Page 38 of Secrets & Sake

Takahashi leers at me. “Lead the way.”

Just as planned. I let him follow me outside the club, then take a detour around the side of the building where it’s more secluded.

There’s only a chef there, taking a smoke break, but he stomps out his smoke and goes back inside. We have the alley all to ourselves.

Takahashi slams me against the wall, forces his thick thigh between my legs. My entire body tenses up. Memories I’ve locked away try to come crawling in. When his goatee scratches my neck and his dry lips bite my skin, bile crawls up my throat.

No. I’m not a victim. I’m not a helpless, naïve little kid anymore. Fuck this asshole. Fuck Takada.

Takahashi suddenly squeaks, eyes bulging. There’s a knife against his throat. “Hands off,” Ren snarls in his ear, eyes blazing. Takahashi takes a few steps back, throat bobbing as he swallows hard.

I wipe the smear of his spit off my neck, a shiver of revulsion racking me. I grin at Takahashi through the disgust making bile rise in my throat. “Where’s your brother, Goro?”

“D-don’t know,” Goro whimpers. “Let me go.”

I click my tongue. “Goro, Goro, Goro. That’s not the answer I wanted to hear.”

I swing my claws across his face, slashing his eyes. He yells in horror, and Ren and I tackle him to the ground. There’s a pothole filled with rainwater next to him. I make a mental note of that.

Goro’s scream is silenced when I wrap my claws around his thick neck. The smell of his blood has my fangs sharp and claws out. The bloodlust rises like a tide within me, vision running red at the corners. I’m sure my eyes are glowing, and fur prickles all over my body as the wolf roars for blood.

All they did was punch and scratch Hiro, and I’m livid. If they’d done anything worse… I want to tear his entrails from his body and feast upon them until I bloat. “Where. Is. Your. Brother.”

“W-with his girlfriend.”

“And where is she?”

He mumbles out an address.

“Got that?” I ask Ren.

She smiles pleasantly from the shadows. “Yup.”

“Good.”

Goro swallows thickly, blinking blood out of his eyes. “Let me go. Okay? I told you everything.”

“I don’t think I will.”

His eyes bulge, face going pale. “Why? What did I do?”

“You hurt what’s mine,” I growl, voice infused with the fury of a wolf.

The wolf snarls, Bite. Kill. Protect!

“How long can you hold your breath, Goro?”

“Huh?”

“Let’s find out!”

I roll him onto his front and slam his face beneath the water overflowing from the pothole. It’s deeper than it looks, submerging his whole head. He thrashes, and air bubbles break the surface of the filthy brown water. I shove my clawed hand beneath the water and tear out his throat.

The streets are empty, so we carry the body to the trunk of my car and dump it in without anyone seeing us.

Ren whistles. “Damn. That was kind of badass.”

“Now for brother number two.”

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