Page 2 of Blood Bound (Blood Mafia 3)

What is he doing?

I’m so focused on the wolves I don’t react when his rough hands clamp down on my shoulder and chin.

He wouldn’t.

Oh, now the voice of reason is on my side. I start to lift my hand to pry him off of me but he yanks my jaw to the left.

Bones crack.

The sound ricochets through my ear canal.

Swift and sudden the weight of my body leaves me and I collapse.

Fucker.

* * *

Mateo

“Boss,” Colt says, voice hard with a reprimand.

Iris smirks. “Give me her body.”

Grayson hisses. “Over my undead body, Iris.”

She lifts a delicate eyebrow. “Who are you again?”

He grunts with her verbal slap, a sharp reminder of his status. He isn’t anyone important to her. I step in front of Demi’s body and loom over Iris. She cranes her neck and bats her eyelashes at me.

“Come now, Mateo, what use do you have for a hunter?” Her face contorts when she says the word hunter, like it put a bad taste in her mouth.

“She did not kill Blaze.”

Iris flashes sharp teeth at me. “Oh, I know that.”

“What?” Colt curses. “Crazy bitch.”

“Colt.” I don’t move my gaze from hers.

He falls silent. Colt knows me well enough to stand down.

“What are you playing at?” I ask the wolf elder.

Her eyes flash yellow when I take a step closer, intimidating her with my size and rage.

“I know thatnow.If she had killed him, you would have let her loose on me and my wolves. If she were guilty, she wouldn’t have hesitated before attacking. She has precarious control over her hunter nature. She should work on that.”

I grab the wolf’s neck.

Elders be damned.

“Iris, let me make something very clear. Demi is mine. If she killed Blaze, it would have been within reason.”

Bones crack and rearrange. Iris snaps her shifted jaw at me. She doesn’t get far in my grasp though; fury has a way of making me even stronger than usual. Her status as an Elder doesn’t mean a thing. I’m stronger, I’m the alpha power here, even if it begrudges them to admit it.

Growls rise up around us. Grayson and Colt step forward, hissing at the mutts. She’s brought a grouping of high alphas I don’t recognize, but they all are similar in status to Blaze as far as power goes.

Enoch shifts, standing naked in his human form. “Mateo. You cannot kill an Elder Wolf.”

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