To protect your sister, of course."

My eyes widened. The words landed like physical blows, rearranging everything I thought I knew about Lysander into something far more dangerous.

He was capable of it? He was actually capable of it... There was... There was no way.

"Oh my goddess." I stared at him. "You are insane. You did have it in you."

He ignored that. His gaze stayed fixed on some point beyond me, like he was already planning his next move and I was just an obstacle to work around.

"I warned you not to scheme," he said. "You disobeyed."

I shuddered. The pain in my legs pulsed in time with my heartbeat, a rhythm I couldn’t escape. "You cannot intend to kill me."

"I do."

"Why?" The question came out broken. "Why? I only did it to survive."

He tilted his head slightly, and for a moment I saw something flicker in his expression. Not sympathy. Not regret. Just cold calculation. He was not buying a word.

My head went several places. I needed to latch on to anything that would tear into his murderous mind now.

"If you had not been so vocal with how much you detested me, I would have never made a choice like this."

"No." His voice cut through my justification like a blade. "This is not me. This is all you. All your actions led you here."

The truth of it hit harder than I expected. Every choice I’d made, every scheme I’d woven, every person I’d stepped on to climb higher. They’d all brought me to this blood-soaked room with broken legs and a murderer kneeling beside me.

No. I could not give up now. This bastard was an emotional wet blanket. I could hit a mark. Any mark.

"I am someone’s daughter too." I wept.

He sighed. The sound carried no pity, just acceptance of an unpleasant task that still needed completing. "Nothing is going to change what is going to happen here."

Panic clawed up my throat. I sucked in a breath and screamed. "Help! Help!"

Lysander chuckled.

The sound froze me more effectively than any threat. It held genuine amusement, like I’d just said something wonderfully entertaining.

"That would help my case," he said. "You tried to sexually assault my father in his vulnerable state and it did not work. He attacked you and that led you to kill him."

The air left my lungs.

"No."

"They would not believe that." I forced the words out. "I am an Omega."

"That is exactly why they would believe it. It also helps that everyone in this pack knows the woman you are." He leaned back on his heels. "It is not the first time you have killed. It is entirely possible. You have done worse for less."