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’ll send for the doctor.”
“No need. It’s just a bump.”
I look at his face, and see that I’ve barely marked him. My knuckles have come off worse. They’re bruised already. I can feel it. Flexing them hurts like hell, and I’ve managed to take the annoyingly thin skin off them.
I walk out of the room at a quick clip, not entirely sure where I’m going or why. There will be some pack business to attend to, I am sure, something to take my mind off all the failings the therapist I got for my traumatized mate won’t stop bringing up.
By sheer chance—or maybe not by chance at all—Beatrix intercepts me. If I did not know better, I would say my feisty young mate has been guarding me ever since Mr. Volkov’s arrival. Her concern for me is very sweet.
She grabs my wrist and pulls my hand toward her face, her eyes going slightly crossed as she inspects the damage.
“What did he do to you?”
“Nothing. I punched him.”
She smiles broadly. “Good for you!”
“Maître!” It seems Antoine has returned from his reconnaissance mission. He is standing in the hall behind us with what I can only describe as a stricken expression on his face.
I definitely want to hear what he has to say, but I don’t want Beatrix to be a part of that conversation just yet.
“I have to attend to this,” I tell her. “We can talk more about this later, okay?”
“Okay,” she smiles. “I’m so proud of you.”
She’s adorable when she’s happy. I don’t know that I have made her as happy with anything else I’ve done. I briefly consider punching Antoine in case that makes her smile, but obviously choose not to.
Beatrix
Armand is busy, and now, so am I.
There’s something going on between the therapist and my mate. For Armand to have punched him, he must have been upset. That means Volkov upset him, and that, I will not fucking stand.
I don’t like this interloper. I don’t like what he does to Armand. I don’t like how he makes him unsure of himself. Armand is the alpha. He is my mate. Everybody he meets should bow to him. That is the natural order of things.
Mr. Volkov is an anomaly. I don’t like him. I don’t like the way he looks. There’s something about him I just can’t trust.
Armand is trying to do everything right, and that’s making him vulnerable. I’m not defenseless that way. I already know that it doesn’t matter if you try to do things right or not, things go to hell anyway.
I sniff Mr. Volkov out, following my nose. I don’t like the way he smells, either. His wolf scent is laid atop something colder, deader. Something like the scent of corpses. Sometimes one scent is stronger than the other, but nobody else seems to notice how gross he is.
I find him in the library, out on the balcony. The sun has started to set, and he is standing under the rising moon sucking on his cigarette. Disgusting habit. Maybe that’s where the dead scent comes from.
I’d push him off the balcony, if not for the fact that we’re on the ground floor and it would barely inconvenience him. I wonder if I can get Armand to move his office to the roof.
“Hello, Beatrix,” he says coolly, greeting me before I want him to know I am here. I needed a bit more time to decide what I wanted to do to him. Murdering him seems a bit much given Armand’s current feelings on the matter of me killing people. I don’t want to upset my mate. I know I’m pushing him to his limits as it is.
“I should kill you,” I hear myself say.
Shit. I opened with a murder threat. I was going to try so damn hard to stay away from going zero to a hundred that quickly, but it just feels like I can’t help myself. I want very much to kill him. It’s an imperative pounding in my blood. Death to the interloper.
“You’d find it harder to kill me than most,” he says, unconcerned. “And unlike your mate, if you were to try, the result would not be a spanking. You would suffer badly for a long time.”
He says all that very casually, but something about his tone makes me believe him. It makes me think twice. It doesn’t make me any less desiring of hurting him for hurting my mate, but it does make me think I’m going to need to do it carefully.
“I like a challenge,” I say.
“You are a perfect little predator,” he says. “Made entirely for your environment. But I am not from your world and you will only hurt yourself in trying to hurt me. I know that this won’t be enough warning to stop you from trying, but when you do inevitably try, and you do inevitably suffer, you will remember this warning.”