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Will’s first words were a raw curse. His voice had changed since Maddox last spoke to him. It was deeper and perhaps more dominant. It was rougher and nastier. There was very little to love about Will in this moment.
Maddox smiled broadly. It was not the kind of smile anybody who had ever seen it before had lived to tell the tale thereof. Thousands of lives had ended shortly after the expression. Will, even in their many months of intimacy, had never seen it either. Will did not have the sense left to realize how much danger he was in. He was too angry, too hurt, too outright animal.
“Watch your words, pup,” Maddox intoned, his voice smooth, calm, and unaffected. “I am still your master.”
“You’re nobody’s master. You’re Gideon’s fuck boy.”
Maddox restrained the impulse to immediately fly at Will and teach him a brutal, physical lesson. He had never allowed this level of insolence and disrespect. Will knew better than to speak to him in such a way, even as a beast.
“I have come for you, William. You may come of your own free will, or I can put you back in a cage.”
Will laughed, a wild, maniacal sound. “Nobody will ever capture me again. I will die first. Get the hell out of here. I don’t want you, I don’t need you, and I don’t fucking like you.”
His words were just as vicious as his actions, delivered in cutting, cold tones. There was not a hint of weakness or affection in his gaze, not any sign of the love they had once shared.
None of this caused Maddox any concern at all. He continued to smile that particularly dangerous smile, his high cheekbones, cruel features, and dark eyes lit by the helpless flashing of ambulance lights. He was not here to cuddle his wayward pup. He was here to claim him.
William had forgotten who he was talking to. In fact, Maddox wondered if he, too, had forgotten who Will was talking to.
He thrilled to the possessive dominance pulsing through his dead veins, the primal urge to claim and own animating him.
“William,” he purred Will’s full name elegantly. “I am going to break you.”
Will clenched the dismembered leg by the ankle and approached Maddox, wielding it threateningly like a club.
“Go away,” he repeated. “I don’t need you, I don’t need your pack master, I don’t need my father. I don’t need anyone.”
“You’re wrong, of course,” Maddox replied, feeling an intense affection for Will, an emotion nearly as strong as his desire to hear Will scream. Things were much worse than they had been when he first claimed his wolf pup, but that did not change the basic dynamics at play. Will needed a firm hand, and Maddox was that hand.
Will took a swing at Maddox. The leg was from an adult male and had quite a bit of squelching heft to it. Maddox leaned back slightly, allowing the severed bone to pass by under his nose.
They both knew these tactics weren’t ones of true aggression. Maddox could not be bested with a leg. Beatings, even nasty, violent ones could not harm a vampire lord. Maddox took this display as Will’s attempt to show him what he needed. A golden rule enactment of sorts.
The boy needed a beating.
When Maddox moved, he moved quickly. Far faster than Will could move, and a lot faster than he could see. From Will’s perspective, one moment he was waving a leg around menacingly, the next moment he was restrained in the cold arms of his vampire master. Maddox’s powerful limbs made movement impossible.
Will had forgotten how strong Maddox was. He had forgotten a lot of things. He remembered several of them all at once as Maddox sank his fangs into the back of Will’s neck, sharp teeth sinking through the powerful muscle at the base. It was not a feeding bite. It was a bite designed to dominate and subjugate.
Will wanted to fight. Tried to fight. He thrashed around, as much as Maddox’s grip would allow and found that all it did was cause him to rip his own flesh, resulting in a very painful wound indeed.
“That is going to need stitches,” Maddox said as his teeth came free. He transferred part of his grip to the back of Will’s bloodied head. “But first, I am going to give you a bath, mucky little pup.”
“Let me go!”
“Absolutely not. Not ever again.”
Will cursed, knowing the words to mean nothing. Maddox had forsaken him at Gideon’s insistence once before, and there was nothing to stop him from doing it again. All it would take was that ancient evil commanding it, and he would be abandoned again.
“You already fucking did, asshole.”
“We will talk about that.”
“Oh, talking. Yeah. I give a shit about talking. Just got done gutting three people in a shiny van, and you think I want to hear you fucking talk?”
“Yes,” Maddox said calmly. “You’re a very scary, very bad boy. Now come.”
He used his grip to maneuver Will away from the scene of his brutal crime, and into the back of the vehicle he had arrived in. Will was not particularly surprised to discover that Henry and Lorien were in there too. Henry was on the far side of the back seat, and Maddox put Will in next to him before getting in himself. Lorien was driving.
