And Then There Were Four (Lilith Carrie) novel Chapter 92

Chapter 92: Understanding Death

Talon.

When Ivy glared at me and told me the woman was hers, I knew without a doubt that something terrible was about to happen. Without even a warning, she took off in a full sprint as fast as she could from the property. The car had long sped away down the driveway but knowing Ivy, that wouldn’t stop her.

“We have to stop her,” James cried out. “She’s pregnant, and she hurt the babies,”

James had a point. Damien wasn’t here yet. Hale was in town until the end of the day. James was a good man and was too able to take care of a lot. But he didn’t have the power needed to subdue Ivy like this.

Shifting into my wolf, I took off across pack territory, darting over the lawns down the hills towards the woods where Ivy had disappeared through. I had to find her. I couldn’t let her do something she would absolutely regret. Even though she was the same person, she just seemed to have this alter ego that pushed through, making her more dominant when she shifted.

I knew deep down she would feel nothing but guilt if she ended up killing this woman. It would be the first person she had physically killed.

That sort of thing was never easy for anyone.

Catching her scent, I moved faster, pushing myself as hard as I could, her body coming into the distance as I kept trekking over the lands until, abruptly, she stopped. Not wanting her to know I was chasing after her, I halted in my position, hiding behind the shrubbery of the woods, watching her, waiting to see what she was going to do.

She was hunting, seeking this woman as if this woman was an elk that became her prey.

There was no stopping a wolf when it was in mid-hunt. They were dangerous, primal, and very territorial.

With Ivy not technically being a wolf, but being something else entirely-there was no telling what she could do.

The mind link that linked my brothers and me and even Ivy was going wild. However, Ivy’s side was dormant. She had closed herself off in order to focus, and I had to push back mine in order to focus on her.

‘Where are you?’ Damien pushed through the link, using his alpha tone, catching me by surprise. ‘Currently about 5 miles north of the pack. She’s hunting!

‘She already ran five miles? There’s no way she was able to do that. Are you sure of your location?’ Damien snapped.

Did he really, honestly, think I didn’t know where I was? 

I grew up on these lands. These woods were my gain out of the four of us. I was the more primal hunter. There was no way they would know these woods better than I did.

‘Are you seriously going to f*****g ask me that question?’

Silence met me, and at the moment I had been dealing with Damian, Ivy bolted without warning, running north, deeper and deeper into the darkness and thicket of the woods. I followed her.

The canopies of leaves above us protected us from the sunlight, where creatures usually blended in with the darkness. Watching and waiting for the right moment to make their move.

However, today they were silent, and it made me wonder if those creatures knew what she was, and they themselves found her terrifying because right now, the shift she had made was nothing like I had ever

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seen before.

Her figure almost glowed within the darkness, her long hair shimmering in a sea of light that didn’t exist from any other source around her.

The way she moved was elegant and as graceful as a fairy. But yet as quick and as dangerous as a wolf. Entranced by who she was and the fact that she was my mate, I didn’t dare stop her. I didn’t care what the others thought. I couldn’t. At least not right now.

There may be a point where I could try to talk sense into her, but the time was not. Now, that was very obvious. After a little while, she came to a slow jog until her feet crept across the forest floor.

In the distance, a cabin sat alone within the darkness; the only light in that cabin came from the single pane window near the front door. What shocked me the most, though, was that the car the elder had driven was parked out front.

The woman who supposedly came directly from the council to see us was only 20 miles north of where we actually lived, and that was completely unsettling.

Why was the elder here? This was not anywhere close to where the Council headquarters was.

I had thought I had concealed myself, tracking her the entire time I had been doing so. But as she stopped in her tracks, her hand upon the trunk of a tree, she looked over her shoulder at me and smiled.

She had known I was there the entire time, and not once did she stop me? What was she waiting for?

“You joined me, pretty wolf?’ her delectable voice said through my mind. It taunted me, egging me on to play with her and I was shocked she had opened the link just enough for me to speak with her, though; it was pretty obvious we were the only two in this conversation.

‘Ivy, please turn back now. You’re pregnant and cannot be in a fight. Think about our children.’

Turning her attention back to the cabin, I could sense she found nothing but amusement in my words. ‘Do you really think that I would do anything that would hurt my children?’

‘No,’ I replied without hesitation. But that doesn’t mean that they won’t do something that could intentionally hurt them. Please think about this. She is not worth it!

‘That is where you’re wrong. My children are hungry.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes, running my hand over my face as I tried to calm the small, logical part of my personality hidden deep within me. I was primal.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she groaned, rolling her eyes as her senses seemed to rein back in. “What I did was for a reason, and at least one of us did something.”

“What are you talking about? You literally killed a council member and the son of an opposing alpha. Not to mention something else entirely that we don’t even know. If it was a royalty of its species… look, you can’t just go around killing things because you want to.”

Raising her brow, she looked me up and down and stepped over the creature, making her way towards the door as she licked her fingers clean. I had no idea where she was going, but wherever it was, she seemed very content with what she did.

“Ivy, will you please stop and talk to me? Tell me what is going on.”

Getting out an exaggerated sigh, she stopped in her tracks, closing her eyes for a moment before she turned and opened them, facing me. “There are things I cannot explain because I don’t know how to explain them. However, they were a threat to our pack. To my needs and my children, and I took care of it as I will every single time a threat comes about.”

“OK, but the problem is you can’t just go killing anybody you want to. If you find a problem with someone, you need to let us know so we can handle it properly.”

She shook her head, staring at me as if she couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. “As I’ve told you before, I will do what I need to do to protect my children and the laws of your world do not apply to me. Even if I am softer minded at times, this is the side of me that will eventually completely take over,”

Hearing her say the side I was looking at now was the side that would eventually take over was not a very comforting thought. The entire conversation, of course, I had opened through the link so that the others could end up hearing it as I was hearing it.

She was making it clear what was going on was going to have to be accepted one way or another. For some odd reason, she considered those people to be a threat, and she executed them appropriately, something my brothers and I were going to have to learn to handle or simply take care of when needed.

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“It doesn’t have to be this way. You have to let us help you. We’re your mates,” I finally said, before she turned away from me once more.

“Talon, are you afraid of me?” she asked as she stared at me with an intensity I had never felt before.

“Why are you asking that question, Ivy?”

“Because I want to know the truth. Do you fear me, Talon?” she asked again, waiting for my response.

“No. I don’t fear you. I just want to understand you.”

Laughter escaped her lips as she walked closer to me. Gently running her finger over my chest, she leaned up and kissed me with the blood of her victims on her lips.

“You should fear me.”