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I’d seen Warrick fight a three-headed beast once, after it escaped Hell, but he’d been in his hellhound form then. I’d never seen him fight like this. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he stood there, steady, unmoving, barely a scratch on him as the other male cursed him out, posturing and feigning lunge after lunge.

Still, Warrick didn’t move, didn’t expend energy he didn’t need to, and waited.

Finally, Axton rushed him, and Warrick stepped aside, delivering a devastating blow to the other male’s kidney. He went down and Warrick advanced, fisted his hair, and dragged him to the edge of the pit, smashing his face into the charred packed earth wall. Axton dropped to his hands, and Warrick yanked his head back again.

The bravado had dropped from the prone male’s face, and he shook his head. “No…please, alpha…”

Lothar growled under his breath. “Fucking coward.”

“I’ll leave…I’ll never come back,” he said, begging for his life.

Warrick looked into his eyes. “You attacked my female, you made her bleed, and then you dared to challenge me. The former alone is enough for me to put you to death, the latter you walked into willingly, knowing exactly what the consequences of defeat were.”

“No…please…”

Warrick twisted his head with fierce brutality, snapping the hellhound’s neck. Then he yanked a wicked-looking knife from his boot and hacked it off.

“Jesus,” I said, watching in horror.

“If he doesn’t take his head, he could survive. We heal from most injuries,” Jagger said.

Then Warrick shoved the huge knife back in its sheath at his hip and strode to the edge of the pit. The hounds gathered around it, lifted their hands, palms up, and flames appeared, dancing across their skin, licking over their thick fingers.

I had no idea they could do that.

Warrick shook his head.

Silence filled the room.

I took in the faces of Warrick’s brothers, their gazes lowering as they curled their fingers into fists, extinguishing their fire. “What’s going on?”

“Burning him would send his soul back to Hell. Leaving his body to rot means his soul will be in eternal limbo.”

Warrick meant business. You challenge him, and he will destroy you in every possible way. Why was I finding it hard to breathe all of a sudden?

Warrick looked at the males surrounding him, meeting their eyes, one by one. His chest heaved with his rage, his face contorted with the same. He was covered in blood, dominance rolling off him, saturating the room. “You lay your hands on my female, you dare touch what’s mine, I will fucking end you. You challenge me for head of this pack, you enter the pit prepared to fight to the death. You’ll get no mercy here.”

Growls and grunts of approval echoed around them.

Then his eyes found me, and he drew in a ragged breath before moving my way.

Gripping the edge of the pit, he jumped out, grabbed my hand, and led me out after him.

My first instinct was to pull away, but that would be the absolute worst thing I could do in that moment. His heavy handedness may drive me nuts, but after that, I’d be humiliating him in front of his brothers, and even I wasn’t that much of a bitch.

I glanced at him and bit my lip. My heart was beating too fast and my mouth was dry. “Did you really just sentence your brother to eternal limbo?” I asked.

“Yes,” Warrick said. “And he ceased being my brother the moment he dared to lay hands on you.”

I said no more as tingles shot up my arm from where his hand engulfed mine, hot and rough and covered in blood.

I sensed it probably wasn’t the time for any kind of conversation about what he’d said, and where we stood, and why that declaration he just made in front of everyone was kind of…well, it was nuts.

Not after he just killed someone, brutally, in part for hurting me. So I shut my damned mouth and let him drag me back to his room.

* * *

I woke in Warrick’s bed, the domineering male himself behind me, the intense heat of his body soaking right into my bones. We’d come in here last night, and he’d ordered me to get into bed. Then he’d walked into the bathroom and slammed the door. I’d still been standing by the bed, unsure of what to do, when he walked out, freshly showered and in only a towel.