Abruptly, he smiles and takes a step back.
“Dawson mentioned you were a handful on occasion. But I instructed him on how to best bring you to heel.”
Carnell chuckles as if considering an amusing memory.
“Still, my first son wasn’t as bright as I could have hoped. Entirely his whore of a mother’s fault. Gullible, really. All that biting in vain. It worked, though, to keep him hopeful, and you…subdued. I’m sure you remember it well?”
His son?
Oh shit.All the biting Hayes had done to Nix had been Carnell’s idea. All the torture had beenCarnell’s idea.
Gideon.Oh, Goddess,this will break his soulmate’s heart.
This makes the nausea from his BBS and the rage so much worse. Luca’s scent turns into burnt coffee, and he’s out from behind Nix, intent on murder before he takes a single breath.
It’s only Nix catching him with both hands on his arms that saves him from an embarrassing physical or magical beat-down.
It wouldn’t matter, though. Luca would gladly go down in flames for the chance to give Carnell a fatal throat punch.
“Luca,” Nix says.
Luca ignores his mate, kicking out and snarling, “Disgusting pig.”
Laughing, Withers appears in their periphery so he can reach a glass of lemonade and drink it in a single gulp.
“Sooooo sassy,” he says before booping Luca on the nose with his icy finger.
There’s a rush of cold that starts in his head and sets up shop at the top of his spine, but Luca still snaps his fangs to warn him off.
Carnell just laughs and bites into an egg-salad sandwich. A clump of egg catches in the few hairs that he’d missed shaving around his mouth.
“And where would you be if Dawson hadn’t somehow lost that pendant? Still locked in a closet, starving to death, surely. Ah, well, perhaps I should have turned you myself, Austin Rena.
“You turning out to be an omega certainly was unexpected. I was angry at first, as I hadn’t seen that coming. I don’t like surprises, and I was certainly surprised to hear that your dead alpha managed to turn you into—”
“Blah blah blah. You still haven’t told me why I shouldn’t rip your throat out,” Nix interrupts, his grip on Luca’s arm not letting up a single iota. Maybe he isn’t quite sure Luca has control of his temper yet.
Good call.
“Not interested in story-time, or a walk down memory lane?”
Sighing, Carnell sticks the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and drinks another sip of lemonade before burping loudly.
“Let’s just say you could try to hurt me, omega, but you seem to care for Luca, and as I expect Allistair prefers you alive, I promise that everything you do to me, Aleksander will make sure your little beta feels tenfold. Aleksander, where are we with that spell?”
“Just finished up.Yum…my favorite.”
He salutes them with two fingers before grabbing a sandwich for himself. The rare beef inside has made the bread pink, and he shoves the whole thing into his mouth so he can chew with his mouth open, smiling all the while.
“Ooh ooh,” he says excitedly, “what do you say, let’s test it out.”
He can feel it more clearly the moment Withers says it.
That icy dread from before is sitting like a cloud in the back of his mind.
He’s not sure he would have noticed it unless they’d pointed it out, because it feels like just another layer of his anxiety.
It’s horrifying to imagine there is something foreign in his brain like a magical parasite, feeding off his life force and rendering his pack’s most dangerous weapon impotent. Luca wants to tear at his hair and scream for Withers totake it out, take it out, take it out!
