Page 79 of Smoke and Lure

Chanin stood at the door, staring at Farkas’s dingy, mud-brown wolf prowling in a small circle on top of the tool table, all the tools now scattered around the floor below it.He wasn’t shocked to see Farkas loose.He hadn’t ordered the Fang Warriors to keep him tied up.

Chanin liked that it gave Farkas hope that he could outsmart him and escape.It made his cousin the idiot Chanin always knew him to be.

Boris and Bleddyn stood behind him right outside the door, not having entered yet, but Chanin heard their slight movements to the side so they could see past him to the wolf, keeping it in their sights.

Chanin stepped further into the room and positioned himself a few feet away, ready for anything his cousin may attempt.Allowing enough space for him to shift if needed.

“I’m not going to speak with you through our familial link, it no longer applies.”Chanin folded his arms over his chest and kept his stance wide.“You can either shift your ass back to your human form and sit your ass in the chair or I can let your wolf deal with mine.”

Chanin growled and flashed his sharp canines and incisors at the rogue.

Bleddyn took up a position behind Chanin while Boris closed and secured the door, ensuring Farkas didn’t attempt to flee.

If Farkas were stupid enough to try something, his life would end in minutes.Chanin knew it was probably an option Farkas had factored into whatever plan he’d contrived to get free.Farkas was always short-sighted.

Besides, none of it would work.Not because Chanin was perfect.Far from it.Because Chanin trained and studied under wise wolves since he’d learned the skill to catch his prey.Then he’d planned various ways to serve his people and always put the Pack and Morlie above himself.Meanwhile, Farkas arrogantly overestimated his self-worth and underestimated others.

While Farkas decided between the options Chanin gave him, Chanin began a slow strut around the table, circling the wolf.“The day we fought for the Alpha position, you broke into my house in the middle of the night and tried to take me by surprise and kill me in my sleep.”

The mud-brown wolf snapped its head and turned its body left and right, attempting to keep Chanin in its sights.

Why the memory lane walk—?

Chanin slammed the door on their mental link, ensuring Farkas felt it.

“Uh, uh.You don’t talk, you don’t speak.”Chanin barked, before continuing.“You see, you were a short-sighted coward then as you are now.How pitiful and afraid you must be to hurt those weaker, manipulate others, steal the innocent—”

“Fuck you, Chanin!”

“Ah, there’s the man.”Chanin stared at Farkas’s naked ass, plopped on top of the dusty table.Tilting his head to the side, he met the other man’s gaze.“How comfortable would you be if I told you your ass was perched in the bits and pieces of what was left of Valko?”

Farkas snapped his gaze down toward the table, toward the top still pebbled with blood, skin, and dirt.With haste, he leaped down and then stared around his feet at the floor.

Chanin knew he had seen more of the same.

“What the fuck...did you do to him?”Farkas’s eyes pinged around the room from the floor to the table, then to the walls, painted in bloody, muddy streaks, and lastly, he tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling where a dried starburst-like image remained decorating the steel.

“It’s better you don’t consider just how pissed off the Fae are at you right now,” Bleddyn chimed in.

Farkas turned to face Bleddyn head on, growling and crouching.

“Oh, please, make my day today.”Bleddyn stepped out of the shadows where he’d been resting against the wall.“I’d love to take such a shitty wolf problem off the Alpha’s hands.”

“Alpha?”Farkas sneered.“You’re looking at him.”

Bleddyn let out a barking laugh.

Boris joined him.“In your fucking dreams.I’d have walked my entire security detail out of Lupine territory and would have pledged our fealty to the Drahk or Ursine before I’d served a day under your leadership.”

“Fuck you, Boris.”

Still in the same position with his arms over his chest, Boris smiled at Farkas, not needing to respond to Farkas's barbs.

“The chair, Farkas, and I promise to make your death quick,” Chanin demanded as he picked up the rusty saw from the floor and tossed it to the table.

The clatter rang loud in the room.

Farkas turned toward him.“Just kill me and get it over with.Stop with the cat toy shit.”

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