“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Get off my property. Last chance.” Seth somehow appeared bigger than he had a moment before. Stronger. More predatory. Mia could barely breathe.
The guy lowered his head as if he were about to charge. His voice was a rough growl, but even so, a plea lifted his consonants slightly. He obviously didn’t want to fight Seth. Even with five of his friends with him, even as an obvious assassin, he was afraid of Seth. “Mia Stone, your mate. I’m sorry, but it has to be this way. She’s too dangerous as she is.”
With that, Seth struck. One second, he was standing yards away from the speaker, and the next, he had the guy on the ground with his head rolling away from his body. Mia gasped and almost fell back. Then, in motions almost too fast to track, Seth turned on the nearest attacker, claws out, teeth bared, and ripped his head off his body, too.
Mia screamed.
The other four men moved in instantly, and a flurry of punches, kicks, and claws followed, along with snarls and bared teeth. As body parts flew in every direction, the blood co-mingled with the rain to turn the grass red.
Mia couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t even think.
Almost as quickly as it had begun, it was over.
Seth Volk stood in the middle of the carnage, bleeding and bruised but still alive. In fact, he didn’t look horribly hurt. The wolf shifters who had challenged him lay dead on the ground, and there was no more movement from the forest.
He slowly turned his head, and his gaze met hers, his eyes the shocking, sizzling blue of the wolf inside him. Kicking aside a dead body, he turned and came at her through the tumultuous storm.
Chapter17
Seth stalked through the rain, bounded up the stairs, and entered through his front doorway, where he instantly shed his ripped and bloody shirt. There were several claw marks down his torso, and he was fairly certain he had a couple of broken ribs. The pain was a dull echo throughout his body. It would no doubt sharpen once the adrenaline receded.
Other than that, after having fought off six killers and rolled around in the marshy grass, he was feeling better than he had any right to expect. Apparently, the Copper Pack was in more need of protection than he’d realized. The Alpha had grown old, and nobody was stepping up. He should be more injured than he was, considering the odds. Or perhaps the fact that his mate had been behind him in the house had incentivized him.
He reached for his phone that he’d left on the table by the door and tapped in a number he’d memorized a long time ago.
“Is it done?” the Alpha of the Copper Pack asked.
“Depends on what you considerdone. This is Volk,” Seth said curtly. “There will be a delivery made to your territory in a couple of hours consisting of as many body parts as we can fit into the boxes. Real animals can feed on the rest. Please note that you’ll only smell me on them. It was all me, and don’t you forget it.” He looked at the blood dripping onto his floor. “I was gentle this time, Yassi. I strongly suggest you refrain from a next time, because after I finish your squad, I’ll come for you.”
He cut off and then quickly sent instructions to four of his men to clean up his front yard. He kicked off his boots, noting some brain tissue on the right one before he padded in his wet socks and bloody jeans into the living room where Mia sat in a heavy leather chair with her gun on her lap. She was pale enough that a light blue vein was visible on her temple, but she wasn’t shaking.
He lounged against the doorframe when all he wanted to do was go to her, but she was clearly going into shock. While she was a trained FBI agent and had killed somebody in the line of duty before, she’d surely never seen the kind of violence he’d just meted out. The same level he’d probably have to reach again, more than once, during their lifetimes.
Her eyes were wide when she looked up at him, and her mouth dropped open as if she wanted to say something, but no sound emerged.
“I told you not to come here tonight,” he said softly. “I didn’t want you in danger, and more importantly, I didn’t want you to see that.” It was true. He had never wanted her to see that side of him, even if she knew it existed. “There was a threat, and if I hadn’t taken care of them fast and hard, more attackers would’ve come. News will get out about this, and we’ll be safer.”
He didn’t saysafebecause they’d never be that, but safer mattered.
She swallowed.
He continued speaking in a low and velvety soft tone, although blood still covered his jeans. “I understand you’re trained and are more than capable with a weapon, Mia, but you’re no longer living in the human world. You need to tell me and tell me right now that you get me.” He’d stay there all night until she understood who she’d mated. There was no going back for either of them, and the sooner she accepted him and his job, the easier her path would be.
Her gaze darted to the still-open window and then back to him. Her hair was a wild mass across her shoulders, and she pushed a strand away from her eyes. “I get you.”
A wound-up ball in his gut started to unravel, allowing him to relax. “Good. I’m going to take a shower, and then we’ll have dinner.”
“Dinner? It’s two in the morning,” she said, her face pinkening.
Relief filtered through him. Her brain was back, and she wasn’t running away screaming. That was a good sign. “I’m hungry,” he admitted.
She snorted. “Killing six shifters will do that, huh?”
He grinned, shaking his head. Her macabre sense of humor had always intrigued him, and the idea that she’d use it now in an obvious effort to ease his stress at what had just happened was like a hard kick to the heart—as usual with Mia. He’d once thought she was a lost princess. Now, whether she fully understood it or not, she’d been found.
“How badly are you hurt?” She sprang into action, placing her gun on the desk and moving toward him, her gaze on his bleeding wounds.
He looked down. “I’ve got a couple of deep gashes and a broken rib.” As he concentrated, he snapped the rib back into place. Sharp pain slashed through him, and he mentally stitched together the lung he’d just perforated. But he kept his expression bland, and his body relaxed so he wouldn’t alarm her more than he already had. “I’ll be healed by the morning.”
