I choked on my drink, coughing when it went up my nose and leaning away from the tree as I did.Niall smacked my back lightly, like he was trying to help me clear my throat.
"It was an error of judgment," Jonah said."And it wasn't great."
Ouch.
Niall went completely and utterly still.
I grabbed his bare, inked up thigh and hit him with a bolt of my power before he could attack Jonah. He didn't flinch, which struck me as an abnormal reaction.
Instead, he stood.
Shit.
I was too wiped out to get up, so I remained sitting and watched warily as he strode toward the werewolf.
Gwen stepped between them and cleared her throat. "Is it true you're a famous painter, Niall?"
He ignored her, giving Jonah what was undoubtedly a deadly glare. Jonah won the Beta Challenges, but there was no way he could take a shapeshifter down. MMA training be damned.
"Itwasn't great?" Niall asked, his voice low and deceptively calm.
Jonah moved a little, slightly uncomfortably.
He'd gotten off in like thirty seconds every time we were together, so he and I didn't share the same experience as far as our sex life went.
"You're so bad in bed that my female had to fucking fake an orgasm, and you want to claim that itwasn't greatfor you?"
I closed my eyes.
I definitely shouldn't have been turned on by this insane, ridiculous streak of possessiveness, but I was.
Jonah's chest rumbled with a quiet growl. "That's not what I meant."
Niall chuckled, but there was no humor behind the sound. "I didn't think so. Stay the fuck away from my mate. She's here for the trees, not for you."
With that, the shapeshifter turned his back to the werewolf and strode over to the place I was sitting. The look I shot him said,"Seriously?"
The one he sent back said,"Seriously."
"So… paintings?" Gwen asked, clearing her throat again. Her face was red. I wasn't sure whether she looked angry or embarrassed. I didn't particularly care, either way.
"Niall's an amazing painter. The huge painting of the orchard in the villa's foyer is one of his. Simon commissioned it pretty soon after Rumor was established," I said.
"Seriously? Wow." I pulled a massive box of fried chicken out of the bag of food, and set it on my lap.It smelled phenomenal.
"Thanks for playing delivery crew, but Liv needs to focus. Leave," Niall said. His voice was casual, but there was no avoiding the fact that he gave them an order.
Gwen and Jonah both looked at me.
There were a million things I could've said.
Sorry about the jackass shapeshifter, his possessiveness knows no bounds.
You're lucky he didn't just kill you.
He's mine, fuck off.
I settled on giving them a thumbs-up.
