Rudolf slowly nodded before he moved back to his earlier position.
He looked to Etienne. “You understand the charges. You understand the verdict. And now we carry out our ruling. Do you have any final words?”
Etienne’s face twisted with malevolence and he opened his mouth.
But no sound came out except a gurgle because Lucien had sunk the tip of the blade into his throat and twisted.
“I think we’ve all heard enough from him,” Lucien declared.
“Hear, hear,” Kate, one of Leah’s aunts, called.
“You feel the point of my blade through your throat for touching my mate,” Lucien said softly, eyes to his father’s.
Hate beamed from Etienne’s straight to his son’s.
Lucien was impervious to it.
“You’ve lived long, Father,” Lucien said to Etienne. “You’ve had much time to read, I know. It was something you enjoyed.”
He twisted the tip the other way and another gurgle discharged from Etienne’s mouth as his eyes got wide in hatred mixed with pain.
“You encouraged that with me when I was a child,” Lucien continued. “Mother did as well. She gave me a book once, which was excellent. Since she gave it to me, I’ve read it several times. It taught me a great deal. She told me you dismissed it as fantasy and unworthy of your attention. But it had an important lesson. One that clearly escaped you.”
Lucien twisted the blade again, pushing it in deeper as he leaned toward his father.
“Might does not equal right,” he whispered, his eyes locked with Etienne’s. “Right equals might. It’s a shame, so soon after you learned that lesson, you will die. But at least you learned it.”
Etienne’s eyes narrowed.
Lucien pulled the blade out, and with a human’s speed, he took his father’s head.
Without hesitation, he tossed the bloodied sword on Etienne’s body and moved to his bride.
With no one saying a word or even giving the remains of a monster a passing glance, they all filed out.
And an hour later, on televisions around the globe, news agencies broke into regular programming to report that the vampire Etienne had been executed by the Allied Protectorate of Wolves, Vampires, Wraiths, and Phantoms.
There were a variety of responses.
But mostly, the response was relief.
And the next day, everyone went to work as usual.
Except some of them did it alongside vampires and wolves they’d had no idea were such.
Until now.
* * * * *
Abel
His bike in the distance, parked on the road, Abel had been roaming as wolf, his mate at his side.
Now he was man and he had her on her back in the leaves, the stars overhead, his hands curved around her ribs, yanking her down on his face between her legs.
He was sucking, deep and hungry, at her clit.
Phenomenal.
He stopped and buried his tongue inside.
He felt her back arch. He tightened his fingers and drove her down harder on his mouth.
He heard her moan.
Fuck yes.
His mouth opened on her clit again, tongue lapping, then he went back to the suction.
She dug her heels in his back. He knew it was coming.
So he stopped, surged over her, and bathed her neck with his tongue as he rammed his cock inside the hot wet of her cunt.
He tore through, her blood pouring into his mouth, and he knew it was on her.
“Abel, baby,” she moaned.
Abel heard it, kept thrusting, kept feeding, but did it smiling.
Wild.
As usual.
But now…
Free.
* * * * *
“Brother, take that back,” Hook warned.
“Nothin’ to take back, it’s the damned truth,” Moose retorted.
Abel turned his head, not knowing why the mood in the room shifted so quickly. Also not having heard anything since he’d been listening to Sonia talk about Calder’s (enforced by Callum) reluctant but adventurous search for his mate.
“Then I’ll make you take it back.” Hook, at the head of the table, Delilah to one side, Aurora to his other, with Abel next to Delilah, shot out of his chair.
He then leaped over the table, arms extended, and as he did it, he took plates and platters filled with food, as well as much of the tablecloth, with him.
He hit Moose, who was sitting beside Yuri, the vampire next to Aurora, and Moose’s chair fell back.
They started grappling immediately on the floor, rolling around, grunting, and cursing.
Delilah leaned forward in her chair toward a wide-eyed Aurora and said, “Don’t worry. This happens a lot.”
She was speaking truth.
It was Thanksgiving at the Johnson compound and it was far from surprising that all hell broke loose.
Ursula, who had been sitting down the table between Moose and Jabber, leaped to the seat of her chair and shouted, “That’s it, my darling. Show him how it is!”
Abel looked down to the foot of the table to see Jian-Li watching the biker wrestling match with amusement settled firm on her features.
“Bummer, man, the hoisin sauce is all over the floor and I needed some,” Xun muttered.
Aurora started giggling.
Delilah burst out laughing.
Sonia and Leah grinned at each other.
Lucien raised a brow to Callum, who just shrugged.
Chen asked for the eggrolls, which were one of the only things left on the table.
Barb handed them to him.
Cain held Teona in his lap, where he’d pulled her five minutes ago, and he shoved the last of his pancake filled with crispy shredded duck in his mouth as his mate craned her neck to watch the action.
Wei took a sip from his beer bottle, doing it eyes to the floor behind him where the men were fighting, his lips grinning.