Chapter 519 Going somewhere, Nickolas?
In the middle of the night, in a land where a thin layer of snow had begun drifting down from the sky, settling over ground still carpeted in dried autumn leaves, a man could be seen staggering forward, one hand pressed against his bleeding shoulder, a trail of blood marking the path behind him.
When he reached a large tree, he stopped and slowly lowered himself to the ground, sitting with his back against the trunk, his shoulders trembling, though not from the cold. A wrecked sob tore loose from his throat, and he slammed his fist into the earth beside him.
“You fucking made me kill you. Why won’t you leave my head?!” Nick groaned, caught somewhere between irritation and pain, though the pain wasn’t for the woman he’d killed, it was for the friend her death had cost him.
If only she’d followed his lead, let him protect her the way he’d wanted to, she wouldn’t have died, and he wouldn’t have had to kill her. But like everyone else in his fucking life, she’d found it easy enough to betray him in the end, pulling that trigger, bringing her own death down on herself.
Yeah, Nick cried for her. Big deal. She had meant something to him, once. But the memory of her shooting him kept surfacing right alongside the grief, and it made him want to kill her all over again, which only made him angrier still.
“I thought you’d be different from the rest of them. All I ever wanted was a family, my own family, one that actually wanted me back. You wanted me too, until that bastard Matt must have gotten into your head, turned you against me. I know you never would’ve turned on me otherwise…” He murmured to a scrap of fabric torn from her clothes, still caught on the blade of the knife he’d used to stab her repeatedly.
His hands were still stained with her blood, mixed now with his own, and he stared down at the blood-soaked fabric, speaking to it as though it could hear him, some part of him believing, somewhere deep down, that it actually could and the words would reach her.
“You should’ve just let me follow through with the plan. We would’ve brought Vee into the family, all of us together. But don’t worry, I’ll still give you what you wanted, even though you’re not here to see it anymore… I’ll have Vee someday, one way or another, and every child we have together, I’ll name after you.” He smiled, then let out a laugh, the idea so perfect in his head he could barely stand to wait for it, if not for his shoulder, still bleeding him dry.
If that fucker hadn’t blown his pack sky-high, Nick could’ve gone back for his own equipments, the specialized tools he needed to safely remove this damn bullet that was lodged in his shoulder. How fucking glad he was that she hadn’t shot him in a fatal place like his stomach or chest.
He should’ve been home by now. Instead, he was running through his own land like a hunted animal because his people had all been seized, and he knew, without question, that those bastards were already coming for him.
He just wasn’t in any condition to face them now, not with this injury, not when the fight would be so unfairly stacked against him.
He’d deal with Sebastian, that son of a bitch, on his own terms, in his own time, not theirs. Which meant he needed to reach one of his allied packs first, get himself treated, get back on his feet, and start putting together another plan. But first, he needed to howl over the cliff ahead and call for backup.
He took the scrap of Zoe’s clothing and buried it beneath the thin layer of snow already gathering on the ground. He hated winter. It was fucking October, and parts of this land were already buried in snow!
Still muttering about the miserable cold, Nick pushed himself back up onto his feet when his sharp hearing caught sounds moving through the woods around him. He went rigid, listening, until he made out shadows shifting between the trees, wolves, and he cursed under his breath.
Nick wasn’t a coward, but he knew better than to fight a battle he couldn’t win in this condition, and he broke into a run in the opposite direction. He hadn’t gotten far before something cut him off directly in his path, a massive wolf he recognized instantly.
“Going somewhere, Nickolas?” Asked the wolf, unmistakably Sebastian’s, as it began circling him slowly.
Nick’s eyes zeroed in on the black streaks running through Sebastian’s fur, and he threw his head back to laugh.
“Well, well, well, have you looked in a mirror lately, Sebastian? You’re turning into a rabid dog already. How exactly did that happen?” He asked, tilting his head to study the wolf, all while reaching for the gun tucked at the back of his trousers.
The moment he pulled it free, another wolf leapt from behind him, jaws closing over his hand and the gun together. It fell into the snow, blood already spreading beneath it, and Nick groaned, spinning toward the Beta’s wolf, who stared back at him with murderous eyes as he clutched his ruined wrist that was bleeding onto the white.
“Escaping, are we now, Nicky Dick?” Matt remarked, using the nickname Nick’s friends had used to taunt him when he was a boy, a name he had always hated.
Nick glared at the wolf. “Why should I escape when I hold a power far greater than any of you could ever have?” he taunted back, keeping his eyes on them as they circled him.
“What powers? The one you stole by killing a mermaid, or the one you were born with, which was nothing but pure cowardice?” Sebastian gritted out with a growl. “No wonder Camilla discarded you from the beginning. She must have had a mother’s foresight to know what you would turn out to be.”