Damian wraps an arm around my waist, keeping me firmly in place as he rests his chin on my shoulder. “Do you have any idea what some of these guys would do to have you fussing over them?”
With saccharine sweetness dripping sarcastically from my voice, I offer, “Challenge you to a fight to the death?”
His quiet laughter against my back is followed by a soft kiss to my temple. “I know I’m a broken record, but it’s only because I understand what it’s like to be on the other side of things. When you have someone that means everything to you, it comes with living in constant fear of losing them.”
Nothing involving Nightmare-wolves can ever be simple, can it?
“Pain makes us feel alive,”she replies wistfully.“And it helps us appreciate what we have since we know how it feels to be hollow.”
Hunter snorts. “Laying it on a little thick there, D. If you’re kissing ass because you want something, pretty sure she’d prefer you ask her straight out.”
––––––––
Slipping my hand outfrom beneath Hunter’s, I tuck it under my thigh to warm up and try not to laugh. “Don’t listen to him, Damian. Please, feel free to continue singing my praises as much as you’d like. Seriously, though, I thought you’d be a hell of a lot more upset after what you went through. What did that guy say to you, anyway?”
Leo and Adrian keep half an eye on Kaige’s fight, but shoot a quick glance at Damian, interested in the answer as well, but are attempting to be discreet about it. They both fail miserably, but while Ash is using this show to test the waters and gather information, it allows me the opportunity to do the same.
Damian’s grip tightens, his arm becoming an immovable band around my waist. Debating the matter for a moment, he ultimately sighs and angrily confesses, “Ash warned him that should he succeed and take my place, he’ll expect nothing short of perfection from here on out.”
My inner demon settles in my chest, her sudden flash of anger giving me instant heartburn. Scrubbing the heel of my hand over my heart with a scowl, I reluctantly question, “Dare I ask why?”
Gently biting my shoulder, Damian appeases some of his own ragged emotions before finishing with a disgusted scoff. “Because apparently ‘everyone knows the quickest way to hurt a king is through his queen’. And once he realized that he'd end up sharing a mate with Wilder, death was a more appealing choice. It was a last-ditch plea for help from someone that was more afraid of walking away from that fight alive than he was of losing. So, I gave him the only gift I was able to; a swift death."
Leo scrubs a hand down his face, turning his entire furious attention on me. “And we’ve been giving you shit about staying here.” A low, deadly growl rises from him that has Adrian subtly putting another step between the two of them. “We should rethink our pl-”
Dramatically clearing his throat, Damian cuts him off, shooting a pointed look at Adrian. Leo scowls, changing gears. “We should rethink where you guys are going to live. Even if you do exactly what he wants and free the demons, if Wilder is this hellbent on trying to win you over after all of this time, I don’t see him letting you walk away afterward. As much as it kills me-” bowing his head, he scratches the back of his neck, refusing to look at me “- this place isn’t safe for you. You should leave; the sooner the better.”
Adrian remains far too disinterested in the conversation, attempting to be casual when any normal person would be wanting to gossip about it. For all of Aurelia’s claims about me being a wild card, as far as I’m concerned, Adrian is the real one. He’s Ash’s right hand, yet everything he’s done thus far has led me to believe that he loathes the position, is determined to prove that he’s smarter than everyone gives him credit for. And based on what happened with Annika, he was willing to risk it all even knowing how dangerous Ash is, because at his core, he’s self-serving.
Now that we know his motives, Acheron Wilder is predictable. Adrian Ronen? He has his hand in just as many pots as the monster pulling his strings, yet no one but the man himself knows what he actually wants. And while everyone else is willing to brush off a rankless wolf as a kiss-ass lackey to a supervillain, I keep circling around to the fact that he’s continuously popping up in my life, only to go back to flying under the radar.
The most dangerous things are the ones that hide in plain sight until they become so commonplace, you forget that they even exist.
Screams draw me out of my contemplation, pulling my eye to where Kaige has his opponent face down and is straddling his hips. With one hand pinning the guy’s crossed wrists over the back of his neck, his other hand is busy carving away at the exposed expanse of his back. Bloody rivulets stream down to the mud-caked ground, yet no matter how the poor bastard bucks and thrashes, Kaige is relentless. I get a brief flash of his eyes, and I’m more than a little surprised to see a sliver of orange still visible, even if his counterpart is primarily running the show.
Kaige, Hunter, and Reid are the ones that I worry about the most. They’re the ones that have been completely at odds with their inner demons, the ones that have fought harder than any of them to remain separate entities. But Kaige is making it abundantly clear that all of my worrying was for nothing.
He’s just as much of a psychopath as his demon is.
The clearing seems to hold a collective breath, making Kaige’s whispered words audible from here with little effort. “Your death at my hand is a mercy, because Sabrina?” He flicks the knife with a flourish as he finishes carving the last line into his victim’s back. “She’s the thing Nightmareswishthey were made of.”
With zero hesitation, he releases the guy’s wrists to grip his hair and lift his head, brings his knife to the poor bastard’s throat, and slits it open with one slash. Even then, Kaige holds his position until the last bit of fight has left the man beneath him, ensuring he’s actually dead before rising to his feet. If our time with the lycans has taught us anything, it’s that when you’re facing death’s doorstep and have nothing to lose, you have no reason to hold back. And after their experience with Ash, I can’t fault him for triple checking that there isn’t a heartbeat or spec of life left before he finally lets go.
Tipping his head respectfully towards his fallen packmate, he wipes the blood off of his blade on his pants before folding the pocket knife and tucking it away. Striding our way without once looking back, when he reaches us, he completely disregards everyone else, stealing me off of Damian’s lap.
Handling him like a ticking time bomb, I brush my knuckles down his cheek, forced to wrap my legs around his waist. “If you were jealous of Cin’s handiwork, you know that you can only one-up him by letting me see what you did, right?”
Opening the front door to the cabin, he sets me on the edge of the table in the main room before speaking. “I didn’t do it for bragging rights.”
“Color me intrigued.”
Palming the nape of my neck, he rests his forehead against mine and admits, “I might have gotten carried away and done something incredibly stupid in the heat of the moment.”
Leo’s heavy footsteps proceed him as he storms in and unceremoniously shoves me off of the edge of the table on his way past, only Kaige’s quick reflexes saving me from falling onto my ass on the floor. “Ieatthere. For the love of everything unholy and otherwise, can’t you wait until you’re in your own place? Fucking hell.”
As he rummages around in the fridge, withdrawing the cooler of blood bags, Kaige and I reply in tandem, “No.”
Silently gagging, he shoots me a disapproving glare. “I tried to look at things from the other point of view, but seeing you as my sister-in-law isn’t any better. Can you-” gesturing at the two of us, he slams the refrigerator door shut with a huff “- not? How the fuck am I supposed to sleep knowing what type of shit you’re doing around here? Is that why Sebastian decided it was time for spring cleaning the other day, as an excuse to kick you out of the house?”
