Page 51 of Dancing With Demons

I hummed. “So this is what you get for slaughtering your brethren one after the other? One big room... and half a dozen little bitches.”

Tristan barked a laugh. “It’s not like I’m the one who challenged them to fights to the death. Those dead fuckers came up with that on their own, and these stupid fuckers”—he smacked one over the head—“egged them on. Father always said if you didn’t learn your lesson the first time, you’ll feel it the next time.”

“Hmm, interesting. My father always said if you’ve got to kill and beat people to get them to follow you... it’s because you’re ugly.”

Tristan’s laugh was loud, raucous, and truly very grating.

I cringed at the howling coming out of his mouth.

“Well, luckily, that’s not the case for me.” Tristan puffed his last puff, and then tamped the cigar right out on the back of an exposed neck. “Just ask Charlie,” he said, grinning over the wolf’s pained groaning.

I crooked a brow, the only sign of emotion I’d let him read on this glamoured face. “Yes, you were very successful in worming your way into Charlotte’s affections.” I raked him and his throne of bodies up and down. “If only she knew what you were really like.”

Tristan scoffed. This rough and roguish bastard was every bit the opposite of the charming, bashful fool who simpered after my pet. “Women don’t want to know what a man is really like. All they want is a slavishly devoted virgin in public, and a filthy, well-hung prostitute in private. There is no in between.”

“A belief and practice that earned you first mating rights among all the packs of hell. When you’re ready to mate and breed, you can fill your flea-bitten harem with any and every of-age female alpha that you want—provided they choose you back.” I cocked my head. “With that being the case, don’t you think you’re being a bit greedy going after Charlotte, too? And that’s coming from a demon.”

He waved my words away. “Greed’s got nothing to do with it. Charlie is amazing. She’s—”

“Perfect,” we said at the same time.

Tristan smirked, inclining his head over the first and only thing we’d ever agree on. “You know it too, Belphe,” he said, eyes glazing. “Charlie’s beautiful. She’s smart. She’s brave. She’s funny. She’s loyal. And she’s got hips wide enough for triplets. As soon as Lucifer finds someone else to fuck with, I’m climbing on top of her and we’re not stopping until she’s so full of my cum, even her eyes get pregnant.”

See? I said my agreeing with this fucker wouldn’t last long.

“The legends say that when mortals and werewolves breed, the children are always born wolves, and they’re always born as the same wolf-type as their lycan parent. That means alphas, pretty boy. Charlie’s going to give me a whole pack of strong, unstoppable alphas, and if that doesn’t make her the most valuable addition to my harem, what does?”

I sighed, propping up against the mantel. “Fucking, breeding, and killing. That’s all you wolves care about. That’s all you care about, No-Name, and every fake blush and manufactured words of sympathy you poured in Charlotte’s ears was just you playing the game.”

“What?” He snorted. “Is this the part where I’m supposed to manufacture some repentance? There’s nothing fake about the rock hard-on I get every time I see that woman. I want to bury my face in her hair and pound her ass until it splits in half. I want to cut myself open and find the chains she shackled around my heart, because I’ve been hers since the moment the glamour broke and gifted me an eyeful of her tits.

“Who cares about a fucking harem?” he growled. “If I have Charlie, I’ll have everything. And I will have Charlie Hunter.”

I listened with half an ear, nodding along. “I see. But if you’re so desperate to have Hunter, why have you let that leech go on existing?” Visions of the numerous puncture marks on Charlotte’s inner thigh flashed through my head... and brought rage along with it.

“Kill him,” I dropped. “Do it, and I’ll tell everyone—even the headmistress—that you were with me when it happened. We fucking hate each other, so no one will suspect I’m lying to give you an alibi.”

Tristan scoffed. “Like fuck you’re going to lie to give me an alibi. What you’re actually going to do is snitch your pretty-boy ass off to everyone with ears that I killed a professor, and get yourself two dead rivals for the price of one.”

Fuck him for being so smart. This shithead didn’t become the youngest pack alpha in the history of his pack for nothing.

“Besides, I can’t kill Radu. No one can,” Tristan went on. “He’s the reason the leeches aren’t trying to drain Charlie every minute of every day. Radu’s an Elder. Disobeying his orders is an immediate execution without trial. And he ordered them to keep their fangs off Charlie.”

I straightened, brows crumpling. “He’s an Elder? Well, that’s very... annoying.”

“He stays,” Tristan stated. “Charlie needs him, but they have to be kept apart. One whiff of that room he was holding her in, and it was clear the dear old professor was tapping more than her veins.”

My fists balled, lips peeling from my teeth. I could hear the seams of my jacket and pants straining and snapping as control over my malevolent form slipped. Bad enough that moving carcass drank her blood, but then he further signs his death warrant and fucks my pet too?

It didn’t matter now if Tristan killed him, or if it was done by some other pawn with no brains in his head and nothing to lose.

Radu would die before the year was out.

“Well then, since Radu’s bought himself another day, I can tell you the other reason I’m here,” I began. “In the spirit of the fruitful partnership we’re going to have with you now that you’re the exclusive weapons producer to House Belphe, I felt it was only right that I come and tell you this news in person.”

Tristan was already bored with this conversation. The wolf lit another cigar, and his chair trembled beneath him at the first strike of the match. “Get on with it, then.”

“I just thought you should know...” Smirking with a pleasure almost as all-consuming as the moist, tasty holes of Charlotte Hunter, I lifted my sleeve—revealing the mark of her true name. “She’s mine.”