When He's Sinful (The Olympus Pride 3)

He sharply wheeled around, attempting to throw off Camden’s beast. But the white tiger held tight, sinking his claws even deeper. There was no bucking him off. And Julius’s cat didn’t have the strength to keep battling him. Even his roars lost their strength, though not their fury.

Finally, Julius’s tiger sagged beneath the beast’s weight. Camden’s cat didn’t give his foe a chance to either rise or submit. Nope. The white tiger pitched forward and sank his teeth into the back of his opponent’s neck, breaking his spinal cord in one savage move.

Well thank Christ for that.

She was about to head to her mate, but then he pounced on his foe’s head as if intent on bursting his damn skull just because. Aspen felt her brows fly up. Um, apparently he wasn’t done with his new chew toy.

Aspen stayed with their pride mates as Camden’s cat continued attacking the dead body. He wasn’t doing it in a fury. He was just … doing it. Like he was annoyed that the opponent was dead already. Or maybe “dead” just wasn’t enough to satisfy the beast.

If so many injuries weren’t marring his body, she’d have hung back and waited until he was finished. But he needed all those wounds healed—some were seriously deep and ugly, and he’d lost enough blood as it was.

“Sabretooth, he’s dead,” she called out, taking a step toward the tiger. “He’s gone.”

His sides heaving with every ragged breath, the beast glanced at her and bared a fang.

Vinnie cleared his throat. “Aspen, I don’t know if you should get any closer—”

“He won’t hurt me. He’s just snarling because he doesn’t like his nickname.” Not even in his foulest mood or his darkest rage would the big cat ever hurt a single hair on her head. So she slowly approached him, adding, “Come on, Cranky Pants.”

A low growl slid through his teeth. Yeah, he didn’t like that nickname either.

“Okay, is Mr. Magnificent any better?”

He narrowed his eyes, clearly not appreciating her sardonic tone. But he backed away from the badly mauled corpse and then crossed to her.

Crouching, she stroked his fur, careful of his wounds, sticking to the parts of his coat that weren’t stained and matted with blood. “You stopped him from taking me. You made sure he’d be no threat to me ever again. Thank you.”

He let out a gruff, ill-tempered chuff. She wasn’t sure what it was supposed to mean, though it seemed to have a rude “well of course I killed him, what else would I have done?” vibe. Aspen only rolled her eyes.

Sprawled over Camden’s front as they lay on her sofa later that day, Aspen idly doodled circles on his bare chest while staring absently at the TV. It had been a while since they’d spent any real time at her apartment. At first, they’d only intended to use it as somewhere to go for privacy while answering the Alpha pair’s questions. But although someone had removed the dead bodies from Camden’s apartment and mopped up the mess, it somehow felt insensitive to relax there as if Grant hadn’t earlier met an undeserved death on the living room floor.

Grant hadn’t been her favorite person, and there were times she’d wanted to grip him by the throat. But he hadn’t deserved to die.

His body would be cremated, as was usual for the pride. Alex’s uncles had offered to get rid of the corpses of both Wayland and Julius. Aspen honestly wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the wolverines had eaten them. Seriously, their kind would eat anything—bones, hooves, teeth, the lot.

It had been shortly after Helena healed Camden’s wounds that the rest of the pride had appeared. Havana and Bailey were particularly furious that they’d not only fallen for Wayland’s trick and overlooked Julius but missed the opportunity to get a few licks in.

No one had found a remote bomb detonator on Wayland’s person, but River apparently intended to send some sort of team to the fishing cabin to check for bombs and deactivate any they may find. It was a wise precaution.

Feeling Camden’s thumb rub over the spot on her temple where Julius had aimed the barrel of the gun, she lifted her head to meet his gaze. There were no new shadows in those eyes; nothing to indicate that taking his own uncle’s life now haunted him in any way. Nevertheless, she asked, “You okay?”

He slid his fingers through her hair. “You love me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then I’m okay.”

She sensed he meant it. Still, she said, “I’m sorry you were put in a position where you had to kill your own uncle.”

“He was never family to me. And he didn’t force my hand. I put myself in that position, baby. I wanted to end him. I couldn’t have held back even if I’d wanted to—he’d held a gun to your head, and I was a ball of goddamn rage after feeling you fight with Wayland. I hate that you had to face him alone.”