“You Julian?” He didn’t look anything like the photo Wright picked up from the D.P.R.
With a nod, Julian rose from his throne. “I am. And, don’t fret, I know exactly who you are. The second-place wolf who thinks he can steal my betrothed away from me. I’ve been looking forward to this meeting for quite some time now. If I had known that all it would take was holding the corporal, I would’ve gone after him ages ago instead of waiting for him to track me down.”
“Where is he?” Colt asked again. “I know he was here.”
“He’s fine. For now. Forget about him. This is much more important, don’t you agree?” He shifted to his left, leaning around Colt so that he could address Shea. “I warned you what would happen if you didn’t let him go. Did you really want to mate him so badly that it was worth his head ending up on a spike?”
Pure terror came racing down his bond with Shea. He could sense her trembling, knew that Julian was affecting her more than she thought he would.
“Leave Shea out of it,” Colt snarled. “This is between you and me.”
“And your corporal? Or, should I say, my corporal? How about a trade, Wolfe? Your mate for my corporal. I get my betrothed, you get your partner. You walk away and never look back. Deal?”
He liked Wright, something he never thought would’ve happened when he accepted the spot on the Grayson PD task force, but he loved Shea.
“No fucking way.”
Julian shrugged. “Fair enough. I wouldn’t have honored my side of the bargain anyway. That’s just not how it’s done when it comes to fated partners. But how about a duel?”
“Now I know you’re full of it,” Colt said dryly, maintaining control on his wolf. The Nightwalker might’ve tried to provoke him before, referring to Shea as his betrothed while terrorizing her, but he needed to hang onto his temper—and his head. “A duel? What is it? 1865?”
Julian’s smile widened, showing off the points of his inch-long fangs. “1865. That was a very good year. War was just winding down, lots of bodies getting lost in the shuffle. I drank very well then.”
Shea let out a small sound of disgust. Colt wanted to echo it as his head spun with the repercussions of Julian’s admission. The vamp was nearly two centuries old, if not older. He would be more powerful than a recently turned Nightwalker.
But Colt had a mate to protect.
He would win.
“Say I take you up on your duel, what’s the terms?”
Julian’s eyes were a pale grey that seemed to sparkle and shine when it seemed like Colt was playing into his games. “Very simple. Claws and fangs, nothing else. And you have my word, with Rafe as witness, that you can have the corporal back if you win.”
“And Shea?”
“Winner gets the girl.”
“You can’t have her. She’s already my mate.”
“She’s your mate for as long as you’re still living. Isn’t that right? Besides, we’ve already completed two blood exchanges. One more and I have enough grounds for a bonding license. Unless, of course, you already have one.”
Colt bit down so hard, his fangs nearly sliced through his lip.
Fucking bonding license. He’d got on Maddox’s case for years because his older brother didn’t get a bonding license before he married his human. Evangeline had wanted a marriage license first, so that’s what they did.
Of course, when the accident happened and the law invoked the Claws Clause, the bonding license didn’t mean shit. It did, however, when it came to getting Maddox out of the C
age.
Damn it, the corpse was right. In the eyes of the government, that stupid piece of paper was all that counted. He didn’t have it because it didn’t seem so important after the claiming. Then again, neither did Julian. Technically, Shea wasn’t bonded to either one of them.
As soon as he finished him off, the first thing Colt was doing was bringing Shea to the bonding office and making their mating one hundred percent official.
Not yet, though.
Not now.
“Colt,” Shea said, his name a harsh whisper in her throat as if she pushed through her fear to get it out. “You… you can’t do this—”