ChapterTwenty-Eight
ALEK
Icouldn’t get the dark-haired beauty out of my thoughts. The pain in her eyes, the hope written on her face, and the undeniable love threading through her voice when she’d said my name all rattled around in my brain without end. I had no escape from the strange ache in my head. Everything was clouded with her. Who the hell was she? Why couldn’t I remember her? Even my mother knew who she was.
The lack of answers had my temper riding a razor’s edge. Never a good thing for a berserker, but far worse for one newly turned. I was liable to bite someone’s head off if they breathed too loudly in my general direction. Guard duty sounded worse with each step I took toward the door to the room she’d been assigned. The closer I got, the tenser I became.
“Ah, the lost prince at last. I thought you might show up here,” Strega said from her position at the door. “If you meant to show up for duty, you could have tried being on time for your shift. Or has your time away spoiled you and made you forget about things like punctuality and codes of conduct?”
“Piss off, Strega.”
She laughed. “Oh, my little mischief maker’s found his balls. Well done, you.”
A pained cry caught my ear from behind the door, the sound feminine and somehow absolutely terrible. I turned away from Strega and reached for the doorknob, but she shook her head.
“They’re in there with her. She’s not alone.”
“She’s hurting.”
The sound of the wolf’s voice filtered to me, a low warning of something dangerous.
Strega’s eyes flashed, and she made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. “Fucking hell, I should have known better than to let a hungry bloodsucker in there with her. She’s ripe for the picking.”
“What?” Rage coursed through me. Untamed. Familiar. This time, I greeted it like an old friend.
Something in my voice must have sounded off because Strega blinked and lifted her gaze back to my face. “Fuck. Not again.”
“Get out of my way.”
“No. You can’t go in there—”
“Get the fuck out of my way or so help me, Strega, I will throw you on your arse.”
She bared her teeth in a snarl and took off down the hall. I didn’t need her to say a word to know she was on her way to get my father. In my current state, he was the only one who could stop me.
A soft whimper from inside the room was the final straw. I broke down the door rather than knock and stared at the three figures on the bed.
“Oh, shit,” Kingston said, his hands cupping Sunday’s breasts. Blood trickled from a wound in her throat, a matching crimson trail running down Thorne’s chin. “This is, uh, exactly what it looks like.”
But my eyes shifted to the line of black runes running across her pale skin.
“Mine,” I growled. That word escaped before I knew what I was saying, and when she locked gazes with me, I stalked forward, berserker in full control.
“Alek,” she breathed, her voice caressing my name, making me throb with want.
“Move!” Kingston shouted.
“Where am I supposed to go?” Thorne countered. “I’m not letting him come near her like that.”
I could hear the words, understand them even, but the only thing that fully registered was the bone-deep fury at seeing my woman in someone else’s arms. My cock swelled with need for her. I had to claim her, to shove those other two distractions out of the way and make her mine.
Prowling forward, I readied my hands to rend their heads from their bodies if they fought me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew we were friends, sort of, but Sunday was my goal. Which meant right now, they were in my way. Insects to be crushed beneath my boot.
Kingston was the first to move, shoving Sunday behind him as he jumped off the bed to place himself between us. Thorne was only a second later, standing so that the two men were shoulder to shoulder in a poor imitation of a wall. As if they could ever stop me.
“So you chose death?” I barely recognized my voice.
“Don’t do this, man. You’ll never forgive yourself.” Kingston reached back and held Sunday in place even though she fought to get free.