Read The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) for Free Online Page B

my love , Sedna says, lifting my arm and taking a bite from my wrist, pulling and tearing my flesh from my bones.  
    The wasps mass around my face, a solid ring of buzzing insects, then work their way down my jaw, pushing the Kin Eater’s watery shape away from my mouth, forcing the water down to my shoulders, and as the water builds up against this living dam the wasps start drowning; they fall from my shoulders to land in a ring at my feet, and now Sedna shrieks at me from her watery palace, telling me I deserve this, that I’m hers and hers alone, that I must suffer for violating the taboo, for killing my kin, murdering my parents, and I know she’s right.  
    She’s right .  
    I am a monster.  
    The wasps and the water push against one another while Lily and Trish and Connor, now in human form, watch helplessly, eyes wide in awe and horror and I see Pim peaking from behind the door, frozen, afraid and I can’t leave her, she’s forgiven me for what I did…but why can’t I forgive myself? The swarming wasps have driven the water down to my belly. They march from my throat and I draw a long gasping breath as the water recedes down my legs, the dying wasps pushing Sedna’s Kin Eaters down, saving me—
    “She won’t be able to hold the water for long,” Lily says. “Help me get him through the door when the water releases his feet.”
    “I’m sorry,” I mumble, meeting Pim’s eyes. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”  
    Pim stands, approaches me, reaches out and holds my hand, and when she does I feel the water weaken and recede even more, it’s at my shins now, and the watery crash of waves against stone and the screams of the drowning rise to meet Sedna’s furious shrieks, the sound piercing my skull, and I squeeze my little sister’s hand tight while Shiori’s wasps work against the Kin Eaters and then the wasps reach the floor, form a small protective circle around me, the water damming up around them.
    “Now!” Lily screams.  
    Connor slams into my back while Pim tugs me forward, over the pooling water and through the open door, and I crash in a heap beside my brave sister, shivering and retching, then turn in time to see the wasps fly across the door’s threshold, holding the water back as it rises, growing deeper, a foot now, two feet, building up against the door and the dam of wasps, remorseless, cruel, unstoppable, while Sedna laughs and screeches in my ear, telling me how delicious my flesh is, how she longs to consume me for eternity, how I deserve this suffering for what I’ve done, and then the wasps form a wall a foot thick across the entire door, holding the water back, bulging and straining against the mounting pressure, their buzzing growing louder, more frantic—
    Lily walks close to the door and the buzzing wall of wasps and reaches her hand up. A single wasp lands in the center of her palm. She passes the wasp to Pimniq, then says, “All right, Shiori. Just a few seconds more.”
    Lily’s skin begins to steam and smoke. Her clothes smolder, then burst into flame and fall to the floor. I shield my eyes against the terrible heat and lean over Pim while Trish and Connor leap behind one of the steel tables.
    Lily’s skin glows white-red, so hot it shimmers. The linoleum floor blackens and melts beneath her while the pink-painted walls bubble and burn.  
    I scuttle backward, dragging Pim with me, the heat making the soles of my boots melt and then the wasps fall to the floor and the pent-up dam of ocean water bursts into the room with a tremendous crash.  
    Inside the wall of water I see the Kin Eaters, their thin, drowned forms and black, ravenous mouths, and then the water slams into Lily with a thundering hiss.  
    The water hits Lily’s superheated skin and evaporates into a thick cloud of mist that floats to the ceiling. Sedna shrieks at me from within the cloud, calling my name, calling me home, but the heat from Lily’s skin quickly dries the air and suddenly