Bile rose in her throat and her hand tightened around the fence post. Jade kept her eyes on Brandt even as she pulled on that post. She thought she heard the iron groan, and it seemed to bend in her hand.
Oh, please, angel blood, don’t fail me now. Because that blood seemed to be giving her the strength she needed to get this makeshift weapon.
“I knew you’d go back to them eventually. Once you realized what I was . . .” He lifted his hands, and the moonlight glinted off his claws. “You’d run away like a scared little human.”
Because she had been a scared little human. What was so wrong with that? A seventeen-year-old, scared girl.
“I had to make sure you had no one to run to. So I killed them.” He shrugged. “I made it quick, though, if that makes you feel better.”
Sick freak. “You’re as crazy as your father was!”
He lunged at her and wrapped his hands around her throat. “No,” his voice was lethally soft. “I’m not.”
She didn’t speak. Mostly because she couldn’t. Brandt was crushing her windpipe.
He leaned his forehead against hers. He’d done that move often in the old days, back when they’d first started dating. Pressed his forehead against hers. A gentle, almost affectionate gesture. Only back then, he hadn’t been choking her when he leaned in so close.
“I don’t want to be like this,” Brandt whispered so softly she almost didn’t hear him. “But I just can’t stop myself.” He sounded . . . lost.
And, for one instant, he was the boy she’d met. The boy with the sad eyes and wistful smile. The boy who watched her like he was watching a rainbow.
The boy she’d loved.
Not the monster she feared.
Except the boy was strangling her. Jade’s left hand pulled away from the fence, and she clawed at his hold on her throat.
Brandt blinked and the past faded from his eyes even as his hands fell away from her. “We’re going to start fresh. Get the hell away from the South and do things right.”
She sucked in a couple of deep gulps of air. “It’s . . . too late for that.” Surely he knew that. “I don’t love you, Brandt.”
He stiffened.
Part of the fence gave way but she didn’t lift it up. Not yet.
“You think you love him?” Disgust tightened his face.
“Yes.” She just wished that she’d told Az sooner. She’d been afraid to trust anyone else after Brandt. After being so blind, Jade had been terrified she’d make another mistake with a man.
But Az wasn’t just any man. He wasn’t a man, period.
Her Fallen. Her lover.
Hers.
“How will you love him when he’s dead?”
She shook her head. “He’s not dying.” A smile curved her lips. She’d been waiting for this moment ever since she’d stood over her parents’ graves. “You are.” She swung up with the chunk of broken iron and slammed it into the side of his head. There was a loud thud, and he went down.
She raised the iron over her head. She’d broken off the top of the fence, so the sharp point would be perfect for driving right into his heart. “Tell your dad I said hi—”
The panthers were snarling.
Jade froze, then looked up.
Oh, hell. They’d finished their shift from men to beasts.
The panther pack leapt into the air and attacked.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Before the panthers’ claws could tear into her skin, he was there.
Az appeared right in front of her, in front of them, and he wrapped his arms around her. “Close your eyes,” he told her.
She did, but she felt the force of the heat on her skin and knew that Az had used his power to burn and destroy.
The whimpers of the panthers filled her ears—whimpers from the beasts and screams from the men as they transformed.
Her feet left the earth and when they touched down again, she was a good ten feet away from the flames sputtering on the ground. The shifters were still alive, but out of commission.
And Brandt—
Where was he?
“Are you okay?” Az’s hold on her arms was too tight. “Did he hurt you?”
She still had the iron in her hands. “No.” Not any pain worth mentioning. Her throat would heal. Az had arrived just in time.
She was so glad to see him that tears wanted to fill her eyes.
The injured shifters began to edge away. “Brandt.” She licked her lips and blinked away the tears. Now wasn’t the time to get weak. “He was just here!”
“My bastard brother ran as soon as the fire started.” Jade jerked towards the sound of Tanner’s voice. He’d just grabbed a fleeing shifter and knocked him back on the ground. “Don’t worry, I got his stench.” He pointed toward a small space between the tombs on the right. “That way.”
Az nodded. “Stay here.” In the next second, before she could even get the breath to argue, he was gone, racing away after Brandt’s trail.
And leaving her behind.
Rage pumped inside of Az as he streaked through the cemetery. That bastard had dared to touch Jade again. And he’d let his pack of sadistic shifters get killing close to her.
No more.
Az pushed ahead even faster. A few quick shots from his gun, and this would all be over. Jade would be free. She wouldn’t have to spend her days looking over her shoulder and wondering when her psycho ex would pounce.
She could have a life again.
A life with me.
Because if she’d have him, he wanted to spend all of his days with her. Heaven could wait. He’d found something he wanted more.
Jade.
To him, she was . . . everything.
He’d make her happy. Get her to laugh. To smile not just with her beautiful mouth, but with her eyes.
She’d live again.
He paused at the heavy stone wall that marked the edge of the cemetery. Had Brandt left the cemetery? Run back into the city? Where had he—
“There’s something you need to see.”
Az spun at the voice and came face-to-face with Mateo. Not exactly the ass**le he’d wanted to see. “Out of my way,” he growled. The witch had betrayed him once already. He didn’t intend to give the guy a second chance to screw him over.
“I can show you the way,” Mateo said, eyes dark. “You just have to trust me.”
He wouldn’t trust that guy any day.
Mateo pointed to the right. “Come here, and see . . .”
Hell. Az could smell blood. He surged forward, heading down the path Mateo indicated.