Chapter 55: Chapter 55
Present Time….
With Nadia over one shoulder, Angel headed up the stairs to Antonio Rufus' floor. The gruesome sight of burnt and dismembered bodies that greeted him made him smirk.
“This is way more than I had hoped for,” he muttered, enjoying seeing the table turn for a change.
At the stairs landing, Mathew’s unmistakable scent carried from the doorway, leading from Antonio Rufus' room and Angel hugged his back to the side wall, slowly skittering towards the entrance.
When he was close enough to see, he discovered the bastard sounded like he had the upper hand and he knew he must be armed or had someone as leverage.
Without thinking twice, Angel crept up on him from the back, half-shifted and raised his now protruding claws to stab his neck from the back, fast and hard enough to cut it off, using the other paw to hold him still by the shoulder with his claw digging into his flesh, and at the same time, a bullet hit Mathew in the forehead, causing blood to splatter all over his chest and Nadia’s ass. When the fucker’s head rolled off of him, he saw Isabelle’s human, Cole Miller, pointing a smoking gun in his direction.
Isabelle leapt and caught a familiar grenade-like weapon that seemed to have fallen from Mathew. She shapeshifted, and lunged to the balcony, throwing the grenade like a baseball into the open, then rushed back to slam the door shut.
Angel grinned with pride. When his eyes fell on Antonio Rufus, his grin widened even further. He deliberately lowered his gaze to Mathew’s dismembered body and said, “Man, I have wanted to do that for the longest time!” Noting Antonio Rufus giving him a death stare.
“I’ve always hated villains that talk too much—” one of Xavier’s men said in obvious irritation.
“Amateur—” another grumbled.
“You would think being a human he would know better with all this action movie nonsense they keep producing—” another added.
A petite she-wolf pushed out of Xavier’s arms and kicked Mathew’s headless body. Angel wondered what Mathew had done to piss the lady off.
“Idiot!” she cursed angrily.
Jason, the one he recognised now as Blake’s elder brother pulled the Were into his arms. Angel wondered if they were mates. They both carried each other’s scent. A tall she-wolf stepped forward to pull the shorter she-wolf into a hug.
“You are safe,” the she-wolf reassured.
Angel held Antonio Rufus’ gaze, feeling quite like the devil. He was thrilled, he got to live to see that very look on the fucker’s face. It was almost as if he could not believe he was part of this. ‘Indeed trust could be a legal weapon, and he, of all people, should know,’ he thought as he let go of Mathew’s body, shoving it aside like the human garbage he was. It fell heavily on the floor, making a gentle thud. Angel regressed, wiping blood off his hands with his cargo pants. The front of his shirt was all bloodied now.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Do you think I was so far gone that I would protect you and your scum of a son? Oh, sorry, because I did it once, you think me a loyal dog now?” Angel taunted as he strode inside the room.
His stride halted when he saw the legs of Rufus’s youngest son – the boy no one was allowed to see. A deep frown furrowed his eyebrows. The boy had hind legs, a bushy tail and paws. The torso though was human – if one could call the pale skeleton-framed boy human, but the lower part of him was unmistakenly were. Angel couldn’t quite believe his eyes. He directed his gaze at Kurt, wanting confirmation of what was before him.
“You piece of shit!” Antonio Rufus yelled in reply. Angel ignored him.
“He is a wolfless Were, Angel...can you believe that? This bastard captured and tortured his own kind because he was a pathetic, wolfless clan!” Kurt explained with disgust.
Angel couldn’t help looking at Xavier. He knew about wolfless clans. They were werewolves with wolf blood but incapable of shape-shifting. Their kind thinks of them as humans. Angel didn’t even know they exist anymore. Most packs often kill them off as a form of mercy because it was believed—back then—that they would not be able to survive a pack life. Amongst their kind, they were seen as freaks to be cast off. Was it just? No. But werewolves' lives were not a walk in the park so to say, and soft-paddling things were not their way. Most of their kind often live with the fear of being wolfless. She-wolves use it to scare pups into eating their food because they all knew being wolfless was literally a death sentence. But then that was an old law.
Xavier nodded in confirmation and he returned his gaze to Rufus. Whatever the bastard must have gone through or the injustice he figured was done to his lineage, Angel did not think that justified his actions.
Angel gave the man an emotionless gaze with a smug smirk, tugging the corners of his lips. “You should know, I just smashed Dan's head against the wall, splitting his head like a ball of melon before clawing his guts out...” Angel said. Antonio Rufus snarled at him. Angel laughed. “and this haven of yours, is going to be rubbles in the next minute....” He allowed the laughter to die on his face, making him see the pure hate in his cold, grey eyes.
“All of you—every single one of you, will never forget me. I will forever live in your head. You are nothing but animals in human skin— the humans would kill you all!” Antonio Rufus ranted.
While Antonio Rufus was yammering on about being their saviour, regardless of his cruelty He missed Cole Miller bringing out a syringe. The other man jabbed Antonio Rufus in the neck, emptying the content of the syringe into his body. Antonio Rufus jerked away but the deed was already done.
“He is all yours, boys,” Cole Miller said as he walked passed him. Rufus slowly fell to his knees. “You don’t want to see this part, love,” he added as he reached for Isabelle, who was still in her wolf form, leading her out of the room. When the door clicked shut, Angel felt the weight of Nadia over his shoulder and it hit him.
‘If Antonio Rufus was from a wolfless clan and related to Nadia, doesn’t that makes her one as well?!’ he thought and his left arm wrapped around her ass in a protective reflex. He wondered if his cousins would want to honour the old tradition and ask her to be killed. He turned away so no one could see his face. He would hate to rattle his cousins’ cages just when he just found them. But it will be over his dead body before he allowed anyone to harm Nadia.
He heard Antonio Rufus let out a loud cry and turn fast enough to see Odwolf bury his claws into his shoulders, pressing them deeper into him and sweeping them towards his neck. The other man drooled blood, kneeling there – subdued and powerless. The Weres circled him, tearing into him as a predator would a prey. They were merciless and Angel stood there watching. Blood pooled under him, spreading and forming a circle around him. He swayed on his knees, but the Weres kept him upright.
“Angel…” Kurt called and he knew what that meant.
He walked to stand in front of the man crouched low, and holding his gaze he said, “This is for Bethany and all the she-wolves you fucked and killed.”
Angel made him watch his claws extend and he stabbed him in the gut, digging his hand deep inside, watching him shake violently as he clawed out his intestines and heart. More blood gushed out all over the floor.
Blaze went to stand behind him, held his head and pulled it out. Angel stood up and the rest of them stood back, watching Anotion Rufus’s body on the marble floor.
A gentle rumble sounded from somewhere in the house. Angel met the other’s gaze and said, “We need to get out now!”
They didn’t bother using the elevator, they all rushed down the stairs and into the foyer. When Angel saw that Xavier and the rest were still in the building he said, “You guys might want to run—” as he led the others to the exit.
Everyone rushed outside. And just as they got to the porch, the building started to explode, starting from the west wing, fire engulfed the building, causing the angry flames to lit up the entire ground. Police sirens sounded from the background.