Oh, you rat bastard. Camille snapped out of her shocked daze with a burst of fury. Rounding on her unwanted guest, she bit out, “I was rejecting your offer, Mr. Luz!”
He lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect a shifter.” He tsked. “You still want to turn down my suit, Miss Solbourne? I wouldn’t mind if you kept him as a pet. After all, we would only need to have sex once or twice a week until we produced a—”
Viktor crossed the space between them in a blink of an eye. Nearly nose to nose with the elf, he murmured, “Finish that sentence and you’re a dead man, Epifanio.”
Amusement colored his low voice when he replied, “Oh?”
“Yeah, oh.” Viktor smiled, but it was not one of the grins she was used to. It carried nothing but the promise of violence. “The only one Camille will be with is me. The only one she’ll have cubs with is me. Now get the fuck out of my mate’s apartment.”
“Viktor!” Camille exclaimed, worry making her voice higher than usual. Cold sweat broke out over her chest.
Gods, she could not watch him get in a fight with Epifanio. She just couldn’t. Watching helplessly as Margot struggled to save his life the night before was enough trauma for a lifetime. She didn’t need to see him test his mettle on Epifanio, too.
Epifanio lifted a hand over his shoulder in a lazy, placating gesture. “Don’t worry, Miss Solbourne, I don’t have any plans to turn your mutt into mince meat today.” Smoothly stepping forward until Viktor was forced to move aside, allowing him out of the apartment, he added, “Viktor Hamilton, I presume?”
Viktor swiftly took his place in the doorway, his hands shooting out to grasp both sides of the door jamb to completely block Epifanio’s view inside. Camille rushed over to him. Hands spreading across the expanse of his back, she felt the trembling tension in the bunched muscles.
“Yes,” he grated, leaning slightly backward, into her touch.
“Fascinating,” he drawled. “Well, it was a delight, Miss Solbourne. I wish you all the best.” She heard the hard heels of his shoes striking the floor with each measured step as he began to walk away from her apartment. The beat paused. “Oh, one more thing.”
Viktor let loose a rattling snarl. “What?”
“I heard something interesting through the grapevine the other day,” he answered, coolly amused. “I like to make it my business to know when someone offers a lot of money for murder. You might want to know that there’s a bounty on your head, Alpha Hamilton. I do believe someone is trying to have you killed.”
Without missing a beat, Viktor snapped, “Old news. Now get the fuck out.”
With one quick step back, he grasped the door and swung it back into place with bang!
Epifanio’s laughter carried down the hall as he walked away.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Vik, I—”
He swung around to face his mate, breathing hard and fast. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he bent his neck to bury his face in the soft, fragrant skin of her bare throat. “Give me a minute,” he rasped, struggling for calm, for some part of the man who would not go hunting for the elf who thought he could enter his mate’s den.
The coyote bit and snarled inside him, worked into a frenzy by the fever that raked every nerve, every instinct. It couldn’t fathom the sight he was treated to when Camille’s door swung open. It was bad enough to know she’d left their den, but to find her with an unfamiliar, obviously dangerous man in her apartment, when she was dressed in nothing but a long silk robe, made every instinct scream in enraged protest.
The fever was relentless. It didn’t understand reason, nor listen to caution. It was a tidal wave built by generation after generation of intense, bloody competition. Securing a partner had never been easy, after all. It took cunning, tenacity, and single-minded focus to win a prized mate, to build that sacred bond that rose above all other loyalty.
His coyote, separate from him and yet the same being, howled from a primordial place, one where competition had to be cut down with tooth and claw: Not bitten, not safe, not mine!
Viktor felt like he was losing his damn mind.
Trying desperately to calm himself down, lest the fever push him to do something stupid, Viktor walked them back until Camille’s back hit the wall. He smoothed his hands down her arms, calluses catching on the soft fabric of her robe, until he reached the tips of her fingers.
No claws, he thought, for the second time that day. Pride swelled as protective rage began to bleed away, replaced by the pounding need to assert his claim. Wrapping his hands around her waist, he dragged his parted lips over the column of her throat, tracing the tendons and muscle that made such an elegant arch.
“Vik,” she sighed, pressing her hands against his stomach. Muscle rippled under her firm touch. “I’m sorry. I had no idea he would—”
“Shh.” He dared to nip her throat, teeth grazing a part of her he knew she rarely exposed to anyone besides close family, and felt her spine arch. He had only seen her throat once, so many years ago, when he convinced her to sneak into one of the many elvish training facilities late one night to swim in a pool.
Viktor groaned at the memory of what the sight of her in only her black panties and bra had done to him. He was too afraid to touch her then — gods, she was so out of his league it wasn’t even funny — but he could touch her now.
Breathing hotly against her skin, he rasped, “We’re not talking about him now, sweetheart.”
He felt her breathy sigh ruffle his hair. “Then what are we going to talk about?”
“Nothing,” he answered, fingers moving to the silken sash tied around her waist. He traced the topography of its bunches and twists before he found the knot. It unraveled with one sharp tug. “I don’t want words right now. I just want my mate.”
Her fingers curled into the shirt covering his stomach. There was no prick of claws, and for a moment he was stunned by the vulnerability she must have felt every time she came near him. Clawless, with her choices dictated by biology firmly out of her control, unsure of his affection — no wonder she had accused him of torturing her. With him, his fierce elf was helpless.
The trust it took to let him near, after everything, stunned him, humbled him, and aroused him beyond his ability to articulate.
“You have me,” she whispered, so soft his coyote hearing barely picked it up.
Chest aching, Viktor pushed aside the tearing need to claim for just a moment. He lifted his head to peer into her face, needing to see the truth in her eyes when he asked, “Do I?”
She swallowed thickly, but didn’t look away. “Yes,” she answered, stronger. “Yes, Vik. I don’t know how we’ll figure everything out but I know— I know that I’m yours. That you’re mine. You have me, body and soul.”
He let the sash fall from his fingertips. Reaching up to cup her cheeks, he forced her to look him directly in the eye. There could be no second thoughts about this. No redos or cancellations — not simply because it would break him to let her go a second time, but because there was more than just their hearts on the line.
“I need you to be sure,” he ground out, “not just about you and me, but about everything. If we do this, you become alpha of my pack, sweetheart. You won’t just belong to me anymore. You’ll belong to all of us. Are you okay with that?”