Luna of Rogues

Part 52 - The Aftermath

I ignored him. It was really the only thing I could do. I knew that I'd choke on a sob if I opened my mouth. It was unfortunate that Jace didn't really appreciate me turning my back on him. He grabbed my shoulder before I even knew he'd moved, and he wrenched me around to face him.

Rhys was predictable. When he moved, I was ready for him, and it wasn't hard to put myself in the way. His chest slammed into my back. So it was Leo who shoved Jace away from me. We were all a little on edge, to say the least, but I was too stunned to do anything except stare.

"Answer the question," Jaden warned me.

Somehow, we'd managed to avoid a fistfight. Jace wasn't in any hurry to close the distance again, let alone take a swing at Leo. No — those piercing blue eyes were fixed on me, and boy did he look pissed.

"I saved all of your worthless flockie arses," I replied tersely. My hand had slipped into my pocket of its own accord, and I could feel the smooth wood of my knife against my palm. It was a tiny bit of reassurance. "That's what I did."

Jace used that extra foot of height to stare me down, and the anger simmering behind his eyes was a palatable thing. I could smell it in the air between us. "Maybe. But that's not why you killed them."

"I didn't do it for you, no," I agreed. I was having to wrestle my wolf down to keep meeting that stare. She wanted to shift. The stench of death was making her uneasy. "But you should be glad I did. A lot of your pack members will go home to their families alive because of it."

"Poison," Jaden practically spat out the word, "is not honourable."

"Oh, right. My bad. I didn't realise we cared more about honour than people's bloody lives," I snapped. I had taken a step forwards as I said it, putting me dangerously close to the trio of Alphas. But with that knife hilt still resting against my palm, they were the ones in danger, not me.

Zach let out a heavy sigh. "She's got a point."

"No, she does not have a point, Zach," Jace told him. "She has just murdered hundreds of people. We found the cure. None of them needed to die, and yet she took it upon herself to do ... this."

Something in his tone really got my hackles up. "Oh yeah? And how were you going to cure them? How were you going to take them all prisoner while they were behaving like rabid dogs? How were you going to track down all their mates? How were you going to hold them in the meantime? Please do tell, Jace. I'm curious."

"I'm curious, too, Skye," Jace retorted. His eyes were darker than I'd ever seen them. "You don't think any of that was worth trying? You don't think there are ways we could have achieved it? From the sounds of it, saving their lives was just ... too much effort, in your opinion."

I looked back at Luke, swallowing hard. His eyes were open and so horribly empty. I opened my mouth, trying to defend myself, but I had nothing. Selfishness wasn't an easy accusation to deny. Luckily, my brother was only half a pace behind me and equally pissed off.

"Leave her alone," he told Jace. "We all helped drug them. We could all see it was the only option. So you can sod off, as far as I'm concerned."

The words 'sod off' seemed to resonate with Jace very strongly. He moved his stare from me to Rhys, and then he began to close the distance. I'd noticed this about him. He was forever trying to get my brother to back down — like he thought it was possible he'd get a submission from him at some point. It was true Rhys wasn't like me. He could actually put his eyes down when he wanted to. But it was rare that he wanted to, and I doubted he would ever do it for a flockie.

I moved between them as much as I could. I ended up even closer to Jace than I had been. But they were still perfectly capable of staring at each other over my head, and I got the sense that both of them wanted this to come to blows. I didn't. They'd fought before, and as far as I was concerned, it was my turn.