His eyes rolled back, body taut, then he collapsed into my lap, going limp as a ragdoll.
My wolf howled inside me, a keening, broken sound.
I shoved my fingers to his neck, searching for his pulse. I closed my eyes and listened, feeling the slight tremor in his veins. It was weak but there. The bond flickered as I held onto it tight, then it slowly stopped trying to tear itself loose from me, settling into a calmer state. Relief punched the air from my lungs.
A wet, choked laugh echoed across the room, grabbing everyone's attention. The doctor. Bloodied, broken, yet still smiling.
This was his fault.
All of it.
He tried to beat me. He tried to take one of my men from me. He tried to rip my mate from me in the most agonizing way possible.
If he thought death was the worst thing I could have planned for him, he had no idea what real suffering looked like.
He would learn today.
* Fangs by Neoni
33
NOVA
I lowered Nick’s head to the floor as if he were made of glass, my hands refusing to let go until the very last second. Slowly, I rose to my feet, keeping the glacial pace to make sure my fury didn't get out of hand, thanks to the new cavern of hate that had unlocked inside me.
Cold fury filled my limbs. My breath came steadily and strong. I was locked in the kind of stillness that only existed right before something terrible happened.
The others must have felt it too because they stepped back without a word.
Every muscle in my body loosened, ready to strike, as my gaze locked onto the doctor. He trembled beneath Deslen’s jaguar form. A computer cord bound his wrists, cutting into his skin.
“You’re going to pay for that,” I whispered menacingly.
My finger twitched as I weighed my options. Rip out his tongue, shift, then tear him open, one slice at a time, making it so his silence drew him mad? Or take out all of this aggression, all thisneed for pain and vengeance, on his body, then slice him into pieces and hang them in the woods as a warning?
Answers first, Nova,my mind tutted.
Fine. I’ll do it the right way.
I jerked my chin toward the stretcher, never taking my eyes off the doctor. “Get him on it. Strap him down.”
Zeth and Conrad moved in an instant, their sharp, clipped motions betraying the barely leashed violence burning under their skin. They wanted blood as badly as I did.
I could hear them letting Jeremy loose, telling him how to get out. Jeremy thanked them, then a set of running steps echoed down the passageway until it was silent again.
In seconds, the doctor was on the stretcher, thrashing uselessly as my mates cinched the restraints tight enough to bruise bone.
Once they backed away, I grabbed the straps and yanked them even tighter under the guise of checking their work. What Ireallywanted was for him to feel me taking away the last millimeter of freedom he had left.
“You know how this goes,” I murmured as I leaned over him, my body pressing him further into the table. “The warnings. The pain. The lessons. Rinse and repeat until you get what you want, right?”
My hand slid up his throat. I squeezed lightly, using just enough force to steal a breath. His left eye flicked toward me, wide and frantic.
“But unlike the others I’ve interrogated,” I whispered, my tongue running over my elongated fang, “you’re not making it out alive.”
“You know nothing,” he snapped, his breath hitching as he tried to build up a mental wall of resistance. “He’ll come, and when you’re begging for death by my hands, you’ll see the error of your judgment.”
I rolled my eyes hard enough to see stars. “Really?That’sthe line you’re using?”
