“Vanessa!” Cerri shouted, though her voice was muted in my ears. “Stop moping. Drink this, damn it.”
Cerri pressed something, a bottle perhaps, to my lips. I let them part so she could pour its contents into my mouth. It tickled all the way down my throat. In moments, the poison would be gone. That didn’t seem fair.
Nothing about this was fair.
My three packmates had everything ripped away from them. There would be no more chances for them to redeem themselves. Their voices had been silenced.
“All right,” Ryder said.
He lifted me into his arms. I kicked and twisted to break free, but the poison had sapped me of my strength. There was no more fight left in me, not even for Connor.
“This isn’t fair!” I cried out, my voice breaking.
The wolves watched me. I couldn’t stand their gazes, so I turned my face into Ryder’s bare chest. The walk back to the apartment didn’t take long. That should have been a small comfort, but the moment Ryder stepped foot back inside, we came face to face with another body.
Another soul ripped from this life.
The rage in my chest was too much. It battered the inside of my icy cage. If I didn’t let it out, then I would shatter for sure. Ryder set me down, perhaps a bit reluctantly. When I wobbled outside, he followed not far behind me.
The storm above roiled across the sky. Lightning danced among the clouds. I could feel it on my skin. I pulled the power around me into one strike as I unleashed a primal scream. Lightning blasted the ground in front of me. The roar of it drowned out my scream. The bolt’s light blinded my eyes.
I let out a breath. The pressure in my chest had diminished. Once more, I could breathe.
But as I came back to myself, I noticed the wolves slowly gathering in the back yard and the way they watched me. There was no wariness to their expressions. If anything, I saw commiseration.
“I’ll kill him myself,” I said before turning back towards the back door.