“Holy fuck.” I glanced all around us, studying each woman who walked by. “Does it happen often?”
Carefully, he murmured, “It happens occasionally. Someone I’ve been with before or someone who wants to take a ride on the Rune merry-go-round.”
I eyed one woman ogling. “Well, at least all the women you’ve been with will be dead in less than eighty years.”
He threw his head back and laughed with such joy, and even more people stared. Rune leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “You have the right mindset to your new life.”
“Rune! Rune!” A busty woman waved her arm high in the air. My shifter’s arm tensed around mine. The woman darted between pedestrians, bee lining right for us. “I thought that was you.”
We stopped walking, and I asked under my breath, “Do you want to talk to her?”
“Fuck no. She’s a clinger. She does this about once a week.”
The woman stopped directly in front of us, her ample bosom heaving. “I think you gave me the wrong number. Anytime I call it doesn’t—”
I punched my fist out right at her throat.
She stumbled back, clawing at her neck and choking for oxygen.
“He’s taken. Don’t bother him again.” I leaned forward, glaring daggers into her watering eyes. “And tell anyone else that wants him to fuck off too. Or they’ll get the same treatment. Got it?”
She tried to talk, but nothing came out except wheezing.
“Nod if you understand.”
Instant nodding.
“Great talk.” I patted her shoulder as we walked around her and continued on our way.
Ten steps later, Rune sputtered in contained mirth, “That’s one way to handle it.”
I shrugged, pressing more against him. “Sometimes people have to learn the hard way.”
“Like a crushed esophagus?” He snickered.
“I controlled the punch. It wasn’t bad enough for mortal harm.”
“Where did you learn to fight?”
“The better question is, where didn’t I learn to fight. My father is all kinds of nasty, but he made sure I was taught certain skills. He didn’t want his asset—me—being taken away from him because I couldn’t defend myself. He told me many times my training was a long-term investment.”
Rune shook his head, his jaw clenching. “The more I hear you talk about him, the longer I want to draw out the kill.”
“Make it as long as you want, stud. I don’t mind.” At all.
He snorted, shaking his head. “You’ve never asked about my parents.”
My lips pinched. “You haven’t brought them up yet. Not really. All you said was you had a fucked up family. I don’t pry in shit like that.”
“It wasn’t…pleasant. A curse brought my mom to my dad. She’s completely fucked up in the head from the darkness that lives inside her. I don’t know why she hasn’t begged Cass yet for mercy. He’d give all the cursed mates their death without a second thought.”
“It’s that bad with them?”
“It’s that bad,” he replied smoothly. “My friends and I didn’t have the perfect upbringing you might think. We had screwed up families. We lived through the last war. All we truly had was each other to rely upon.”
I squeezed his arm. “You’re incredible.”
The darkness that had befallen him disappeared and he smirked down at me. “You think?”
