Page 4 of Death God

The evil entity that lurked beneath the former Alpha Heir must take me for a fool if he thought I’d be charmed by my despicable ex-lover. I could smell the stench of his dark magic miles away. Yet my face revealed nothing, not even when my mate’s anguished roars faded as the enemy’s van took me further away from him.

I couldn’t feel him, as I’d cloaked our mating bond with the assistance of my mage allies. I’d give anything to feel him and stay with him, but to protect our future I had to walk down the opposite path.

“I knew you would finally come to me, Pip,” the Alpha King said again. “You did the right thing.”

Repulsion washed over me, and I jerked away my hand, which had formed a fist.

His fingers landed on my forearm. Fortunately, I wore a pair of jeans and had a jacket covering my long-sleeved shirt. Even so, I still couldn’t stand him touching me through the fabric.

How things had changed. Just a month ago, I’d given him my virginity and I’d thought my future would be with him.

I shifted in my seat, resting my left ankle on my right knee, facing the alpha. A hidden dagger was sheathed in the inner leather layer of my hunting boot. It wouldn’t damage Spartoi, yet it still comforted me to have a knife with me.

I shrugged his hand off my arm, and I wasn’t subtle. It wouldn’t help me to play at being a sheep. Neither Jared nor Spartoi respected weaklings, and I never was one. Part of me was cut from the same cloth as War.

Right now, Jared was on display, yet I could feel Spartoi observing me carefully. The former Alpha Heir was a fool, thinking he could stay in the driver’s seat with unlimited access to the horseman’s power. He was a dead man walking. It was only a matter of time until Spartoi would take over and diminish him to nothingness.

“Keep your hands to yourself, please, Alpha King,” I snapped while rolling my eyes.

Swiftly, I shrugged my backpack off my shoulders and inserted it between him and me. I had brought some clothes with me and a few necessary items the mages had prepared for me, concealed beneath the bottom layer.

“You’re my fated mate,” the Alpha King said in a hard voice, a flash of anger flitting by his gray eyes. The fucker had the nerve to feel hurt.

I had once considered him handsome, even thought he’d always been hard and arrogant.

“Not anymore, dude,” I said, my voice icy cold.

He trained his alpha stare on me. If I’d been lesser, I’d have fallen on my knees and shown him my belly. With the entity boosting him, his alpha power was magnified. Without doubt, the Alpha King was the most powerful shifter now.

I mimicked Marlowe and pulled up the corner of my lip in a sneer as I held his alpha stare. He couldn’t hold a candle to my mate. The Vampire God never needed to intimidate others. And this asshole had obviously forgotten that he couldn’t even make me cower when I had been a lone wolf girl who didn’t even know her own name.

Everyone else in the car tensed, suffering their alpha’s crushing power, and dared not breathe. So unfortunate for them, and this was going to be a long journey for them as well. Yep, this ol’ Pip wouldn’t make things easier for my foes.

“Make no mistake, Alpha King.” I let out a low chuckle and shrugged off the pressing weight he cast upon me. “You’ll do better if you remember that I’m not your property. No one fucking owns me.”

At my challenge, I didn’t sense his wolf coming to the surface. The man was an asshole, but the black wolf had protected and saved me. I needed him. However, just as I’d expected, his wolf had been subdued and replaced by the horseman’s essence.

A corrupted vessel—that was what Jared was now.

The Alpha King sucked in a sharp breath, feeling my power defying his. Then lust darkened his blue eyes. Motherfucker! My defiance actually turned him on.

He pulled back his alpha power and smiled at me, admiration in his eyes. He’d never looked at me that way when he’d cursed the Fates for saddling him with a low wolf girl. He’d treated me like dirt and thought I dreamed about stepping up the ladder by using him.

The joke was on him. It turned out that I wasn’t merely a wolf.

After he’d had a taste of the power boost from our mating bond before I tore it out, he’d wanted to acquire me at all costs. He’d offered a shifter city to the dark mages to form an alliance with them, then he offered himself as the horseman’s vessel.

That was exactly what War was after. He’d failed to absorb my essence, but he believed he could siphon my power if his vessel forged a mating bond with me.

With the entity inside him now, Jared had gained insight into the caliber of my power.

And thus he now lusted after me more than anything and anyone.

“You think I treated you as property?” the asshole asked, but his tone was whimsical. “You got it wrong, Pip. I’ll never treat you as such. I have nothing but respect toward you. I admitted that I mishandled the situation, and I apologized to you already. If you want, I’ll apologize again until you’re pleased.”

“Save your breath,” I said.

“I know you’re still angry.” He sighed as if I were a nuisance. “You’re always an angry woman, Pip.”

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