Page 92 of Piece You Saved

“He’s mine,” Claudine snarls as she swings her body from Dariel to face me head-on. “You think you can just take what is mine? No. Not some ugly, scarred bitch. He was mine first and—”

“You slept with his brother and father,” I bite out. “Maybe you should’ve treated him better and he would still be yours.”

She bares her teeth at me in a soundless snarl.

Movement behind her draws my eye. Kade has taken a step away from the door toward her. I don’t think he’s blinked once.

“You should go, Claudine. When I say it’s in your best interest, I mean it. Leave,” I say quietly.Before Kade kills you.

I don’t know if her musical laugh before was false, but the one that pours from her lips is shrill. And hard.

“In my best interest?” She reaches for the ring on her finger and rips it off before flinging it aside. I don’t see where it lands because she’s staring at me with death in her eyes.

“Claudine…” Dariel is stalking down the stairs again.

“Then let’s see what’s in your best interest.” She shifts.

It shreds her clothes, leaves them a pile of torn expensive silk and sky-high heels.

She lunges toward me. I fling myself back as Aden urges me into the kitchen.

Dariel throws himself down the rest of the steps, right in front of me. I almost miss what happens.

A lean white wolf smashes into the back of the sleek brown wolf with death in her eyes.

They crash into the side of the entryway, denting the wall. Before the lean brown wolf can get to her feet, the white wolf has his jaws clamped around her throat.

One powerful bite.

Crack.

Blood arches across the entryway, up the white walls, and over the hardwood floors.

And then… silence.

I stare, eyes wide, at the dead wolf on the floor as the white wolf shakes his fur out.

Kade shifts and rises to his feet from his crouch, grinning as he wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of one hand. “Is it wrong to admit I enjoyed that?”

No one says a word.

CHAPTER 25

ADEN

Saige’s mouth hangs open as she gapes at Kade’s grinning blood-smeared face. Dariel has his back to Kade as he stares down at Saige.

He has one hand clamped over his heart. His eyes are blank, as is his face, which makes no sense after we just watched Kade rip out his mate’s throat. The fine tremor shaking his body and his heavy breathing are big clues to what’s going on inside him. He’s in pain—agonyeven—for him to be reacting like that. I know Dariel, and if there’s one thing he excels at, it’s hiding pain.

I saw Kade shift. Standing on the stairs, Dariel couldn’t have missed it either. He knew what Kade was going to do, and he didn’t stop him.

He threw himself down the stairs and in front of Saige.

My wolf growls in my head, excited by the tang of blood in the air. The thought of hunting, savaging a living thing, biting down, and having blood fill my mouth makes my stomach twist in disgust.

Shooting someone between the eyes is one thing. But that?

One day, probably one day soon, it’s going to happen. A wolf hunts, and it kills. There’s no way it won’t happen.

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