All five wolves are in various states of bloodied and bruised, and the beast I’ve been fighting tooth and nail to keep in check surges to life like a shark scenting blood in the water. It’s all I have to keep from fully shifting, but my body moves of its own volition, stalking closer with lethal grace. Crouching in front of where one is pinned face down on the sidewalk, I fist his hair, craning his neck to force him to meet my eye.
“I tried to warn you. But you just. Wouldn’t. Listen.”
Everything becomes sharper in clarity, colors gaining an extra hue of blue on the spectrum to make the world seem like so muchmore.Exhaling a plume of smoke, my hindbrain takes over, manipulating it to spread out in skeletal tendrils. Each finds a home in one of the struggling men’s nostrils, their mouths. Agonizingly slowly, my reach extends down their throats, filling their lungs.
And I wait.
I could spark it to life, holding the embers long enough to burn them from the inside out, but they don’t deserve quick. They deserve a drawn-out death, plenty of time for the terror to sink in and adrenaline to uselessly flood through their veins. They deserve to know that death is coming for them, yet they’re helpless to stop it, helpless to stop all of the pain and fear, the way their mate felt.
They deserve to suffer, and I take great pleasure in wringing them dry for every muffled scream I can before they eventually fall silent, face down at my feet.
Vibrations at my thigh have me sighing, but the beast is sated enough now to cede control and slink back to sleep for the time being. Ignoring the small crowd we’ve drawn, I rise to my full height, rolling my stiff shoulders and withdrawing my phone.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Garrison?” a shaky voice grates at my ears, but I close my eyes, breathing through my nose and seeking patience before I open my mouth.
“That would be the number you dialed, yes. What is it?”
A small breath of relief. “There’s a pack of wolves terrorizing Eden Lakes Hotel. Security has been... insufficient in handling the threat.”
“Highlights, now.”
Stammering, the staff member whispers like he’s hiding, the faint sounds of shouts coming through the line, and my wings snap out before he’s managed more than two words. “From what I’ve gathered, their mate is missing. They’re busting down doors, beating the guests and staff bloody, and more feral than human right now.”
Shit.“How many?”
An awkwardly long pause. “Seven.”
That pause stretches even further as I struggle to find the right words, settling in a deadly calm demand of, “Are you telling me that not only was the entire security team rendered useless in the face ofsevenwolves, but of all of the guests in the hotel, not one of them has been able to subdue a single one?”
“Please don’t fire me,” he begs.
Hanging up on him, I shove my phone back in my pocket, the faint sounds of breaking furniture and shouts loud even from outside of the building. As I land outside of the hotel, a small flood of people are pouring out of the front doors. They part for me on instinct even in their panic, and I’m a jumbled mess of nostalgically content, and annoyed.
Filing everything away in an instant, I take in the manager with his face beaten in, blood spattered on the ground around him. There’s a partial, bloody shoe print leading towards the security office, and I have to reluctantly commend these men for thinking clearly enough to check security footage when they realized their mate was stolen out from under their noses.
One of the security guards slumped near the elevator starts to rouse, and I grab his collar, shaking him a bit. “The wolves. You’ve got the name they checked in under? A floor? Anything at all that I can work with?”
His pupils are blown, his latent half struggling to take possession of the human body while its host is out of commission, but failing. “Hawthorne.”
Nodding, I retreat to the main desk, logging into the system and checking their booking details. Heading for the stairs, I sprint up them, knowing it’ll be faster than waiting around for the elevator. At each landing, I yank open the door to the floor, listening for any signs of snarling or someone getting their ass beat for five seconds before moving onto the next. Once on the floor they booked, I track down the room and pound my fist against the door, the entire wall shaking as I threaten to take it off its hinges.
A literal giant opens the door.Beta. Not nearly pissed enough for having a missing mate.Dark brown hair and golden eyes nearly engulfed in black from his blown pupils, the human tank snarls, “What?”
“Hawthorne?” At his small acknowledgement, I demand, “You tracked your mate down then, I take it?”
His demon is riding him too hard, and the simple mention of his mate has his fist flying toward my face. Pivoting at the last second, I counter with one of my own, knocking him back a step.
An ominous sinking sensation has my stomach dropping out from under me and a small shiver racing down my spine. Seeking the source, my gaze falls on an onyx haired woman with bright coral eyes as she steps into the room, currently scrutinizing me as thoroughly as I’m assessing her. Foreboding slithers around my throat like a noose, and for a split second, I consider the merits of sacrificing the hotel and everyone inside to burn it to the ground, then spitting on the ashes.
Shoving the impulse aside, I stand straighter and stare her down. “Get out of my city.”
***
“It’ll cost Stone acouple of kidneys and half his liver, but I got you three on the list,” Kodiak says, his voice crackling in and out like he’s walking around with it on speakerphone again.
I sigh, using the walk back home for a chance to get my head on straight. “I expected nothing less. Evren is many things, but altruistic isn’t one of them. He knows damn well what I want with an invite to one of his parties.”
