Nero
The water tastedand smelled foul. Rage boiled my blood. The water had been soiled not once, but multiple times by Klimt. He treated the environment the same way he treated Remington—selfishly, cruelly, with no regard to anything except himself.
“You,” I growled. “What the hell are you doing?”
Klimt paced the top of the cliff, looking down on us. He barely spared me a glance before staring at Remington. “Finally got your attention, didn’t I, Remmy?”
Physical repulsion gripped my mate. He shuddered and snapped, “Never call me that ever again.”
I was just as angry. That nickname was reserved for people who actually cared about him, and Klimt was not one of those people.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Remington take a determined step forward. There was no fear in his eyes, just fury. "I told you to leave this territory and I meant it. I'm not going to ask again."
"This isn't your territory, is it?" Klimt said, defiantly swishing his tail. "You live with the pack in that grove. You can't claim this entire area as your territory. That's just greedy."
"I can and I will," Remington growled. “The wildlife reserve legally belongs to me, whether you like it or not. And I don’t plan on sitting back and letting you defile it.”
Klimt paused, as if taken aback by Remington’s confident defiance. I was proud of my mate for standing up to this asshole. Klimt had bullied him in the past but he wasn’t going to take it anymore.
“Big talk for a little omega,” Klimt said. “Or can you only stand up for yourself when your fish friend is around?”
“Nero is my mate,” Remington growled.
Klimt turned his sneer onto me. “That right? Well, you just fell into bed with the first alpha you met, didn’t you, Remington?”
My jaw clenched. I wanted to rip his throat out for daring to talk about Remington like that.
“You can say whatever you want up there on your cliff,” Remington said, deadly calm. “Come down here and say that to my face if you really want to know what I think.”
Klimt snorted and stalked over to the disgusting pile that blocked the water flow. “I don’t know if I will. I like it just fine where I am.” He took a bite of half-rotting meat. How long had it been there? Even my shark was repulsed. “There’s plenty of food and water, and it’s all for me.”
The fur on Remington’s shoulders raised like black spikes. “You don’t have any respect for anything, do you?”
“Oh, get off your high horse, omega,” Klimt said. “You only grew a spine because some alpha fucked you and said you were his fated mate, and you were stupid enough to believe him.”
My vision went red. I’d never been so pissed off in my life. How dare he speak about Remington like that?
My instincts told me to rush up to the cliff and strangle him, but Remington slammed a paw firmly into the ground.
“Don’t,” Remington muttered. “Don’t fall for his taunts. He’s a weak coward who doesn’t have anything better to do than seek attention by acting like an asshole.”
Visibly annoyed by this, Klimt said, “Is that so?”
“Yes. That’s why you built this rotting dam, isn’t it? To get my attention?”
Klimt narrowed his eyes. His silence was enough to confirm it. Instead of replying with a decent argument, he lifted his leg and pissed on the half-eaten prey pile. It infuriated me. The remaining water flow was strong enough to dilute it, but I still smelled its acrid stink. I leapt out of the water, shifting back and growling through gritted teeth.
But I almost wished I hadn’t when Klimt barked out a cruel laugh. “What use is afishto you, Remington? He can’t even do anything. You need a real alpha, a wolf like me. Does he even have a knot?”
Remington stared at Klimt silently. But his wasn’t a silence of agreement—it was one of confidence, of someone who knew that he was in the right and that he didn’t have to prove anything to his opponent.
“Nero is a better man than you’ll ever be,” Remington said. “So spit all the insults you want. It won’t make you superior to him.”
My rage began to dissipate. I was still angry that Klimt was defiling the environment and its creatures, and I still intended to stop him, but I was less reactive to his useless insults. My mate was right. They didn’t mean anything because they came from a worthless man.
Still in his wolf form, Remington looked up at me. “Do you want to leave?”
“I would. But I can’t let him keep doing this,” I said, nodding towards the grotesque dam. “He’s killing needlessly, wasting food and letting it rot, not to mention purposely polluting the water. Someone has to stop him.”
