My fists clenched.
The void beckoned me closer as fae women and men threw themselves at me.
I was used to wearing hoodies pulled up over my head whenever I walked around the village, and like a dumbass, I’d forgotten how the fae acted when I wasn’t concealed.
I’d been so concerned about looking good for my kitten that I’d forgotten how everyone else in this blasted realm treated me.
They threw themselves at all of us, but it was my name that they screamed as they tried to claw at my flesh.
It was my naked body, covered in jewels, that had been broadcasted thousands of times across the realm.
Jax growled and shoved at a fae man who was trying to claw at me with his fingernails. On my other side, Ascher’s tattoo flames writhed as he growled at the crowd to stand back.
No one approached from behind because of Xerxes. He stood eerily still, with his suit jacket pulled open and his hands resting on his sheathed knives.
The crest of the queen was pinned to his lapel.
I should hate the omega. He was everything I despised—a minion of the fae queen.
Yet the longer I hung out with Xerxes, the more I liked him. He was strong, quiet, competent, and once again, quiet.
I liked that he wasn’t annoying, and his sweet cinnamon scent was calming.
Plus, it hadn’t escaped my notice that Kitten was comfortable around Xerxes and gravitated toward him.
I trusted her judgment.
With a deep breath, I tried to focus on his calming cinnamon scent and not on the urge to unleash my snakes and bite all the fae.
Not that I could, because of the blasted crystal collar.
“Where is Sadie?” Ascher asked under his breath.
At Kitten’s name, a low rumble sounded from Jax’s chest, and a hiss rattled up my throat. Our guttural sounds joined in a menacing chorus.
Until recently, I’d never hissed before. It was a recent development that I didn’t hate.
It helped me express my emotions, aka, annoyance and anger.
We scanned our gazes across the crowd, looking for Sadie. It shouldn’t have been so hard to keep track of one alpha. With her white hair streaked with ruby red, she was impossible to miss.
The problem was, she was so damn short.
Next time we attended a party with her, I was putting a damn leash around her thin neck.
I didn’t care what she said about it—Sadie was getting restrained by my side.
It was where she belonged.
As a unit, Jax, Ascher, Xerxes, and I pushed further through the crowd, scanning heads as we looked for her. Jax’s chest rumbled as we moved, a constant manifestation of how we were all feeling inside.
She was our alpha.
No one else’s.
That meant no other man, fae, or beast, got to talk to her or look at her. Sun god forbid they try to fucking touch her.
We scanned the crowd for our little alpha.
When Demetre had invited us to the party, we’d initially refused.
Although it hadn’t really been an invitation.
The fae queen had mandated that every competitor attend the party—and she’d put Demetre in charge of ensuring everyone’s compliance. If they didn’t show, it would be Demetre’s head on the chopping block.
I hoped he’d get himself tortured by the queen.
None of us had forgiven Demetre for the way he’d attacked Sadie during the first trial.
Unfortunately, Jax had pointed out that Sadie had forgiven Demetre, and it would probably be good for her morale to dance and let off steam.
We had all noticed how freaked out she’d been about the vampyre seduction challenge.
She wasn’t as quick to crack jokes, and the only time she truly relaxed was when she was hanging out with Aran. Otherwise, she was always on edge.
I slept in the bed across from her because I’d threatened to stab the other men if they made me sleep apart from her.
Good thing I did, because I’d had to comfort her every night.
Around three am, she always woke herself up shouting about blood.
She wasn’t well, and we were all fucking crawling out of our skins with the urge to protect and comfort her.
As a result, we had all agreed to attend the party under one stipulation: no one else was to touch, look, or talk to Sadie.
We told Demetre that if they did, we would kill them.
Simple as that.
Demetre had promised to pass the word along, the big bastard’s pink eyes flashing with mirth as he agreed with our stipulation.
Abruptly, Jax pushed a heavyset fae to the side, and Jax stilled as he stared across the dance floor.
I followed his gaze, and my chest rattled with a violent hiss.
My vision switched to red-and-orange heat signatures.
All four of us gaped.
Noah was dancing across from Kitten.
The motherfucking half warrior who watched Sadie a little too much for any of our liking—even Xerxes had made a comment about it the other day—was dancing across from our alpha.
He was a dead man.
