Luna of Rogues

Part 74 - Things Worth Dying For

In the blink of an eye, Rhys had dragged Cassidy behind him and taken her place at gunpoint. Rhodric had a different idea. He stepped straight up to the gun, and Malcolm's finger froze. They were too close, the barrel digging into my father's chest. Malcolm wouldn't have time to fire twice.

"I found records of your experiments a couple years ago," Rhodric mused. "There was one that stuck with me. The approximate time it takes a shifter to die when the heart is ruptured. Something like —"

"— between two and three minutes," Malcolm said softly. "I remember. But it's still certain death."

"For both of us. I'd have time to choke you out, let alone snap your neck."

The man's mouth twisted into a sneer. "And you're so fond of snapping necks, aren't you, Rhodric? Holds a special place in your heart, I'd imagine."

Those words hit some invisible mark. Rhodric's knuckles went white, his eyes pitch black — the first time I'd ever seen him lose control of his wolf — and a new expression slid across his features. It took me a moment to recognise it, because I had never seen him wear it before. Hatred.

"Come on, Scott," he taunted. "We were always supposed to kill each other."

Fear was a stranger to me. Pain, injury, danger — none of that had ever made my stomach twist itself in knots. But that lethal invitation and the way he offered it so carelessly... A spike of crippling, paralysing fear shot through the core of me, insisting somebody is going to die here.

"Yes," Malcolm said slowly, ponderously. "I think you're right."

He looked down the gun, his finger curled tighter around the trigger, and he gave this little haunting smile. And, as the shot echoed around the small room, someone screamed. Cassidy or me or one of the boys — I didn't know who.

Rhodric moved. One hand twisted the gun away from himself, the other brought a blade upwards and buried it to the hilt in Malcolm's chin.

The very next second, his legs gave out. They fell at the same time, tangled together and bleeding. By the time I got there, Malcolm's eyes had already glazed over, his mouth still set in that awful smile. Rhys and I dragged his corpse clear to reach our father.

He was half sitting against the wall, the front of his shirt soaked red. He looked at us in an apologetic, rueful sort of way. "Whoops," he managed to say. "That went off script, didn't it?"

There was a single hole in the middle of his chest, spilling blood in lazy pulses. I managed to crouch beside him before freezing. What could I do? I could see the shock in Rhys's eyes — and knew it was reflected in my own. We didn't understand. It was Rhodric. He never even got hurt, let alone ... this...

Leo was standing with Cassidy, keeping her away. He must have known that we didn't have long. I could feel our mind-link bond waxing stronger; he was trying his best to keep me calm, keep me rational. It helped a bit.

Rhys pressed his hands over the bullet wound, trying to stop the blood, trying to save his life. But even wolf healing wouldn't help here — the heart was the one thing which couldn't heal itself. How horridly, painfully ironic.

"Is he dead?"

The words were barely more than a whisper.

"Yes." I choked on the word, on a sob. "Very dead."

Rhodric's breaths were increasingly shallow rasps. "That's ... good. You'll be safe now. And I'll see Jessie again. Told you, kids — the mate bond..."

"Don't be stupid, Dad. You're not going to die," Rhys said quietly.

"I can do whatever the hell I want, thank you very much. Right now, I want to see your mother." Rhodric grinned again, but it was strained. Like he wanted our last memory to be of him smiling. There was that familiar gruff affection in his voice when he said, "Don't take it personally."