“Not your soul.” Fleance didn’t mean to interrupt. He didn’t mean for the words to come out jagged-edged and bitter, either, but that didn’t stop them. “Being easy on myself didn’t help, it made it worse. And knowing there was nothing I could do doesn’t help. It didn’t stop my hellhound from attacking people to try and make them stop breaking the rules, because it spent so long unable to stop my uncle, and it doesn’t help…”
He stared at Sheena’s thigh, as though he could see through the fluffy bath robe to the bandaged bite marks beneath. Even if Parker couldn’t turn Sheena, he’d proved to Fleance how weak he still was in comparison to his uncle. “It didn’t help you. Parker is still hurting people, and after today, I can’t avoid the truth anymore. I know what I need to do.”
Sheena frowned. “Parker said you couldn’t control him because you’re not an alpha. Are you going to ask this guy Caine to come all the way here?”
“No. I’m going to kill Parker myself.”
6
Sheena
“You want to kill him?” Sheena was suddenly very glad they’d decided to eat at the hotel. The words came out far louder than she’d planned and that was not the sort of thing you wanted to say in a restaurant. “That’s… a bit dark. And illegal. Er, a lot illegal.”
I sound like the scared girlfriend in some B-grade action movie, she thought as the words leaped out of her mouth. Her heart was hammering. She wanted to tell herself that she’d misheard him, that this was all a mistake, but the expression on Fleance’s face left no room for her to lie to herself.
“I don’t want to do it. But I don’t see any other way out.” Fleance stared out over the lake. The sun had set and the city lights only just touched the steam rising from the water, giving the impression that there was something out there, wrapping itself around the town. Fleance’s expression became guarded. “When Caine took over from Parker, I thought that was it. New alpha, blank slate. But my hellhound won’t rest until I’ve done something about him.”
“Done something doesn’t have to mean murder, though,” Sheena said, and Fleance flinched.
“I have to make sure he’s not going to come back and hurt anyone. You’ve already seen what he did to your aunts. And… if I can’t stop him, I’m worried I won’t be able to stop my hellhound from being a danger to everyone around me.”
Sheena’s heart sank as Fleance told her what his hellhound had been like the last few months. Jumping at shadows, overreacting to the slightest misdemeanors.
“It stopped as soon as I connected the dots. Parker was the reason my hellhound was acting up. It couldn’t reach him, so it was transferring its need to put things right to anyone it could reach.” His mouth formed a grim line. “I didn’t like who I was under Parker’s control and I didn’t like who I was when my hellhound wanted to chase down every poor asshole who accidentally knocked someone over or—hell, pulled a dog’s tail. Any damn thing. I don’t like the idea of—what I have to do here, either, but I know it’s what I’m meant to do. Parker made sure of that when he made me what I am. Maybe once I’m done here… I’ll find peace.” Bitterness threaded through his voice.
Sheena shuffled her chair closer to his, wincing as her leg twinged. He hesitated as she leaned against his side, then put his arm around her, fast, as though he was afraid she’d move away.
He buried his face in her hair and breathed in deep. “And I’ll be protecting you, too. That is the right thing to do. Knowing you’re safe will bring me peace.”
“There has to be another way.” A knot formed in her stomach. Her fated mate couldn’t be a murderer. No matter how trapped Fleance felt, or how guilty he felt about what Parker had put him through—which was a whole other steaming pile of shit Sheena had to hold herself back from slamming her fist into—there had to be an alternative.
That’s not just me being sheltered, though, is it? After all, she’d never had to deal with anything like what Fleance had been through. She was a sheep shifter from a huge, overprotective family who’d gotten over the worst life had to throw at her before she could walk.
Until now.
I thought finding your mate was supposed to make things simple, she thought suddenly, and was ashamed of the heat that flooded up behind her eyes. She groped blindly for her sheep. Despite how flighty it was normally, it was always there for her when she was down, and right now she needed its wooly reassurance more than ever before.
But it wasn’t there.
“There’s something wrong with my sheep,” she blurted out.
Fleance’s arms stiffened around her. God, this was the last thing he needed—he’d just spilled his heart out and she was making it all about her.
She shouldn’t have said anything. Bloody drama queen, overreacting to everything.
*What do you mean by ‘something wrong’?* Fleance’s voice was tight, and the mate bond twisted in Sheena’s chest.
*It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have—* Her thigh muscles spasmed. “Ow!”
She hissed and grabbed her thigh. Every time it had hurt before, she’d managed to stop herself from actually touching it, but this time she dug her fingers in around the edges of the bandage as though she was trying to tear it off. Tear off the bandage and the searing pain and the—the—
The cold, empty silence inside her where her sheep had always been, ever since she could remember.
Dread crept up her spine. She felt it crawl along the mate bond, cold and draining, but she couldn’t stop it. “I know I said before that everything was fine, but it’s… not. I don’t know why my sheep wasn’t scared when Parker was trying to herd