Sadie danced at arm’s length and didn’t touch him. That was the only thing that stopped me from ripping out his trachea right then and there.
They held their fists in the air and jumped up and down to the screeching music.
It wasn’t sexual. But that wouldn’t save the fucker.
My eyes flickered back, and I noted how fucking gorgeous Kitten looked in her silky white dress.
Her small boobs were luscious mounds, and her golden skin glimmered like she’d been dipped in gloss.
She bobbed her head up and down, and her red highlights glowed against her white hair as the neon strobe lights flashed through the room.
Kitten was a bombshell.
Most importantly, she looked happy.
She reminded me of a painting I’d seen that was rumored to be from the god realm. A golden angel with bright-white wings and a perfect body glowing as she flew through the sky.
She was like an angel—but so much more.
Her delicate, upturned features were stunning, and her small form was curvy in all the right places.
However, unlike the sweet, blushing angel, there was a fire in Sadie’s ruby eyes. She was a killing machine.
She was a blizzard of spunk and energy, and I wanted to bask in her rage forever.
The problem was, another alpha male was currently basking in her glow.
He knew the rules.
The other day, Noah had jogged beside Demetre when we’d told him that anyone who looked, touched, or danced with Sadie would be killed.
The orange-mohawk fucker knew exactly what he was doing.
He would pay with blood.
Ascher’s voice was deeper than usual, and he said, “We can’t let this slide.”
I nodded in agreement.
I hadn’t forgiven Ascher for his betrayal, but he trained silently and helped Sadie in the challenges. I’d decided if he kept groveling for the next century, I might eventually forgive him.
With a shhhhhk, Xerxes unsheathed his wicked twin blades and held them loosely in his hands.
Good; I liked that the omega would help us with Sadie, because keeping her safe was a full-time job.
Like I said, the purple-eyed bastard was growing on me.
I pushed forward, but walked into an immovable wall.
Jax didn’t budge.
He stood ramrod straight, his massive frame towering above everyone else as he stared at Sadie.
A hiss rattled through my chest, and I fought the urge to attack the big man.
A part of me wanted to antagonize him to violence because I loved the way he threw me around.
My skin shivered as I thought about the way his body shuddered against me as he choked me. He owned me.
Another part of me wanted to sink my teeth into his throat until he agreed to stop acting so level-headed and rational all the time.
Jax was constantly thinking and worrying.
It wasn’t healthy.
There were times to stress about how Sadie would react.
Then there were times to brutalize the men that dared to disobey our warnings, and bathe in their blood.
This was the latter situation.
Violence hummed through my veins as the inky void in my soul became an endless, swirling chasm.
I thought back to the fucker that had touched Kitten at the Ianuarius celebration.
Back when he’d kissed her, I hadn’t yet tasted sweet cranberries on my tongue. I hadn’t yet pinned her against the closet wall and made her mine.
Still, I’d planned on finding him after the party and castrating him. I would have, if the fucking fae queen hadn’t kidnapped us all.
But now.
This was so much worse because I’d claimed Kitten as my own. Noah knew she was mine.
We would exact retribution.
I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
“We warned him,” I said to Jax. My throat rattled with a hiss that was so aggressive my words were slurred and barely legible.
Jax looked at me, his gray eyes glowing against his handsome, dark face. “We wait until Sadie is not with him, then we’ll drag him into the hall.”
The void where my heart should have been burned with unfamiliar warmth.
Jax fucking got me.
He understood.
We all nodded at Jax’s statement and held our spot on the dance floor.
It might have been the fact that Xerxes had his weapons drawn, that Ascher’s horns had grown on his head, that my eyes were snake eyes, or that Jax’s muscles had expanded. Either way, the fae stopped screaming and pawing at us.
Everyone kept their distance.
We radiated malice.
Noah had disobeyed our strict orders and was dancing with my kitten. This meant war.
A few dances later, we saw our chance.
Sadie said something, then headed away from Noah, toward the wall. The half warrior began to follow behind her, but Jax lunged forward through the crowd and dragged him back, away from our alpha.
We each grabbed one of Noah’s flailing limbs and shoved him through the crowd.
No one tried to stop us.
Finally, we tossed Noah out into the hallway.
I thought he would run. I hoped he would so I could chase him down and tear him apart. Swallow him whole.
