Leviathan
Itook in the scene before me and froze. At first, I was too shocked to do anything.
But then a violently powerful emotion exploded in my chest. Rage.
Not for me, but for June. These two, doing this, when Anders was paired with June?
It was a slap in the face. Eugenia had stepped over a line, and Anders had leaped over it.
I couldn’t let that stand. June deserved better.
“What the fuck?” June shouted.
The couple froze mid thrust, eyes darting toward us, and that dumbstruck look on Anders’s face set me off.
A roar burst from my mouth as I lunged forward, and in a second, I was on him.
“Wait!” Eugenia cried, but I ignored her, grabbing Anders’s shoulders and yanking him away.
His now flaccid cock slid free from Eugenia and flopped on his stomach as he crashed on the ground. Before he could speak, I swung, my fist connecting with his mouth. A fan of blood sprayed the wall behind him as his lip split.
Behind me, I could hear Eugenia screaming for me to stop, but all I could think of was the way Anders had grabbed June the other day. He deserved this, and he was going to get it.
I grabbed Anders’s chest, digging my fingers into his chest hair and lifting him.
He let out a high-pitched cry that was cut off when my fist crashed into his face again.
His nose cracked, and blood streamed from his nostrils.
The strike sent him crashing back to the ground, hair ripping out of his chest. He grunted something, a curse maybe, and swung up at me, but his fist struck my shoulder and bounced off harmlessly.
His attack only served to feed my anger, and I hammered a fist down onto his midsection, and he doubled over, clutching his stomach and writhing, his cock now shriveled and sunken against his balls.
Lifting my foot high, I readied myself to bring it down with all the force I had and crush his skull. I was fully prepared to kill him, and had June not grabbed my arm and hauled me backward, I would have.
“Levi! Stop,” June cried. “It’s over.”
I hissed out a breath through clenched teeth and lowered my foot. Anders rolled around, cradling his stomach as blood oozed from his lip and nose, his eyes already black and swelling.
Eugenia had covered herself with a throw blanket, and she now took a second one and draped it over Anders. She sat on her knees, one hand on him, and one held up to ward me off.
“Please stop. Please, I’m begging you.” There were tears in her eyes as she turned back to the man moaning and rocking in pain on the floor. “Are you okay, baby?”
“What the fuck is this?” June asked. “How long have you two been fucking behind my back?” She glared at Anders. “Is this because I still haven’t let you fuck me? You had to go get it somewhere else?”
Those words made my wolf howl with joy. I hadn’t caught the scent of sex on June since I’d come to town, but I’d assumed they would be sleeping together. Knowing that asshole had never gotten his hands on her lifted my heart more than I could say.
Anders put a blood-smeared hand on the floor and pushed himself up into a seated position, wincing in pain as he did. “Weeks,” he said, his voice thick from the broken nose. “We’ve been doing it for weeks, okay? Since before I brought you back.”
June gasped, and the hurt and shock in her eyes almost set me off again.
“We’re fated mates,” Eugenia said. “We knew the moment we met.”
“Are you two fucking serious?” I growled.
They looked somewhat ashamed.
“I’m sorry,” Anders said to June. “Don’t leave me. Please. The mating ceremony is tomorrow.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” June sneered, shaking her head in disgust. “You were just balls deep in that bitch and you want me to still be your mate? Are you out of your mind?”
“All the guests are here,” Anders said, scrambling to his feet and clutching the blanket to his crotch.
“Do you have any idea how embarrassing it will be for me? To tell everyone the ceremony is called off? You can’t do this to me.
” His embarrassment had faded, replaced with anger and panic. “I’ll be a fucking laughing stock.”
“Are you good with this?” I asked, glaring at Eugenia as she clutched her blanket to her breasts. “Your fated mate being mated to someone else?”
Eugenia gave me a hesitant look. “It’s better for him—for us—if he’s seen as a powerful alpha. It’s political, not emotional.”
“Exactly,” Anders said. “It’s not emotional.
Look at it this way, June. You and I pretend to be the happy couple, and then Idlewild eventually controls all these packs.
We end the Red Maw threat, and in a few years we are the most powerful couple in the state.
Right?” He said it like he thought it was the simplest compromise ever.
“I’m leaving,” June said, giving both Eugenia and Anders a look of loathing. “Fuck both of you. You can have each other.” She chuckled derisively. “You’ve already had each other, and now you can do it in the open. We’re done.”
June spun on her heel and hurried out the door. Anders’s bloody face twisted into a scowl, and he moved as if to chase June down. I shoved him back, and he fell on his ass.
“You stay here,” I warned, and looked from him to Eugenia. “Both of you.”
Anders looked like he wanted to argue, but before he could even open his mouth, I knelt and pushed my face close to his. I enjoyed the way he flinched.
“I mean it. You and June are done. I see you? I beat the living fuck out of you. It will make what I did here look like a child getting spanked. At best, I’ll put you in a wheelchair. At worst, I’ll fucking end you. Tell me you understand,” I snapped, my eyes never leaving his.
Anders paled as I spoke, and he nodded hesitantly. “Yes.”
“Yes? I think you mean, yes sir, don’t you?” It was childish, yes, but I was enjoying it.
Anders clenched his jaw, the muscles in his face flexing and rippling. “Yes…sir.” He looked away as he said it, unable to maintain eye contact with me.
“Good boy.” I slid my gaze over to Eugenia, who looked more terrified than Anders did.
“You too. June gave you a second chance, and you shit on it. This is me giving you a third chance. I won’t hurt a woman, but I may make sure June gets to take her pound of flesh from you herself if you try anything else. You remember. Got it?”
She nodded quickly. “Y–y–yes. Uh, I mean, yes, sir.”
I gave them one last scathing look, then walked out the door. June was already gone.
“Shit.” I shifted and took off into the forest beside the house, tracking her scent.
I had to find her. I had to make sure she knew she deserved better than that jackass.
In fact, she deserved me. All of me, not the man who was still hung up on a long-dead woman.
She deserved happiness, and I wanted to show her that.