I downed my drink and slammed the glass onto the table before standing and slowly weaving my way through the crowd toward her.
Kingston beat me to her. That gods-damned alphahole wolf.
He grabbed her by the elbow, jerking her roughly away from the bar before pushing her up against a table. It was aggressive, and the pain that flashed in her eyes when her back connected with the corner of the table was enough to send me running toward them. I didn’t care that she had a vampire in her corner or that she was a grown woman who said she could take care of herself. This arse was hurting her, and no one hurt what was mine and lived.
I was so consumed by my anger, I didn’t even stop to question the possessive claim I’d just staked. The only thing driving me was the need to draw blood. A whole fucking lot of it.
“Get your fucking hands off her.”
I shoved him hard, but Kingston barely moved, his eyes a dull, lifeless brown. But then everything in him hardened. Rage and hatred boiled behind his irises, and though he snarled, there wasn’t a whiff of wolf on him. Something wasn’t right.
“I’m not done with her,” he said, his voice unusually thin and tight.
He lunged, knocking Sunday to the ground and landing on top of her. Then she screamed and the world stopped. Everything froze around me as I moved with more speed and power than I’d ever known. Kingston’s throat was in my grip, and I had him pinned to the floor, choking and gasping, clawing at my fingers.
“You won’t keep her,” he croaked out. “No matter how hard you try.”
“Yeah, well, neither will you.”
He continued to thrash beneath my grip, a wicked smile twisting his lips despite the fact that he was clearly outpowered and I had no intention of easing my grasp. The wolf was completely fucking unhinged, and it was my job to put him down.
“I don’t want her. She’s already as good as dead.” Then, with one hand, he grabbed hold of the amulet around his neck and crushed it.
Kingston gasped, and his eyes rolled back in his head. He began to convulse, his body morphing and transforming until his features shifted into those of a different person entirely. Instead of the young alpha wolf I’d thought I’d been fighting, there was a man old enough to be my grandfather lifeless in my grasp. His heart still, eyes open and glazed over, and that fucking smile still stretched across his face.
“Alek?” Sunday’s voice was a thready whisper, weak and filled with fear.
I turned to her, relieved she was up and talking. “Sunday. Are you all right?”
Her lower lip trembled. “I don’t think so.”
Then my gaze traveled down her body to the rapidly blooming stain on her abdomen and the jagged, broken blade sticking out of her.