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I didn’t know what I’d get out of it. Part of me wanted to make sure he was alive. If this man had him locked away somewhere, I was the only one who knew. I was the only one who could save him. And I should want to save him.

The other part of me wanted to look Rhett in the eyes and ask him myself.

And I didn’t know which part was going to win.

“You can have whatever you want.”

Chapter 8

Klaus

My little lamb was a wolf in disguise.

I’d known she would want to see him. I just didn’t understand why. I’d been the one to sit beside her through the first wave. It had taken everything I had not to give her what her body was begging for. And the first thing she asked for was him.

Jealousy ate away at my ribs, and my fingers twitched with the need to bury my blade in his throat.

Soon.

Did she feel bad for him?

Had my gift had the opposite effect?

Why wasn’t she thinking about me?

I held back and followed her out of my room, giving her directions as she walked through my apartment on unsteady legs. Her gaze had lingered on the heating pad still in her nest. Her skirt was wrinkled, her hair sat atop her head in a mess of curls, her throat flushed pink. She looked like she’d been thoroughly fucked, and I hadn’t even touched her yet.

She stopped in front of the floor-to-ceiling painting at the end of the hall.

Her eyes moved over it, then she turned to look at me, craning her neck. Chest rising and falling, irritation pinching her brows. She was standing a foot from a man in a mask who had gifted her body parts, and she didn’t even flinch.

The last time she’d stood this close to me, she’d been pressed against my chest as snow fell, purring. Her scent rolled off her and my knot throbbed. She hadn’t touched me, and I was ready to come in my pants.

Instead, I reached over her head and pressed the switch.

The painting lifted, revealing a door.

She turned and reached for the brass handle. I leaned down while her back was to me and breathed her in. A growl rumbled in my chest. Fucking divine. Every wet dream I’d ever had, wrapped in one sexy little Omega. She hesitated, then pushed the door open and stepped into the dark.

She could tell herself she was afraid of me. I didn’t believe it for a second.

I followed her in.

The monitors came to life one by one.

She gasped.

The entire wall was filled with screens. Her bathroom from four angles, including the one I’d set right above the tub. The closeup of the chair where she’d sat that morning, coffee forgotten. She turned in a slow circle, and I watched her understand exactly how long and how closely I’d been watching.

It wasn’t the mask that scared her. It was how much I knew.

I smirked behind it and walked past her. The chain hung coiled on its hook. I yanked, and a grunt came from the corner. I dragged him into the light.

Her brows pinched together as her eyes dropped. Then she took a step back as he crawled into view. She stared at him. The blood-stiff clothes. The dark stain spread across the front of his pants, where there was nothing left. The stumps wrapped in strips of his own shirt, soaked through. I’d tied them off tight. I couldn’t have him bleeding out before she got here. He didn’t have much time left.

The man who’d chased her down yesterday was gone. What was left finally matched what he’d always been on the inside. Hollow and rotten. He would never touch her again. I’d made sure of it, and the pride of that sat warm in my chest.

She walked toward him slowly, then turned to me.