Page 87 of Omega's Virtue: Part Two (The Hartwell Sisters Saga 3)

“Rigged!” yelled another.

“I’ll box the ear of the scragsend who says this bout is fixed!” Puck roared at offensive comment. A cheer erupted from the men and women watching.

“Enough!” Drexler jumped on the stage with a cat’s lithe grace. “I call it draw. No clear winner. Fight over!”

The crowd boo’d. Threw things at us. But Drexler ignored them all, only tilting his chin to the side. I follow the movement and saw Pax standing in the corner. I was surprised to see Polly’s bodyguard holding Stimpson by his collar.

With the help of a few betas, Drexler, Puck, and I made our way to the pair and their prisoner. Pax was at my side in a moment, handing me a flask and looking over the bruises that were no doubt livid and angry.

I batted his mothering hands away in time to see the pure hatred in Jude’s eyes, all of it directed at Drexler.

“He’d have gotten away if not for me.” He snarled and shoved Stimpson into the mud at his feet. “Hippolyta would have been displeased.”

“Run back to your mistress, dog,” Puck snapped. “We can take care of our own business.”

“Enough.” Drexler stepped between them. “Leave Jude Bottom. Your place is next to the omega, not here.”

I looked at Pax, who watched the scene as if he understood the posturing.

“My apologies Lord Paxton, Colonel. My man should have been good enough. Another should not have needed to do the business.”

My lip peeled back in a snarl. “Don’t give a damn who caught him. I am going to kill him.”

“Shall we find somewhere more quiet?” Pax asked.

“Of course,” Drexler bowed us out of the warehouse where the fight had been held.

The quieter space was the cellar of a public house on the outskirts of Town near the Heath.

Despite the deep bone ache in my body, Puck and I took great pleasure in working the rest of our rage out on Stimpson. Who cared that it wasn’t a fair fight? Had it been fair when he’d gone after my mate?

But even we had our limits and, by some unspoken consensus, stopped. Backing away to sneer at the man who didn’t have the strength to crawl.

Pax, who’d been satisfied to let me beat Stimpson to a pulp, pulled me away to a hot bath. In the common room, Jude was waiting, anxiously pacing before the fire. When he saw us, his large frame relaxed.

“I need to be here,” he told Drexler, who just nodded. “Puck, Fordom. Take your baths and return smelling a bit more civilised.”

Feeling more human for the bath and a meal, the five of us returned to the cellar.

Stimpson cowered in the corner like a rat caught in a trap I moved towards him. Languid with the knowledge that he would die by my hand, I let him beg. His words did not matter. The promises he made. The threats of what his friends would do piled one on top of the other until there was a mountain of nothing—for nothing could save him from his end.

“I’m going to kill you,” I said unnecessarily, perhaps, but I wanted him to know. I’d never the chance to tell my enemies on the battlefield I would be their demise, but Stimpson would know. I took a grim satisfaction in that and rolled my shoulders, stretching my neck, all in preparation to kill him.

I have never taken a man’s life with my bare hands before. In every other instance where I had been forced to kill my fellow man, it had been by a bullet. But I intended to wring the life from this pathetic creation put on this earth by the Goddess to act as a lesson to those who sought to take advantage of any fool who might trust a sly smile and rogue’s charm.

Puck flexed his hands, knuckles bloody and a snarl twisting his face. “Scum.”

Stimpson flinched as Puck spat on his face.

“Mine,” I growled, refusing to let the other alpha take away my pleasure in destroying this man.

“You can’t kill me. I know. I know everything.” Stimpson’s bloodied face sneered up at us but his eyes had taken on a glassy look which made him seem more dead than alive.

Growling, Drexler moved towards him, looking more emotional than I’d ever seen him. Then in a flash it was gone. He straightened, rolled his shoulders back, and a sardonic grin pulled at his lips. “I think he is correct. Legally, we cannot kill him over a debt. Unfortunate, to be sure. But there are other ways… We’ll leave him in the cellar.” Drexler waved at the two beta guards. “Take him to the Hell. You might write to the lady. It is safe for her to return home. Jude can take it… Report back to your mistress… like a good beta. Leave this to the real alphas.”

“No. Kill him now. I’ll take care of it. Do you think he deserves to live?” Pax snarled.

“I think that when he dies it will be slow, painful, and worse than anything so pedestrian that you or the Colonel can come up with.”

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