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“You’ll be dead either way, so it won’t matter.” When I take a step toward him, he scurries backward.
“Please, Jarik. Don’t—I showed your female mercy. Kept her safe when I had every right to punish her for your transgressions.” He’s begging now.
My ears perk and my sensitive hearing picks out the cadence of hurried strides coming from a dozen or more rapidly approaching bodies. Word travels fast within the Den, but if they’ve come to stop me it’s too late. I will finally have my revenge.
I stalk my prey as the theater quickly fills with members of the brotherhood. Eyes searching over the sea of familiar faces, I notice that Luka is missing, and Jacob is standing at the back. To my surprise no one comes forward to assist Marcus. I would have thought at least a handful would. But no. This soon becomes apparent to the vampire, as well.
“Where is your fealty to me?” Marcus hisses at the gathered Brotherhood. “I order you to stop this! Don’t you see what is happening? Jarik has gone feral and must be put down!”
“This is a challenge, Marcus. No one is allowed to intervene,” Jacob speaks up as he makes his way to the front. “You, out of all of us, should know that.”
“This isn’t a challenge!” Spittle flies from his mouth as he backs away from me until he’s pressed to the stage. “This is a coup.”
“Call it what you like,” my beast growls. “The end will be the same regardless.”
Desperation finally wins out and Marcus bears wickedly sharp fangs at me. Venom drips from the tips and he hisses at me, just like the snake he really is, before he lunges. He has a millennia of years on me, but he’s never been a warrior. Not like my beast. That’s not to say he is without skill or weapons. One slice of his poisoned fangs and I’ll be incapacitated, and he’s fast, even for vampire standards.
Marcus screams when he lunges. My eyes can hardly keep up with the blur of movement, but my reflexes react instinctively. Coming at me with fangs and claws aiming for my carotid, I manage to step to the side just before he reaches me. Wrapping my arms around his torso I pull him against me so that I can clamp my jaws around the side of his neck instead.
He howls with indignation.
His bitter blood floods my mouth when I bite and pull until his head separates from his body.
The room is utterly silent as I toss him aside, savoring the two separate splats he makes when he hits the ground. My chest is heaving as my beast tips his head back and howls in victory. My other side is a bit more subdued. Already, the weight of what just happened is weighing on me. As is the silence that surrounds me.
I am Alpha of Alphas.
I should be happy. This is my birthright, after all. A title that was stolen from me. Turning a disgusted look at Marcus’s mutilated body, I spit. My beast wants to piss on it, but it’s that moment I hear the sweetest sound.
“Jarik?” Mercy’s voice echoes through the theater. “Oh, my god!”
The gathered crowd ripples as she pushes her way through toward me. I barely have time to catch her when she flings herself at me, despite the fact I’m covered in blood and still in my beast form.
“Are you okay?” she asks, burying her face against my neck as her arms and legs curl around me.
My beast chuffs with amusement before sinking back below the surface, giving our much safer human body to our mate. My arms band around her, one hand sliding under her hair to cup the back of her head, while the other holds her against me.
“Bejbe,” I whisper against the side of her face, “I could not be better, now that I have you in my arms.”
I don’t miss the contented little sigh she makes. Or the way she tenses when she looks to the side, where Marcus lies.
“Did you make him suffer?” she asks.
Of all the things she could have asked me, I was not prepared for that.
“Not enough.” I admit.
“Hmm. Too bad.”
My cock goes rock hard, and my hand tightens in her hair, pulling her head back so that I can look at her and then I groan before crushing my lips to hers. Her tongue meets mine in a hungry dance, flooding my senses with her sweet taste and I savor the sting when she curls her blunt nails into my back.
Someone clears their throat. Loudly. Reminding me that we’re far from alone, not that I give a shit, but the way Mercy tenses in my arms suggests that she might.
Reluctantly, I pull away from my mate’s sweet kiss and slowly lower her to her feet, making sure to drag her down the length of my body so she can feel just how she affects me. Lifting my eyes to the brotherhood, I’m shocked to find them all kneeling.
“Oh, hell no. Get on your feet!” I bark at them. “There will be none of that bullshit.”
Laughter peppers the theater, and everyone slowly returns to their feet.
