Page 7 of The Little Things

FOUR

Riana wasn’t goingto fight it. When Kail was in this sort of mood, even she couldn’t talk him out of things. All she could do was try to prevent the collateral damage.

They reached the cart-pushing trio, who were headed for the checkout-bots. Kail quickly moved in front of them, blocking the exit with his large frame.

“Are you fuckin’ serious, man?” One of the trolley-pushers, a muscular guy with long blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, glared at Kail.

Riana was momentarily distracted by the fact that for such a tough guy, his hair was ridiculously smooth and silky.

Well, who said tough guys couldn't have nice hair?

She stood slightly behind Kail as he loomed over the humans, radiating pure menace. Part of her was afraid that he’d go full Kordolian on their asses and cause a huge scene, but part of her was wanting him to do that, because howdarethese selfish assholes take off with the entire stock ofMerpipisthat everyone around here had waited so long to get their hands on?

It just wasn’t decent.

“I’m taking that,” Kail pointed to the trolley. “Hand it over.”

“Excuse me.” One of the trio was an impeccably dressed woman. She wore a long, elegant black coat trimmed with black fur over a slinky black dress. Shiny black heels and gleaming silver jewelry complemented her outfit. Her dark brown hair was fashioned into a helmet-shaped bob. “Please move.”

The other individual, a buff guy sporting cobalt-blue hair and a black mustache, a leather jacket draped across his wide shoulders, sneered at them. He lifted his faded t-shirt to reveal a bolt-gun tucked into his waistband. Riana had no idea how he’d gotten that thing through security. “Fuck off, asshole.”

Kail rolled his eyes. Then he let go of Riana’s hand and moved faster than the eye could see, turning into a vaguely human-looking blur. Before the guy could react, Kail was beside him and the bolt-gun was in his hand, its tip pressed against the blue-haired man’s belly. “What did you say?”

All around them, people stopped what they were doing and stared, but they probably couldn’t see the gun, because Kail had cleverly concealed it between himself and the human. To the observer, it just looked like they were having a very close conversation.

Riana tried not to gape.

Sometimes, she forgot that her Kordolian was capable of such astonishing speed... amongst other things.

He whispered something in the human’s ear.

The man visibly stiffened, his eyes going wide in fear and disbelief. His companions stared at him in shock. Their attention shifted to Kail, who didn’t pay them even the slightest bit of notice.

“If you value your lives, then you will leavenow,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to upset my mate with the sight of blood today, so I am giving you the choice. If not for her, your heads would be on the floor right now.”

He was the only person in the Universe whose death-threats could make Riana swoon. Sweet, stoic Kail, who was willing to kill for her over a damn figurine.

These people had no idea. She really should step in now, because these poor people were so outmatched it was just unfair.

“I’ll take that, thank you,” Riana said, swooping in and wrapping her hand around the trolley’s handle. She smiled sweetly at blondie as Kail’s attention snapped toward her.

For a moment, the human resisted, but then Kail pressed the tip of the gun a little harder against the mustached guy’s belly, causing him to hiss in pain.

At last, he released the trolley. Riana quickly scooted it away from them, dancing back into Kail’s radius of protection.

The bob-haired woman’s glare could have cut through diamonds.

Riana sighed. “Look, I know you people can make a fortune scalping these things on the black market, but you shouldn’t take advantage of regular people’s obsessions. Life's hard enough as it is. Sometimes, these little things just make it bearable. And you never really know who you might piss off, right?”

Now they werealllooking at Kail. Her mate glared back, and his presence was so overwhelmingly intimidating that Riana could almost feel the air around them turning heavy with the force of his annoyance.

Because he wasn’t angry.

He was just annoyed.

If he was angry, it would be a whole different vibe around here. Heads really would be on the floor.

That’s why Riana wasn’t overly worried. She was here, so he wouldn’t do anything extreme.

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