Page 101 of The Alpha Under My Bed

I inhaled, dragging the taste of her panic into my lungs, letting it settle on my tongue like fine fucking wine.

“You should’ve left her alone, Claudia,” I murmured, taking another step.

She flinched.

Her back hit the wall, her hands splaying against the rusted steel like she could push through it if she just pressed hard enough. Her whole body shook. Not with defiance. Not with anger. With fear.

Because she had finally put it together.

The disconnect.

The lie.

She had spent years thinking she knew me. Thinking I was safe. Thinking I was weak. And now, she was standing in front of something she didn’t understand. Something she could never control.

Her lips trembled. “Mal, we can talk about this?—”

I lunged.

She screamed.

I caught her by the throat.

Her body slammed against the wall, the impact rattling the rusted shelves behind her. Dust rained from the rafters, settling over her trembling form. She let out a choked sound, fingers clawing at my grip, legs kicking wildly at the air. Her nails bit into my skin, but I barely felt it.

Her pulse hammered beneath my palm. Fast. Desperate. Weak.

Good.

I squeezed. Not enough to kill. Not yet.

“You were stealing from me,” I murmured, flexing my fingers just slightly, watching her eyes bulge. “Taking something that wasn’t yours. Touching something that wasn’t yours.”

She made another strangled sound, trying to twist away, but I shoved her harder, grinding the back of her skull against the rusted steel.

“You thought you could bottle her,” I continued, my voice low, deliberate, cruel. “You thought you could tear her apart, take what you wanted, and no one would stop you.”

Her whole body shuddered. I dragged my thumb over the frantic, pounding pulse in her throat, feeling her heart slam against my grip—panicked, frantic, fading.

“Where did you think this would end?” I murmured, dipping my head, letting my lips brush her ear. “Did you think I’d let you go?”

Her fingers scrabbled weakly at my wrist, nails slipping against my skin. “M-Mal—” she choked, her voice cracking.

I smiled, slow and cruel. “I’m not Mal. Not to you.”

And then I ripped her throat open.

Her scream barely made it past her lips before it gurgled into nothing.

She jerked violently in my grasp, her hands spasming, feet kicking weakly at nothing. Blood spurted hot and thick, soaking my hand, my wrist, spilling down my forearm in sluggish, sticky waves, pooling beneath her twitching body. Her heartbeat stuttered. Slowed. Stopped.

And then she was nothing.

Just a dead thing in my grip.

I let her drop.

Her body hit the floor with a wet, lifeless thud, and I barely spared her another glance. She had never mattered.

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