I tighten my grip until his words become strangled gasps.
“You touched what belongs to me.”
I lift him from the floor, his legs dangling. His reality-warping magic flickers as panic overwhelms his concentration. The distortion field around Braith dissolves.
“You made her afraid.”
Through the bond, I feel her emotional state—anger more than fear, satisfaction at seeing her captor helpless. But the principle remains. He caused herdistress.
I hurl him across the room hard enough to crack the stone wall behind his throne. He hits with a wet sound and slides to the floor, gasping for air through his damaged windpipe.
“Kiakoa.” Braith's voice draws my attention. “I'm all right. He didn't hurt me.”
I turn to look at her fully. Safe, unharmed, watching me not with fear but with satisfaction. As if this bloody trail through his stronghold is exactly what she expected from me.
“I know,” I tell her. “But he still took you. Still made you his prisoner. Still thinks he can persuade you to leave me.”
“He was wrong about that last part.”
“He was wrong about everything.”
Vasek struggles to his feet, blood running from his mouth where the impact split his lips. “You can't simply murder a peer lord without consequences. The others will unite against you?—”
“The others,” I say, stalking toward him slowly, “can join you.”
Vasek raises his hands, trying to summon reality-warping magic. The air ripples around him, space beginning to bend as he attempts to escape through dimensional manipulation.
I grab his wrists before the spell can fully form. The bones snap like dry wood under gentle pressure.
His scream echoes off the stone walls, high and musical and deeply satisfying. The magic dies with his concentration, leaving him defenseless and broken.
“This is for taking her from our home.”
I tear his left arm off at the shoulder. Blood sprays across the black throne, painting it crimson. The limb separates with a wet ripping sound that harmonizes beautifully with his shriek.
“This is for making her feel trapped, even for a moment.”
The right arm follows. More blood, more screaming, more satisfaction as centuries of arrogance crumble into animal terror.
“This is for thinking you could convince her to abandon me.”
I place my hands on either side of his head, claws pricking the soft flesh around his ears. He tries to speak—pleas, offers, desperate bargains—but I'm no longer interested in his words.
“And this is for believing she could ever choose anyone but me.”
I twist sharply. His neck snaps with a sound like breaking branches.
Silence returns to the throne room, broken only by the drip of blood on stone and the soft whispers of shadow servants feeding on the lingering violence.
I stand over Vasek's dismembered corpse, satisfaction humming through every nerve. The berserker rage hasn't faded, but it's found its target and consumed it completely.
Behind me, I hear Braith stand.
Footsteps approach across blood-slicked stone. I turn to face her, aware of what she sees—her mate covered in enemy blood, eyes still burning gold, hands still stained with the violence I committed to reclaim her.
She stops close enough to smell the copper and death clinging to my skin. Her gaze travels over the carnage, taking in Vasek's dismembered body, the blood painting the stone walls, the savage satisfaction still radiating from my frame.
“You killed them all,” she observes.
