Darius's POV
The red haze descended over me slowly, like a living creature crawling under my skin and seizing control of every fiber of my body. When Cassian dragged the stray into the tent, I already knew there would be no mercy. The stench of betrayal was stronger than blood. In his eyes I saw the lie, the fear, the filth his pack had left in him. And inside me, there was no room left for words.
My hand clenched around the blade with cold, instinctive certainty, as though it were an extension of my own body. His voice, his struggling, his choking screams—background noise. It didn’t matter that Cassian held him in iron, didn’t matter that the stray might still talk, might give us the advantage. In the red haze, there was no strategy. Only judgment. Only the act that needed to be done.
