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He screams. My shadows fill his mouth before the sound makes it out, and nobody hears a thing. I lift him off the floor by his throat with one hand. His feet kick. The front of his jeans goes dark, and the smell of piss hits the air.

Kill him, the beast says. Kill him. Tear him open. He touched her.

I want to. Fuck, I want to. I can hear his pulse slamming under my claws, and I want to rip it right out of his neck and drop it at her feet.

“Santa.”

The Boogeyman is standing right next to me in the dark. I didn’t hear him come down. I never do.

“Not on your dance floor,” he says, quiet and easy, like we’re talking about the weather. “Too messy. Too many witnesses.” His grin splits the dark. “Give him to me. I’ve been hungry all week.”

The frat boy’s eyes roll toward him, and whatever he sees there makes him try to scream again.

I lean in close to his ear. “You’re on my list now,” I rasp. “Forever.”

Then I let go.

He doesn’t hit the floor. The dark opens up underneath him, and the Boogeyman’s shadows drag him down into it, kicking and choking. Then he’s just gone. There’s nothing left but a smear of piss on my marble and a single shoe.

I turn around. She’s right there. Her girls are clinging to her in the dark, but she’s not looking for them. She’s looking straight up at me, eyes wide, and she’s not afraid.

There he is, she thinks. There’s my monster.

I pull my true form back in, all of it, before the lights come on. I’m a man again, just a big one in a black suit, when the chandeliers flicker back to life and the music kicks back in mid-beat. The crowd cheers, like the blackout was all part of the night. Nobody’s looking at the shattered mirror on the third floor. Nobody’s looking at the shoe. They’re all looking at the man in the middle of the dance floor with his hand wrapped around the back of Kisha’s neck.

“Did he hurt you?” I growl.

She holds up her arm. There are four red marks above her elbow where his fingers were.

The beast in my chest snarls all over again. I lift her arm to my mouth and kiss every single mark, slow, one by one, in front of everyone. Then I pick her up and carry her off the floor.

She winds her arms around my neck and puts her mouth to my ear. “What did the Boogeyman do with him?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to, Red.”

She’s quiet for a second. Then she kisses my jaw. “Okay. Take me home.”

The whole drive home, I can smell him on her.

It’s on her arm, right above her elbow, where his fingers dug in: cheap body spray, beer, and another alpha. It’s faint, faint enough that a human would never notice, but it’s there on my mate’s skin, under my scent, and every time I breathe in, the beast in my chest snarls. My hands are white on the steering wheel. The streetlights flicker as we pass under them, one after another, all the way up the hill.

“Nik.” Kisha’s watching me from the passenger seat, her heels in her lap. “You’re doing the light thing.”

“I know.”

“You’re also growling.”

“I know.”

He’s still so mad, she thinks. He’s literally vibrating. The Boogeyman took the guy. The guy’s gone. Why is he still this mad?

“He’s on your skin,” I grit out.

She looks down at the four red marks above her elbow. “Oh,” she says softly.

I don’t say anything else until we’re through the gates. And I don’t put her down until we’re in the bathroom.

I carry her through the front door, up the stairs, through our bedroom, and straight into the shower, black velvet dress and all. I turn the water on with one hand while I’m still holding her with the other. It comes down hot, so hot the steam fills the glass in seconds, and she gasps and grabs my shoulders.