Page 99 of Burn for Her
Diabolical rage ignited in his gut.
“Oh my God.” Lena gasped.
Hanging from a tree was a mutilated wolf. Emily stood below it, fisting the fur, trying to yank the dead animal down. She wouldn’t stop yanking. Her hands, all the way up to her elbows, were covered in blood.
Dorian shielded Lena with his body. Not from the grotesque carnage, but from the Lycan now circling them. Under this level of threat, there was no telling what the Lycan might do to outsiders.
“Was it a Savag-Ri?”
The air crackled and thickened around them. Dorian’s lungs tightened with dread he’d not suffered for centuries. “No.”
This wasn’t the work of a Savag-Ri. They never wasted time on an animal kill. Nor would they take a risk of this magnitude just to make a statement. They’d kill a Lycan and keep going, making sure nothing was left as evidence.
This? This was a show. A message.
But why? For who?
“A vampire did this,” a Lycan growled. “I can smell its stench.”
Dorian’s nostrils flared. He couldn’t smell anything but blood and a little of Lena’s signature cherry blossom scent. The combo did awful things to his instincts. His body hardened. His possessiveness flared. His aggression turned him savage.
The angry Lycan faced Dorian, his golden gaze raking down his body in complete disgust. “Look at him,” the Lycan seethed. “Bet he’s got a hard-on for this.” He spat in Dorian’s direction, “You make me sick, you nasty piece of shit.”
Dorian breathed through his mouth and tried to calm the fuck down before he leveled the Lycan or did worse to him. He was outnumbered here, and he had Lena to protect. This might be his family’s property, but the Lycan clans who gathered for tonight’s ceremony weren’t his family or his friends. Dorian was only tolerated as a courtesy and only if he stayed a respectful distance from them.
He didn’t want to cause trouble for the Woods family. They’d done so much for him over the years, he would never jeopardize his adopted family by attacking a Lycan on their land.
“Emily.” His voice held all the control his temper lacked. “Step away from it.”
Emily only wailed louder. “I can’t tell,” she sobbed. “I can’t tell if it’s Killian!” She kept yanking on the wolf while it dangled from a rope.
Alistair broke through the wall of Lycan and stumbled to a stop when he saw the animal and his daughter. “Emily,” he barked at her. “Back away from it.”
Marie showed up and cupped her mouth with both hands. “No.”
Emily refused to stop pulling on the dead animal. “Is it Killian?” she screamed. “Is it Killian!”
Bowen picked Emily up, dragged her back. “Bane, get him down.”
His twin climbed the tree, pulled out a blade, and sliced the rope. The wolf’s body fell into a heap of fur and meat and splintered bones.
Dorian was going to fucking lose it.
Those bones. Those cuts. That—
“It’s not him,” Bane’s voice cracked. “It’s not Killian. It’s just a wolf.”
Marie fell to her knees and started sobbing. Dorian wanted to reach out to her and Emily, but if he budged, it could be misinterpreted as an attack. No Lycan outside the Woods family trusted Dorian. And they were all watching him now.
Blaming him.
“I didn’t do this,” Dorian snarled. “I was in the woods just beyond the barn all night.”
It was wasted air. His reputation alone made him a suspect. His past was no secret, nor was his current position in the House of Death.
Dorian’s gaze dragged back to the wolf on the ground with its dead eyes and mouth open, tongue lolling out. It made him want to puke. The cuts, the position of the bones. It was too familiar and yet strangely displaced.
He couldn’t speak a word as several Lycan dropped to the ground while Dorian stood there like a shield for Lena. Everyone around them was scenting and confirming the same thing.