Sage gave a low warning growl, his silvery eyes fixed on me as I entered my domain. Lying on the floor beside the couch, he sank his deadly fangs into the mangled leather of a boot, wrestling his head from side to side with one enormous paw over the boot’s upper for leverage.
I drifted to a slow halt.
My eyes rounded as I took in what was scattered all over the floor.
What the hells?
Every single shoe I owned was chewed to a pulp. Torn to pieces. Ripped to shreds. Just mutilated strips of leather and crunched metal zips and butchered soles. The only pair of shoes I had left were the ones I was wearing.
“What the fuck is all of this?” I bellowed, flinging my arms outward, waving them at the surrounding destruction.
Nelle’s gaze darted to the boot in Sage’s maw, then back to her book. “He’s bored and there was nothing else to play fetch with.”
“He can leave the rooms,” I bit out, as anger blustered its way through my veins. The godsdamned wraith-wolf could come and go as he pleased.
“He won’t, because I can’t,” she snapped, turning another page with an annoyed flick. She finally turned her gaze toward me. A cold feeling swept through me to see her eyes sparkle with barely concealed mirth. “Enjoy your evening out, asshole?” she crooned, taunting me.
I just lost it there and then. Fury tore through me in blistering swaths.
“How dare you mock my cock!” I roared, storming forward to stab a finger at her. “You know it’s nothing like how you described!”
Her eyes narrowed and became mean. She swung her legs over the couch, the blankets falling away as she pushed up to stand and step over Sage so we were face to face. She craned her neck back and spat out, “How would I know? I hadn’t any experience before I met yours!”
“I gave you multiple orgasms. Loads of times. Too many fucking times to count!” The shit that was leaving my mouth—I had no idea how to rein in.
“Has it ever crossed your ego-inflated mind that I might have been FAKING THEM?!”
“Un-fucking-likely!” I roared back. But there’d been a slight hesitation filled with doubt before I roared it.
Nelle hissed and hurled her book at me. I batted it aside, and it hit the carpet, the pages flapping as it splayed open wide.
My brothers had returned from dealing with the Widowmakers and needed to blow off some steam in Ascendria. It had been a brutal siege to crush the vicious crime syndicate, with a few of our warband falling in the bloodshed. When I’d arrived to pick them up from a nightclub and bring them home, unease had crept through me as I pushed my way through thecrowded club. I couldn’t work out why the mortals were giving me weird looks, then erupting into laughter.
I had no fucking idea what was going on, but I had an awful feeling who was behind it—Nelle Wychthorn.
My brothers, gathered at the end of the long glass-topped bar, had taken one look at me. Caidan had sprayed a mouthful of beer, Kenton cracked a rough cackle, and Jett had nearly fallen off his barstool with his crowing laughter.
Obviously, Nelle had found my old childhood arts and crafts box stuffed in the back of my storage cupboard. She’d discovered a special kind of pen my mother had given me years ago. The kind of pen you couldn’t see what was written unless you shone a certain light on it. The lights pulsing through the nightclub were perfect for illuminating the message Nelle had written over my black t-shirt.
As my brothers laughed their asses off at me, I looked down, peeling the fabric that clung to my chest so I could read what Nelle wrote.
MEET
MR. TINY
LIMP DICK
Caidan had howled, barely able to describe what she’d drawn on the back of my t-shirt through his roaring laughter. Nelle had drawn a stick figure of me with a sad facepointing to the tiny limp dick between my legs, and the wordWaaaaaah!rolling from my mouth.
The girl in question was now standing in front of me, bristling with anger. Nelle clicked her tongue, and Sage rose, growling, his teeth banded around my fucking boot. She rounded me, backing away with a smug smile as her gaze slid lazily down my chest. “Just thought I’d give fair warning to any unsuspecting girl you were planning to take home, so they wouldn’t be disappointed with your lack of prowess in bed.”
My jaw clenched. Did she really think I’d go out and fuck someone else?
Of course she did.
Spinning away, she stomped toward her bedroom, and the thunderous slamming of the door—her signature goodnight—thumped through the air and sent irritating rattling through my very bones.
I sighed wearily, my taut muscles easing.
