Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
I approach the room where the begging is taking place to find my Armand standing over the kneeling figure of Duplante. He has a sword in his hand. They are flanked by six or seven other men, all staring with a variety of intensities and expressions.
“If you will not take your wolf form, you will die,” Armand declares. His voice is cold and does not brook any disobedience. “You have been cowardly for too long, Duplante. Too quick to talk, and too slow to pay in blood.”
I draw in a little breath of excitement. My mate is going to kill that man. He’s going to drop him in the middle of the fancy room. I’ve never felt so close to Armand before.
Someone clears their throat. A traitorous bastard who has put himself on my radar by drawing attention to me with a flick of his eyes.
Armand’s head whips around. He sees me, and lowers the blade.
I feel disappointment.
I wish I had stayed hidden. I’d get to see bloodshed. Now I am going to get whatever public display Armand feels should be put on for me.
“Beatrix,” he says.
“Hello,” I say, feeling a little shy. He has always been attractive, but he is even more so now, holding a sword like a vengeful angel. I sense he is defending my honor. “What’s happening?”
“Did you need something, darling?” He asks the question kindly, but with an obvious edge of wanting me to go away. He looks around, as if hoping some stray lady might come take me away. They won’t, of course; they are too busy talking about me now that I am no longer there. It will be impossible to pry them from those conversations for an hour at least.
“No,” I say, ignoring the verbal nudge to leave them to it. I won’t be leaving this scene until it has come to its conclusion.
“Ma cherie, I do not wish you to see this. These are brutal matters that might frighten you,” Armand says, taking a step toward me, trailing the sword behind him, almost as if he doesn’t want me to see and notice it.
He doesn’t understand that I find this side of him very appealing, and not frightening at all. The moment before he saw me watching, the man he was in that instant—I felt our mate bond more keenly than I have at any other time. Even when he was inside me.
Duplante, thankfully, is stupid, and decides to make an appeal to the men he thinks are his friends. This is clearly the act of a man who has never been forced to read any room, and who does not understand that the people he thinks like him would happily see him dead.
“Insubordinate little bitch, and me here on my knees being forced into animal submission on her account. Are you really all going to stand around and watch him fall for her cunt this hard? The pack hasn’t deteriorated enough for your likings? Waiting until we are all entirely destitute?”
Armand’s eyes flash upon hearing that disrespect. He holds up a finger to me.
“One moment, my darling, I have to deal with a little matter of pack discipline.”
He turns, and with a whip of his wrist, he sweeps the blade through Duplante’s neck. The man’s head topples as if it were only ever attached with butter, blood spurting in thick arterial gusts across the carpets and lower legs of the men.
I stare, entranced, feeling my wolf self surging at the sight. This dress is on the verge of being torn to shreds by the animal inside me who wishes to be free to roll in that blood and howl in triumph.
Armand hands the sword to one of his off-siders and comes to me without so much as looking back at the carnage he has just enacted.
He ushers me away from the bloody sight. I would resist, but I know better than to defy an alpha who just killed someone. Submission to him feels rather exciting now. Besides, there will not be much to look at for long.
I have the sense that the entirety of the scene will be clean in a matter of minutes, a small cadre of servants are already on their way with mops and cloths.
“You killed him.”
“I did. He disrespected you, and in doing so, disrespected me. Besides, there is some evidence he was defrauding the pack through the assets he managed. I had to deal with him one way or another. He chose the means in the end.”
This is the most attractive Armand has ever been.
“Are you afraid of me now?”
I shake my head no. I am not afraid of him. Quite the opposite. I like him more, trust him more, feel a greater kinship with him now than ever before.
He swings me about and looks down at me with an intensity born of his fear that I might not understand him, that I might mistake him for a feral, unpredictable beast.