Page 16 of Catch a Tiger

“Name and regiment,” she demanded.

“Eliel, 73rd Regiment.” That hateful gaze shifted from his wings to her face as ifdaringher.

Samuel had no fucking idea what that meant, but apparently she did because she sighed in disappointment and gripped the base of those wings tighter.

“Don’t!”

Then she ripped them from the body – the strange sound of bone cracking and the suction from the flesh as it releasedwas all too familiar, especially accompanied by the anguished screaming from the angel as if he could stillfeelwhat she was doing to him.

More blood gushed from her hands, but she still didn’t let go, and Samuel nearly snapped Rune’s neck when she winked at the head. “Finders keepers.”

Another roar of rage, but this fucking woman didn’t seem to hear it as she laid them on the ground before the head and started plucking the feathers from them, more blood gushing from her hands.

That was when he realized those feathers were cutting her.

Damn the Fates to hell and back for choosingheras their mate.

This was really their missing piece? What the actual fuck was he supposed to do with this?

“They can be fixed,” the angel snarled, rage making the head quiver and it teetered precariously on the stump – forcing him to refocus. “All I have to do is reattach them.”

The woman ignored him as she plucked one of the wings until it was nothing but flesh over bone.

Samuel felt his world tremble as he tried to remember everything he knew about angels. He was pretty fucking sure she shouldn’t be able to do this, but what did he know? Morgan wouldn’t tell him what the hell she was.

Fucking insanity stared at him in its rawest form, and it broke the rules of the universe with the kind of chaotic glee that made his claws and teeth slip from his control.

Rune was the one to hold him back this time, their eyes unable to look away from the woman plucking an angel’s wing like it was a fucking chicken.

“Bitch,” the angel hissed when she picked up one of his feathers and twirled it, staring at the head without really seeing him.

It glinted with an edge so sharp it hurt his eyes when he tried to focus on it, and the last time he’d experienced that kind of fuckery was when he’d…

No, this was different.

Then the woman leaned forward to carve 73rd into the angel's cheek with his own feather, shaking her head with a disappointed sigh. “You never deserved these wings, did you?”

Her strange accent sliced through the winter air and Samuel flinched at the way it called to him like a siren’s song.

She studied the head spitting curses at her in a language his enchanted ring refused to translate as she spun the feather around and around.

“How many do you think he’ll send before he comes looking for me?” she asked, interrupting the angel’s tirade as if he hadn’t been speaking at all.

“Who the fuck are you even talking about?”

“You’re so far below him, it’s actually kind of embarrassing.” She dropped the feather and stood, the frame of one wing in her hand. “The 73rd regiment? Talk about insulting. I’m ripping up all his toys, but he won’t come down to save you. Tell me…how does that make youfeel?”

She went back to stand over his body and waited for an answer.

“I feel nothing.”

Crack.

The bone of that wing was now in two pieces.

How was she strong enough to break angel bone with her bare hands? How did she move so damnfast?

“You’re a poor imitation of them,” she murmured before slamming the two bones through the body with the kind of strength he’d have to beverycareful of, muttering in the same language the angel had been cursing at her in.

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