With a shaky breath, I gnawed at my cheeks, then nodded. “Fuck him.”
Fuck all of them.
“I saidkill, darling.”
Power flushed in my chest, dripping like hot magma all the way down when Ambrose offered me a smirk, then his hand. I slipped mine into it, and he helped me to my feet, slow and precise, really taking the time to ensure I could stand without him.
Then, with an almost reverent nod, he crossed the suite. Torvald’s bleary eyes widened, and, like me, he tried to crawl away, dragging his rumpled suit through the debris.
Ambrose caught him.
Pinned him on his belly.
Cuffed him by the back of the neck—and lifted him about two feet off the floor.
Then slammed his face into the marble. Once, twice, three times. Again and again and again. I clapped my hands to my ears at first, unable to stomach the wet, broken cries, the hoarse warbles, and the slap of flesh on stone. Thecrackof bone.
But then I lowered my arms to my sides, remembering thecrunchin my throat when Torvald throttled me.
I made myself watch. A part of me wanted to double over and puke. The part of me that had felt so good, running on a high after my time with Ambrose and his bonds—she made me absorb every detail. Every sound. Everycrackof his face hitting the floor. The metallic mist of blood and whiskey in the air.
When he finished, Ambrose stood and rolled the body over with his foot. Torvald was… unrecognizable. There just wasn’t a face to identify anymore, nose obliterated, eyes ruptured, mouth gaping. As my vampire alpha sauntered across the room, headed for the unlit yuletide tree, Torvald gurgled and choked, blood spurting from the holes in his face—and then went silent. Tremors rushed down his limbs, death twitches, followed by a wet exhale that made my skin crawl.
Ambrose returned a few moments later with the pine tree’s red skirt, the edges lined in fluffy white faux fur. With a little sniff, he draped the fabric across the body, then came for me without a word and scooped me into his arms. Tucked safely against his chest, I buried my face in his collar, breathinghiminstead of the carnage, basking in his aura, in the raw power, hisstrength, as he carried me bridal-style from that suite to his, his expression unnervingly calm.
Like we had just finished a drink at the bar and I was too tipsy to walk home on the icy roads.Thatwas the mood now—like nothing had happened.
Like he hadn’t just brutally beaten another alpha to death and left him to rot under a tree skirt.
But he wouldn’t rot.
In fact, by the time Ambrose shouldered open the door to his suite, someone could have already found him and frantically radioed security to review the tapes.
We were on borrowed time—but he definitely didn’t act like it. No, as Kane in crimson and Laszlo in navy leapt from their armchairs, whirling around to meet us, Ambrose practically sauntered. Snarls and gruff rumbles filled the room, all eyes on my aching neck, my tearstained face, my scalp that still burned from Torvald’s fist.
Maybe even on Ambrose’s blood-spattered face, some of that dead alpha flecked across his hair.
With a soft hum, Ambrose lowered me into the deep groove left in Kane’s leather armchair as if I was made of glass, like I was so delicate I’d shatter if he so much as breathed on me wrong. Once in place, the alpha squatted where I had previously knelt between Kane’s thick thighs. He smoothed out my bathrobe, arranging it for the most skin coverage, then gently finger-combed my damp hair so it sat neat and tidy over my shoulders.
“Hollis,” he said with a deliciously deep alpha rumble, snaring the omega in me like catnip to a spoiled house cat. “You were a gift to us tonight.” His bright blues flicked to where my stupid gold bow once sat, that and the diamond icicles long gone. “And you were such an extraordinary gift, strong and brave, a true survivor…”
Now, Ambrose reached for that exact spot with gentle fingers, brushing his knuckles to my throat, the seas stormy when he reached a spot that made me flinch and inhale sharply, the sting sharp. “Afighter.” With a soft sigh, he leaned back and threaded his hands together, still balanced in a perfect squat, his black suit hugging his lean, muscular frame—and his dress shirt dotted with blood. “For all that, we’d like to return the favor.”
My brow furrowed, and I looked up as Kane and Laszlo appeared behind the blond vampire, one on each side, posted like frowning sentries. I focused on Laszlo, on the alpha who had made me feel the safest tonight, both in and out of our scene, but he was locked on Ambrose, still and silent, like he was also waiting for an explanation.
Kane, meanwhile, stood tall and brooding at Ambrose’s back, staring over all of us now, those copper eyes burning a hole in the suite’s door.
But a shiver tickled his fingers, even with his arms folded over that massive chest. I caught it, the slight twitch, even after he flexed them, then ultimately shoved them in his pants pockets.
“As head of this coven,” Ambrose drawled, his grit forcing me back to him, every cell in my being trapped in that whisper of an alpha bark, “I would like to offer you a job.”
I flinched again, even with nothing but their powerful presence touching me. “W-what?”
Ouch. I grimaced at the burn in my throat, my voice still just a pained whisper. Laszlo’s expression darkened, and he vanished in a flash—but returned just as fast, disappearing empty-handed and reappearing with a chilled plastic water bottle from the mini-fridge. He handed it to me with a bow that belonged in an age gone by, back when alphas were civil to omegas, when we weren’t treated like commodities and trophy mates and bartering chips. I accepted the offer with a thin smile, wishing I could express my gratitude but just too fucking exhausted to show it.
Still, good as the water felt at first sip, it ached the whole way down.
“Now, this is a position usually held by betas,” Ambrose told me as I risked another tentative sip, “but I believe you’re more than up to the task.”