Chapter 53 The energy between us
“What do you think you are doing?” Kam lifted an eyebrow at me. Every muscle that was barely hidden under that thin shirt tensed. His lip curled on one side, showing a row of incisors in his mouth, like he knew what I was thinking. The serrated teeth warned that his human form was close to falling away.
I hissed at my mate, and the wolf jumped out of his skin at my sudden aggression. If my mate thought he could come back after all this time, he was sorely mistaken.
The two beasts locked eyes and the energy in the room changed. Even I could feel the warring dominance in the air. Wolf vs. Megalodon. There was no question of who would win.
“Who are you?” the wolf asked.
“Her mate.” A growl rumbled deep in his chest. The wolf’s eyes grew wide in alarm.
“I’m out of here.” I couldn’t blame him.
The wolf scrambled to stand, but Kam slammed a heavy hand down on the back of his neck, holding him in place.
“Did you touch her?” “No.”
“Kam!” I jumped to my feet. “You don’t get to come in here and–” “Answer my question.” Kam didn’t acknowledge me. “Be honest this
time.”
“I shook her hand.” The wolf whimpered, quivering under Kam’s hold. He knew the law of beasts. You don’t touch another’s mate, but this poor bastard was under the impression my mate was long gone.
Hell, so was I.
“That’s what I thought.” Kam clamped his jaws around the front of the wolf’s neck and ripped his throat out. Blood flooded the table, ruining what was left of my lobster. The wolf panicked, grabbing his neck. He gargled at me for help.
“What do you want me to do about it? Do I look like I can fix your trachea?” I scoffed in disbelief.
Kam’s smile continued to twist in his demented way as he spat the blood and skin onto the table. “All you’d do is give me the pleasure of doing it again.”
He was challenging me. Scales tickled my legs again and my hair billowed out. I grabbed my soup spoon and launched myself over the table,
aiming for his eye. I jabbed it into his face as many times as I could before he tossed me back over the table. With a loud shriek, I jumped up, letting the full force of the sea’s wrath throw him back into the opposite wall.
Ocio’s rage specifically fueled my power, and I had plenty of that.
This asshole was going to pay for leaving me alone for twenty-two years. I ran at him, but the room turned into a steaming hot oven. The temperature became an oppressive weight that made me collapse to the ground. I savored the cool cement floor as I watched the glass windows fog from the change in temperature. Kam joined me on the ground, growling and snarling like the animal he was.
“Let’s all calm down,” a familiar voice commanded.
“Ref 74?” I looked up as best I could without lifting my head. Sure enough, it was the moon witch that saved me over and over again every time she sent me a new batch of that potion of hers.
“Mal.” Disapproval laced her voice; and she was one of the few people in the world where that meant something to me. “This is a human restaurant. What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” I admitted, glancing around. But everyone was sleeping in their booths and chairs. She prevented the exposure we should have caused. “Thank you, Ref.”
“That’s my job,” she announced as proudly as ever. She didn’t get it.
Sixty years ago, during the Beast Wars, hunters slaughtered anyone who wasn’t a mage. Without question and without provocation. During the treaty, those hunters were supposed to be eliminated. Referees were created to replace them as peacekeepers and civil servants. Except the Council of Mages just gave all their hunters the referee title.
She was the only real referee out there. She was a different breed from them. When my bond broke and I lost myself, any other referee would have put me down. But not her. She let me live in her house, and she took care of what was important to me when I couldn’t.
Ref 74 crouched down so Kam and I could see her better. Kam glared at the partial mating mark on her neck. A half crescent scar that her mate never fully sunk his magic into. As time went on, it had faded into almost nothing, not unlike mine. Kam bared his teeth with disgust that I’d become very intimate with when a beast looked at my own mark; the rage of an old beast who didn’t approve of how someone’s mate was treated.
“Why is your mark so faded?”
She rubbed the mark and blushed. “It’s not a mating mark. Just an old scar.”
“Bullshit.” He’d always told me mating marks were different. A beast could identify a mating mark no matter what condition it was in. He never explained how, but he was a dick like that. “It’s disgusting. Your mate is weak.”
He dared to judge anyone about how they cared for their mate. Sure. Her mating mark was faded, but her mate was by her side every damn day. He poured everything into her care. So clearly the mark thing was what Ref 74 wanted.
“Faded?” I yanked my dress down to show him the hideous state of his mark and knock his superior primordial ass down a few pegs.
His breathing stuttered as he studied the horrid shape of our bond. Did he not feel it like I did? The magic that shattered everything inside me and left me a broken mess did nothing to him?
“I don’t want to be here with him,” I growled out. “I want to leave.” “Let’s cool off first.” She pointed to the claws replacing my nails. “But
I’ll move you away from him so you don’t escalate further.”