Page 107 of The Beta's Heart

“Are they threatening you?” I asked, not taking my eyes off of the jerks.

“Not me, beta.”

“Then who?” Mentally rolling up my sleeves, I put a touch of moon power and beta bass in my voice so Misha would tell me the truth.

“Luna.”

That got my immediate and complete attention. River’s, too, which wasn’t good. He didn’t comment or push for control, but his ears were up and his hackles raised.

“We don’t tolerate threats against our luna,” Mike McFlynn told the triplets as the shifters around us rumbled their disapproval, too.

The triplets broke out in Russian again, and Misha gasped as they laughed.

“Speak English,” I commanded because I knew they could, but they only jeered at me.

“What did they say, Misha?” McFlynn demanded while I was telling River to keep it together and let me handle it.

“I do not want to profane your ears or anyone else’s with their vileness.”

“That bad, huh?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. That bad.”

“Better tell us,” McFlynn said with the low burr of his wolf in his voice, and Misha began to translate.

“Yuri said, ‘We have heard your luna is quite the beauty. We must pay her a visit and find out if she’s beautiful when she’s begging under us.’ Then Mikhail said, ‘She will be nothing but a broken little wolf when we’re done with her.’ I am sorry. It makes me feel dirty to even have their words in my mouth.”

I couldn’t respond. In his innocence, River didn’t pick up on everything they meant, but he understood that they were being meanies about his luna, and now he was howling for blood. The fact that the shifters around us were also agitated wasn’t helping, but I had to focus on my own wolf, not theirs.

Calm down, Riv. They’re not going to really hurt luna. They’re just running their mouths. Besides, our luna is at home with Mase. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. And don’t forget, she’s the most powerful she-wolf on the planet. Even if these jerks tried something, she’d put them on their butts.

Riv wasn’t listening, though. Teased and provoked all week, he’d had enough of these three and could see only one way to get them out of his life as well as protect luna.

Me kill them,he said in an eerily flat tone.

My eyes flaring gold, he nearly took me to my knees in his push for control, and I tried my usual bribe since logic hadn’t worked.

I bet you never tried cookie dough ice cream. If you let me handle this, we can—

Me. Kill. Them. Dead.

The triplets reeled off some more comments, and Misha continued to translate them, and I almost wished he wouldn’t because I wasn’t exactly in control of River anymore.

“Arkady said, ‘As for this beta’s little mate, we will make sure she knows what a real man is, too.’ Then Mikhail said, ‘Let’s go take both she-wolves now. While their mates play soldiers here, we can turn them into our little whores.’ ”

The triplets smirked, the challenge clear in their eyes, and the shift came over me, hot and raw, inevitable as soon as River heard the word whore. He clawed his way to the surface with an intensity I could no longer leash and, to be frank, didn’t want to. My blood boiled with my own desire to shred these bastards.

“Beta?” Misha called, but Tyler Quinn James was gone.

In his place stood a lethal beast with fire in his eyes and murder in his heart.

The triplets’ eyes gleamed as they shifted, too, and I almost felt bad for them in their ignorance. They thought they were ready for this fight, but they had no idea what they were in for.

River might have a lot of issues, but fighting wasn’t one of them. A single beta wolf taking on three might have seemed like a ridiculous mismatch, but not if that one wolf was River, and everyone in the pack knew it. In fact, I could hear McFlynn taking bets on how long Riv would toy with the Russians before he ended them.

Then all my attention zeroed in on the three brown wolves as they launched themselves forward, and Riv surged to meet them, a blur of gray fluff that was all raw, predatory power now. The four of them collided with a sickening crunch, and the tang of blood, coppery and hot, filled the air as one of the brown wolves yelped in pain and staggered to the side.

The other two pressed on, jaws snapping, but River dodged effortlessly, his movements precise and deadly. He swiped out with one paw, claws raking across the second wolf’s side, and sent it sprawling.

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