Callum followed me.

My wolf listened to his slower and unsteady footsteps behind me.

I pumped my legs faster and farther than I thought I could, than I ever had. I had never been a runner, but I refused to stop and refused to let Callum catch up to me. I feared that I would lose control again and kill him.

What was worse... I didn't think that I could go back to face him.

My wolf fucking hurt him. I allowed her to bite him, to rip his flesh from his body, to almost kill him. How could I ever forgive myself for something as fucked up as that? How could I ever face Callum again?

Thiago made me into his worst nightmare.

Callum Lee, my professor and the strongest man I had met, wouldn't forgive me for this.

A mate who wanted to kill him and hurt his pack was not a great mate, not even a good one. I was nothing but a terrible piece of shit for what I had done to them all. I caused all of this. If I had gone to Thiago when he asked the first time, I would've never met them.

Once I had lost Callum—and I was fucking sure of it—I found my way back to Thiago, sniffing out his scent through the thick mud and wooded area around his pack. I had been here so many times, I knew where that asshole was hiding.

Like I expected, I found him surrounded by a group of at least a hundred warriors, his muscles taut and jaw clenched, eyes a golden fury. He had expected me to kill Callum, and maybe he thought I did, because when he saw me, he smiled.

That psychopath smiled.

"You've done it, Bria," he said to me, crouching at my level, wiping the blood off my chin with his forefinger, and tasting it. "You're free of his chains. Callum will never once walk this earth again and challenge me. Everyone will yield to us, to me."

All I wanted to do was leap at him, to fucking kill him here.

But I feared that I wasn't strong enough. Thiago had always been stronger, faster, and smarter than me. He had captured me, convinced my parents to give me up for money, ran countless tests on me.

He knew every bit of me, better than I knew myself.

So, I stood by his side and tried to come up with something.

Not wanting him to realize that I had broken out of the chains he molded around my mind, I howled in response. I hoped to the Moon Goddess that he didn't see the tears in my eyes, that he didn't know by the way I cowered, that he couldn't feel the pain shooting through every fucking inch of my body.

I didn't deserve the title mate.

My chest tightened. I stared at the ground, trying to figure out a way to get Thiago alone, because I wouldn't—couldn't—defeat him like this, not with his entire pack gathered around and awaiting his every order.

There were far too many of them, and my heart was in far too much pain.

The anguish was bone-fucking-deep, a pain that hurt my entire soul.

"We're going to finish them off, to kill them all unless they surrender to me," Thiago announced to the warrior wolves who stood in wolf form around me. "Kill every last one of them, except the woman and the children. They will be useful in reproducing."

Like zombies, the wolves turned toward the direction of Callum's and Adan's packs.

Ready to kill.

Knowing that I couldn't wait any longer, knowing that if Thiago and his wolves marched back on Callum and Adan and their packs, they would kill them all. I knew what I had to do. I knew that I had to kill Thiago right here and right now.

No matter if he controlled hundreds of wolves.

No matter if he turned them all on me.

No matter if he killed me.

After letting out a low and feral growl, I stopped in my tracks and refused to follow him. Thiago stopped a moment later and tilted his head to the side, making a come-hither motion with his fingers. "Come here, pup."

For a moment, the urge to follow him shot through my body, urging me forward, to keep moving, to follow his every order and demand. But I pushed my paws into the dirt and fought the incredible force.

Thiago turned around, eyes flashing gold, and growled. "Come here now, Bria."

Still, I fought the force and didn't move.

The other warrior wolves that he controlled stopped moving forward toward where Callum's pack was located and turned to face me, some watching curiously and others readying to attack not Thiago but me.

And I didn't doubt that they would.

"Don't make me tell you again, Bria," Thiago said. "Or there will be consequences."

I guessed that he didn't understand that consequences didn't matter to me anymore. I had just given up the best thing in my life, had nearly killed the man I loved more than anything, the man whose pup might've been inside my belly right now.

Instead of following blindly, I growled, "No."

Thiago roared loudly, so loud that my fur blew back. "NOW!"

"No."

Thiago shifted into his wolf and growled to the others. "Make her surrender!"

And so, amid the other warrior wolves lunging at me and snapping their jaws at me, I sprinted toward a shifted Thiago and sank my teeth into his neck. Then, I did something that I never thought I would get to do. I ripped out his throat and killed the fucker.