won’t be so cocky when we’ve finished with you. Where shall I send the body parts?”
Titus did a quick head count. Ten to one weren’t good odds—for them. For him, it was just a chance to release the ever-present anger in his gut.
Baldy stepped forward, knife raised. He stuck fast and hard, but Titus moved quicker. He sidestepped. Off balance, Baldy stumbled closer. Titus’s fist pounded Baldy’s windpipe. He staggered back, gasped like a fish washed up on a beach, and his face turned as red as a beetroot.
Baldy’s knees buckled, and the knife dropped from his hand. It clattered against the cobbled floor. Baldy crumpled with a ballerina’s grace. As he lay alongside his knife, his chest heaved, and he struggled to catch his breath. Then his eyes glazed, and his body went limp. One unconscious, nine to go.
The others circled him, more cautious now, each searching for a vulnerable point to attack. Titus spun on the balls of his feet. His heel flew out in a spinning sidekick that caught one of the Hell’s Angels square in the balls. He clutched his nuts and dropped to the cobbles. Still spinning, Titus slammed his fist into the shortest one’s chin. Shorty howled as the impact shattered his jaw.
The one with a black leather jerkin and no shirt leaped at Titus from behind. Titus dodged so fast he blurred. He captured Jerkin’s head beneath his arm and pile-drove it into the floor. The sound of Jerkin’s skull hitting the cobbles made Titus think of a watermelon splattering after someone tossed it from the top of the bell tower. Blood oozed from Jerkin’s nose, pooled on the cobbles around him, then oozed into the cracks.
Another kick—lightning fast and deadly—shattered the nearest Hell’s Angel’s femur. Five sidelined and injured; five left.
Titus grinned and cracked his muscles. His beasts demanded he tear out their throats and break their bones. “Who’s next? Don’t be shy. You wanted a fight. If you like, we’ll take this primal.”
The thugs still standing exchanged startled glances and backed away. From the walkway above, a thickset man applauded. “Magnificent. Enough, gentlemen. Back to your quarters. Take your injured with you. You must be Titus. After a display like that you’ll definitely make a suitable mate for my daughter, Fleur. I’m Zebadiah, the Rock Prowler alpha, but I’m sure you’ve realized that by now. Forgive my little test and come up into my private quarters. Fleur’s busy making herself beautiful for you, but I’m afraid Iris is out with some of the other cubs. It’s time my youngest daughter learned some manners. Forget her, and come up to the hall. I’m sure you’ll be glad of some refreshments after your exertions.”
Exertions? Test? Titus looked at the battered Lykae bodies littering the courtyard. Zebadiah’s “test” left Baldy and Jerkin seriously injured. Fury flooded Titus’s soul, and his primal beast howled to take this careless alpha’s throat. Then he remembered his promise to King Caleb and forced a smile. “Meat and ale wouldn’t go amiss.”
Zebadiah beckoned him up the stairs. “Good. Good. Come up, and we’ll get to know each another while we wait for my girls.”
As he stepped over the threshold and into the castle, Titus gawked at the opulent tapestries covering the walls, so at odds with the wattle and daub walls of Viola’s hut. Usually, the pack healer ranked second to the alpha female, and it baffled him that they didn’t support her more. He decided her money-grubbing attitude had pissed everyone off, and tried to put her out of his mind.
If only it was that easy. When their lips had touched, their souls connected. His kiss had started as a punishment, then morphed into something intense and satisfying. When she responded with such fervor, it had tamed the wildness inside him.
That glorious moment of calm soothed his beasts and briefly extinguished the angry fire that burned in his gut. Then the stroppy she-wolf bit