Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 120031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
“You’re worried I’ll attack your little mink here?” Dahlia snickered. “If I was going to hurt her, I’d have done it by now. It would have been simple enough.”
Anger whipped through Eli, tightening his muscles. Some of that anger belonged to his mate.
“Oh, she did not just say that,” Roni hissed behind him.
“This is not gonna end well for the cougar,” Bracken muttered quietly.
No, it wasn’t, because Eli had felt the spike of battle adrenaline surge through his mate. She hadn’t yet said a word, but she was staring at Dahlia in a way that made the cougar bristle. She might be taller than Casey, but she wasn’t stronger.
“You got something to say?” Dahlia snapped at Casey, who just continued to stare at her.
“I really recommend you leave now while you can still walk on your own steam,” Shaya said to the feline.
Dahlia didn’t. Instead, she curled back her upper lip and leaned toward Casey. “What the fuck are you staring at, bitch?”
“Just you, Darla,” said Casey.
“It’s Dahlia.” The cougar’s claws sliced out.
Eli slipped in front of his mate. But said mate somehow skirted around him, lunged at the cougar—covering the three steps in a single jump—gripped Dahlia by the throat, and slammed her onto an empty table. It happened so fast, Eli double-blinked in surprise.
Before Dahlia’s cats could even think to intervene, Eli and his pack mates were there, blocking their path. Fights occasionally broke out in the club—it was nothing new. But plenty of people still gathered around to gawk.
Dahlia didn’t struggle. She just stared up at Casey, her eyes wide, her lips parted. But then, maybe her stillness had something to do with the hand snapped tight around her neck or the claws that were threateningly pressed above her heart.
Casey leaned over the feline, smiling at the hint of fear in the cougar’s scent. “Ah, you see now that you made a mistake. Shame for you that you didn’t sense that a little earlier.” Her mink bared her teeth and lashed her tail.
Dahlia’s nostrils flared. “You wouldn’t dare harm me. My mate—”
“Has already targeted mine,” Casey finished. “Why shouldn’t I have some fun with his?”
“It wasn’t Ignacio!” She squirmed slightly. “Get the fuck off me.”
“Ask nicely.”
Dahlia’s mouth fell open. “You have to be kidding.”
“Do I look like I am?” Because Casey wasn’t kidding. Not even a little. The bitch didn’t get to come at her like that, try to humiliate and goad her in front of all those people—including her mate—and think that Casey would let it go so easily. “You want me to let you up, ask nicely. Bitch, I can do this all night—it won’t bother me in the slightest.”
Upper lip quivering, Dahlia kicked hard at Casey and tried lashing out with her claws.
Casey used her grip on the cat’s throat to slam her head on the table. “Ask. Nicely.” She let her claws pierce the flesh above Dahlia’s heart. “Note that each time you hit out at me, I’ll thrust these a little deeper into your chest.”
Lips tremoring, breaths coming a little faster, Dahlia glared up at the ceiling. “Let me up, please,” she hissed in the same tone someone might say “fuck you.”
“If you insist.” Casey released her and took a slow step back.
Dahlia scrambled off the table and righted her clothes, trying for dignity when she had to feel the height of embarrassed.
“Don’t say something dumb and cliché like ‘you’ll regret this.’ Just go.”
“And have more sense than to come back,” added Eli.
Rubbing at her throat, Dahlia shot all the gawkers a glare as she stalked away with her cats trailing close behind.
Eli took a step toward his mate. “Casey?” Ever so slowly, she turned her head and looked at him. The intensity in her eyes acted like an electric charge to his senses.
“It would have been nice if you’ve shared with me that she was out for my blood, Eli.”
Marveling over how she could sound so deceptively calm, he held up his hands. “I didn’t consciously keep it from you. I just dismissed it, the same as I would dismiss a fly buzzing in my face. It never occurred to me to tell you because I hadn’t taken it seriously, and I’m sorry for that. I won’t make that mistake again.”
She flexed her fingers. “I don’t like it when people keep things from me.”
“I don’t like it that I need to fuck you but we’re surrounded by so many people I can’t do shit about it.” He wasn’t kidding; he was hard as a rock after that little display of dominance.
One corner of her mouth ever so slightly twitched. “I’m not finding you funny.”
“Yes, you are.”
“There’s nothing amusing about this.”
“And yet, you’re fighting a smile.” Risking his eyes, he crossed to her. “I swear, baby, this wasn’t me keeping secrets from you. If I thought there was a threat to you, you’d be the first person to know about it. I’d never hold back something like that from you. Never. I’d want you to be alert and prepared.” Slowly, he reached up to stroke her hair. “I’d never risk you, Casey. You know that. You’re my everything.”