Chapter 11 The Host
POV: Eric
New Orleans, WSL Tower, 30th floor.
Walking disaster.
David chuckles. The sound dies before it’s born.
“Catherine Hale. One brother, Liam, fourteen. Father’s been drinking his wife’s grave since the funeral. Rent eats seventy percent of her assistant salary.”
I set down my Montblanc. The silence that drops has teeth. <
He slides the file. Navy blue. I don’t open it. Poverty has a smell. Burnt coffee, torn notebooks, nights where you pick gas or pasta. Late rent. Maxed cards. Overdraft screaming. And Liam, fourteen, doing homework while his father passes out on the couch. Her father. A man. A rotten male. Dead weight.
I tap the file. The leather creaks. “This it? This is all that dares stand between her throat and our teeth?”
David’s pale. “Alpha, penalties, overdraft, student loan, lease… we’re pushing six figures. High six.”
“And?”
My voice drops. It crawls across the mahogany and squeezes his throat without touching him.
“You think we count, David? You think the Alpha pulls out a calculator when we’re hungry?”
<
David swallows. His hands shake. “Alpha, I—”
“You what, David? You’re breathing because we allow it. Shut your mouth and execute.”
He shuts up. Grabs the file like our fingerprints burn and leaves. The door whispers. Our silence roars.
<
Walking disaster, huh?
Cael doesn’t knock. He infests the air. He’s leaning on the doorframe before David’s door even shuts. Black suit. No tie. Collar open. Grin of a scavenger who found something warm.
“Shut up, Cael.”
“I’m just observing, Alpha. You’re burning down everything orbiting her. She’s got one gravity left. Yours. This isn’t strategy. It’s predation.”
<
I go to the window. Thirty floors. New Orleans is laid out, red and gold. The French Quarter bleeds. The Mississippi cuts the city in two. “We’re not burning anything. We’re sterilizing. Deleting distractions. A female counting dollars at 9 p.m. can’t come at 9:01 when we snap. I want her head empty. An emptiness that echoes only with our name. Our scent. Our command.”
Cael walks to the desk. Picks up the Montblanc. Twirls it. “David started the transfers three minutes ago,” he says. “She’s clean. Legally. Financially. Socially.”
<
<
“We don’t want her gratitude. We don’t want her tears. We want that twitch at the corner of her mouth. The one she kills when her body wants to come, or smile, or bite us. It’s the same nerve. And we’re going to own it until it only fires for us.”
<
He scrapes my ribs. Hungry. Always hungry. He’s not just a wolf. He’s the hunger.
Cael watches me. Hears the growl. He knows. He’s got his own monster. Smaller. Less starved. But he knows. “Don’t scare the assistant before you’ve got her in your bed, Alpha. She might run. And the hunt’s less fun when it’s too easy.”
<
My reflection in the glass isn’t a man. It’s a host. Eyes too pale. Canines too long. Something black moving under the skin. Cael sees it. He whistles. “Damn, Alpha. You really want her.”
<
Cael laughs on his way out. “ Enjoy, Alpha.”