Instead, the half warrior grinned at us as he ran his hands over his orange mohawk.
All four of us stepped forward and crowded him backward across the hall, into an empty multipurpose room.
White marble floors and stainless-steel walls glinted shiny and clean.
It was a large space with nothing and no one inside, and the walls were so thick you couldn’t hear the loud music from the party across the hall.
It was perfect.
Jax spoke first. “You were dancing with Sadie?” His words hung in the air, gruffer than usual, as he half growled them out.
Noah smirked and shrugged his shoulders. “Yes, I was.”
I lunged and slammed my fist across Noah’s face as hard as I could. I moved so quickly he didn’t have any time to react.
Blood sprayed across the marble floor as his nose burst.
When his brain finally comprehended what had happened, he threw a punch back. But I’d already retreated across the room.
“Why?” Xerxes asked as he swirled his twin blades lazily in his fingers.
Noah’s bright-green eyes tracked their movements. His muscles tensed as he prepared himself to fight.
For the most part, the half warrior seemed pretty sane. I didn’t understand why he was messing with us, or why he wasn’t using his fae elemental power.
He just stood and watched, like the outcome was inevitable.
Noah rubbed his hand across his mohawk and said, “Because I like Sadie and I’m going to pursue her. It’s rare to find an alpha woman, let alone one so gorgeous, vicious, and…sweet.”
The tension in the room escalated tenfold.
It took a second for his words to penetrate, then a buzzing started in my brain. It was the void screaming at me.
It beckoned me to maim my prey.
One thought echoed—he wanted to take my kitten from me. He wanted her for himself.
Everything erupted at once.
Ascher, Xerxes, and I threw our bodies forward and slammed into Noah.
For a few moments, Noah held his own against us as we traded brutal punches and kicks.
But Ascher wrapped his tattooed hands around Noah’s neck, kicked out with his leg, and flipped the bastard around in midair.
The half warrior slammed into the white marble floor with a loud clack, and more of his blood splattered.
Ascher’s skill would have impressed me, if I weren’t so worried about murdering Noah so he could never look at my kitten again.
He wanted to take her from me.
The thought echoed in my brain as I hammered my fist down across his handsome face.
Bones and cartilage snapped, and I slammed him repeatedly against the ground. His heat signature flickered an angry red as I beat him.
“Enough,” Jax alpha-barked from behind us.
I shook my head, and my vision returned to normal.
While I’d been punching, Xerxes had slammed his daggers through Noah’s palms and pinned him to the floor.
Xerxes’s blades were so sharp they penetrated the cold marble.
Ascher slammed his boot into Noah’s side one more time before stopping, and I wiped my bloody knuckles against my pant leg.
Pride stirred in my chest as I stared at my work.
Noah’s face was a bloody mess.
The white pristine room was now covered in the half warrior’s blood. It splattered across the white walls and floor in a macabre painting.
Jax walked forward until his large body towered over Noah. “Are you going to stay away from Sadie?”
Noah opened his mouth and coughed up blood onto the floor. He tried to turn but winced because Xerxes’s blades were still skewering him.
It took him a couple of chokes.
“No,” Noah gurgled.
Jax slammed his muscular arm down and buried his fist into Noah’s bone.
There was a loud crack as Noah’s skull fractured under the force of the big man’s knuckles banging it back against the marble floor.
Noah slumped unconscious.
Jax stood up and brushed blood off his knuckles onto his dark suit jacket. His gold jewels tinkled as his long braids moved back and forth. His gray eyes were a hurricane of death.
The big bastard was fucking perfection.
I fought the urge to pull out my cock and beg him to fuck me in the pool of our enemy’s blood.
“We’ll leave him here as a warning. Let’s find our little alpha.” Jax stalked away from the slumped body.
“Can we cut out his eyes?” I asked.
Ascher cocked his head and smiled, like he liked the idea, and Xerxes cleaned his blades with a grin.
Jax growled, “Cobra.”
I pouted but followed behind and didn’t gouge out Noah’s eyes, like a good snake.
There was one constant in life.
You didn’t mess with Jax when he was angry.
Plus, I could always sneak into Noah’s room later and steal them while he was sleeping.
Then he couldn’t look at my kitten.
