He was dressed in mottled dark gray and black trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, all of it tight-fitting with small pockets that most likely held weapons or poisons. He wore a strange sort of gloves and a hooded mask, every inch of him covered. In a flash, he stood at the edge of the bed, a knife coming up from below. I moved the axe blade in time to intercept it and leaped from the bed to fight him.
Vali screamed as if I had wounded her, but I would not risk the blade coming close to my mate. The axe was unwieldy, and I swore to the Goddess if I survived this night, I would practice with it until I was an expert.
I would practice with a pitchfork or a gardening spade, or a fucking butter knife, if it meant keeping Vali safe.
I shifted my feet as the man and I fought, me with an oversized weapon, and he with an undersized one. I had just swung upward to block an overhand strike when some of the cloth from Vali’s nest that had fallen to the floor ended up under my heel. The man feinted left, toward the door, as if he were running away. I tried to leap after him, but the slippery cloth sent me to one knee.
In that split second, the man whirled, and was up on the edge of the bed, Axe’s long hair in one hand, his blade—poisoned, from the shine of liquid that coated the metal—held high in the other as he prepared to pull it across Axe’s neck.
Vali
Iwas swimming in a silver-blue sea of sensation—heat and spice, musk and pressure, pain and undeniable, all-encompassing pleasure combined—when a red mist began to intrude.
My nest. I was in my nest. It smelled of me and my Alphas: musk and rich earth, sage and cedarwood. Then, suddenly another scent—bitter and acidic, rusted iron and sulfur—assaulted my senses. My nest had been broken, ruined.
Violated.
Why had my mates allowed this? I couldn’t see; the world was a haze of light and heat, my body itching as if a thousand ants were biting me, stinging underneath my skin.
I screamed out my agony.
I forced my eyes to open, my head to turn, and saw what had caused it.
Tarn was across the room, lunging for the bed, but held as if some invisible force stayed his movement.
My mate, my Axe, was still. He towered over me, his head pulled back and an expression of rage and horror painted on his face. A knife pressed against his throat, the blade glinting close to the wicked scar he wore from the day he had protected his brother and lost his voice forever. Blood ran thick and red from the cut that had already opened, though the wound didn’t look fatal… yet.
I couldn’t even see the person attached to the hand that held the knife. A voice spoke, “Just give me the woman, and I’ll let him live,” each word sandpaper grinding across my sensitive skin, abrading my mind.
The cloud of pleasure, the sea of feeling that had been drowning me so pleasantly began to boil. He dared to come into my nest, to threaten my mate. My Axe, my sweet mountain of a man, who loved me, who gave me all of himself, who had provided my nest.
Somehow, I had moved to my feet on the bed, standing in the middle of the ruined nest, and I stared down at the dead man who didn’t know he was dead.
“Give you the woman?” My voice was terrifying, louder than any human’s should be. Blood began to trickle from the dead man’s ears, and he blinked, the knife at Axe’s throat shaking. “You want me, male?” My voice became a strange, double-toned purr, and the man’s hand on the knife trembled again.
I ran my fingers down my body, rubbing the sweat, cream, and slick into my skin. This man’s eyes traced my moving hands, his lust thickening the air between us with a sulfuric scent that tore at my nostrils when I inhaled. But it wouldn’t hurt me for long. “You want me?”
“The Guild does,” he hissed out, the answer forced from him. “And I’ll have you before I take you back to them.”
Tarn hissed something. Axe, unable to stay still for so long when his mate was in danger, took a breath. The slight motion caused the razor-sharp knife to slip ever so slightly deeper into his skin, so close to the artery that throbbed there.
Too close. My hand flicked up and I signed, “Let me kill him.” Axe’s eyes filled with confusion and fear. Silly man. Didn’t he know this place was where I held all the power? My nest, my chosen mates around me? There was no force in the world that could overpower me here, I thought. No, I knew it, as certainly as I knew who I was, who I loved, and what I needed to do next.
I slid across the bed, ignoring everything but my duty to rid my nest of this filth. I pressed my body into Axe’s, allowing his skin to cool the raging fire of mine as I leaned over his enormous shoulder, and lifted my face to the assassin’s cold eyes. “Little kiss now?” I purred. The purring relaxed Axe just enough to trust me, to hold off.
The odious man sneered, muttered, “The legends were right about you Omega sluts,” and took my mouth in a punishing kiss.
Or tried to. I set my hands on each side of his head, over his ears, and my teeth to his lips faster than he could move away.
His screams were almost melodic.
His blood tasted hot and bitter, and I spat it out along with the hunk of flesh I had torn away, as I leaned back and roared into his face, a wordless, deafening sound that shook the very walls of the room.
The strident noise went on and on, pouring out of my mouth as blood poured from his. He was frozen in my hands, and the golden light from my eyes seared into him, filling him, burning him.
Hewasburning. Flames erupted all over his skin, though they did not touch me or anything else. The air was filled with the sounds of my mates growling and cursing, and the unremitting stench of burned flesh. And my nest, my perfect nest…
It was ruined. I had ruined it.
