Page 36 of Plug and Claim

Kira’s heart fell as the realisation hit her—Chelsea had tricked her. Somehow, she’d known Nathaniel would be here. “This is your office, isn’t it?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“But…wait…” she shook her head. “How can you be the vampire hunter?”

Nathaniel’s lip twitched, and some of the fear on his face faded. “Well, I suppose I am both a vampire and hunter.” His hand trailed along her waist, the other covering her neck. “But I’ve never heard anyone call me the vampire hunter.”

“Oh.”

Chelsea, you fucking bitch.

“Yes—oh. Now, what are you doing in my office?”

She deflected. “If you don’t kill vampires, then what do you hunt?”

He laughed harshly. “Look around you.”

She did, scanning the office with its blood-red drapes, the dark-wood of the furniture and walls, the pelts…

Her heart sank as she finally recognised the pelts.

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“Oh yes,” Nathaniel said, leaning close so his mouth was inches from her neck. “Are you familiar with the Wintermaw Revolution?”

Her blood turned cold.

It was the night the vampires had attacked the Keep—the same night Byron and Mary had rescued her. “No. You’re lying. You’re just trying to scare me.”

“Maybe. But you are not nearly as scared as you should be.”

Suddenly, his hand squeezed her throat, and she screeched in terror as his mouth pressed down on her neck. For a moment, she thought he was going to bite her, but instead, he licked her, his tongue hot and wet as it dragged from her collarbone up to the angle of jawline. She shuddered as he sucked her earlobe.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

Grasping her jaw, he lifted her chin until she was forced to stare at the display of pelts on the wall behind the desk.

A shocked whimper left her as she noticed the shape of the pelts. When she’d first entered the room, she’d been too busy making sure she was alone to look at them properly. Now, she absorbed every detail. The wall-mounted pelts were not grey like the others but tan-coloured, the fur almost golden where the light touched it. The paws were larger than the average wolf’s with sharper claws. The majestic wolf heads had thick fur that could have rivalled a lion’s mane in its regality. But their faces…

Kira’s chest tightened. Their expressions had been recreated to look like they were suffering. Finally, the tails. She’d been blind not to spot them sooner. Each wolf had not one, but nine tails spread out in a fan-shape.

And beneath… more of the same, but smaller…

Puppies.

Her eyes welled with tears. She knew who those wolves—who those people—had been.

“Kira, meet the Royal Wolf family.”

“No…”

“Oh yes. There wasn’t room for all of them on the wall. But we got most of them. And the pelts beneath your feet are the guards, the servants, and the nobles that were slain that night. You trod on them when you entered, and if you are lucky enough that I let you leave here alive, then you will tread on them again on your way out.”

She felt faint, and her knees buckled underneath her.

Nathaniel caught her, one arm around her middle, just beneath her breasts, whilst the other held her throat.

“No reply?" he asked, his breath warm against her cheek.