Page 99 of Servitude to Serpents

She’shere, she’s fucking here, and he knew I was looking. Tyet always fucking knows.

Fuck, he’s giving meher.

Buthow? How is she—

The sound of a screeching chair takes my attention. Julissa Eaton steps in frontof me, a smile on her face, but I see it: the panic in her eyes, the fear. That’s the only answer I need. “You were not supposed to be here, Head of Serpents.” She chuckles, trying to poorly hide the nerves in her voice. When my eyes find her husband behind me, he turns, suddenly engrossed in conversation. My heart clenches, my vision tunneling.

“What have you fucking done?”

“Now, now, I simply made right on a contract you broke, Warrick.”

I move to shove her from me when her husband finally finds his courage, his hand slapping my shoulder. “She’s stunning, no? Amazing how they flourish with the correct guiding hand.”

“You have no clue how badly you messed up, do you?”

Julissa’s painted-on demeanor breaks for a second, the sickening innards of her shining through. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe she truly can’t resist spewing her bile. Maybe she has forgotten who the fuck I am. “Now, don’t go and do anything stupid. She’s just flesh, after all. Remember, we had a deal. It’d be a shame to report to the other houses how you blatantly broke our contract, not to mention the way you infiltrated myhome. Not when your own house is already in such turbulent waters. She really is quite…delicious.”

I shove past her, making quiet murmurs erupt in the room. Faintly, I can hear Stuart in my ear, his incensed warnings, the armed security for the event all tensing. I tune it all out, shoving people away from the piano, from her. Every second that passed without her comes down in one, crushing moment as I stand behind her, watching her as she plays. The movements in her right hand are stunted slightly from the fracture that likely wasn’t given proper care. The sound of my heart whooshes in my ears as I run my fingers through her silky hair. It reaches her lower back now, adorned with tiny, lily-shaped crystals. She shudders, and sheknows.

She has to know.

“Pup.” My voice is thick with emotion, my chest shattering in on itself as she doesn’t respond. I can’t help it when my hand captures her chin gently, oh so gently, urging her to face me. She resists, making a small, quietwhimper as everything in me snaps. The piano cuts off abruptly as I reach down, my hand forming a bruising hold on her thigh as I spin her to face me. Her chest heaves under the high neck of her gown, those wide brown eyes wreaking havoc on my heart. My hand tightens on her, readying to slam her into my arms, to take her back home where she belongs, to consume her and unleash every agonizing second on her pretty flesh, when she winces.

Shewinces.

Everything goes still.

Deathly still as Stuart’s warnings ring in my ears. Julissa’s high-pitched voice demands I take my hands off her. She sounds worried, scared.

She should.

They all should.

The baby pink silk gathers like butter as I hike it up Pup’s legs, her beautiful body trembling, because we both know what I’m about to see. The first one is above her knee, a deep, angry gash. The higher I go, the more they mar her pale flesh, the deeper they get. I clear my throat, swallowing back the emotion clogging it as I press my lips to her head. Gently. Softly. So fucking soft, the way she always deserved. She’s unresponsive to my touch, but she trembles, her doe eyes vacant.

Dry.

I’m shaking as I let my lips fall from her head, pressing mine to hers instead. “Excuse me for a moment, my love. You may want to close your eyes for this.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own, the tunneling in my vision pinpointing, my fists curling.

Her breath hitches, just a little, and for a second, I seeherin those chestnut-colored eyes. My fingers find the com on my watch, disrupting Stuart’s ranting. “Change of plans. I’m taking the room.”

“WHAT THE FUCK?” Stuart roars as I remove the com from my ear, slipping it into my pocket.

I watch Pup flinch as Julissa storms over, her talons gripping my arm as she tries to tug me away. The squeaking of a food cart drifts over the sudden, rapturous quiet that seems to snuff out everything else in the room. Julissa glares at Barns. “Have you lost your fucking mind? Move the cart, you fucking idiot.”

Her crow-like eyes widen a moment too late, the realization hitting her all at once as she stumbles back. The room is still blissfully unaware of what’s about to happen. That familiar quiet rage is anything but—it’s an inferno.

Napalm.

I press another all-too-fleeting kiss to Pup’s forehead before I jerk a black 1W1 Traver assault rifle from underneath the cloth of the cart. It’s Julissa’s screams that rally the guests and spur security into action, but the exits are blocked. My men work like a well-oiled machine as I put two bullets in the woman’s knees, watching her crumble, her face contorted in agony. It’s Leo who screams the loudest, barreling toward me as he jerks his own gun from his waist, but the years haven’t been kind to him.

He’s slow.

Too slow.

I put three in his gut and watch with pure gratification as he drops. What was once a scene of opulence and excess is a bloodbath. People are trembling and screaming, slamming on doors that are blocked from the outside.

My eyes dip to the screaming woman at my feet as I turn the small rifle toward her, only for small hands to grip my arms. “Let me,” she chokes out, like the words are foreign to her.

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