Archaic (Reverse Harem 2)

Merti’s smile is positively disgusting.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Where. Did you get it?” she asks again.

I move around her, angling myself so I can see the picture.

“What is it?” Sebastian asks.

“It’s a picture of her and Kyle,” I say.

“How do you have this?” Clarissa roars.

The ground above our heads begins to shake, and I can feel the walls starting to give way. She’s too powerful to be buried. Too angry for us to be underground. Her voice alone will cave us in like a Dragon’s fierce breath, and we will all die before we have any answers.

“I am Igo’s second-hand man at Council. You cannot harm me if you want answers.”

“Igo. Did you just say Igo?” I ask.

“Who the hell is Igo?” Sebastian asks.

“Good question, pup,” Penny says.

“Who took this fucking picture?” Clarissa asks, her fangs bared and her claws protruding from her hands.

She really is a sight when she begins to change. I’ve been enjoying watching her discover this side of herself.

“Not the right question,” Igo says with a grin. “So fixated on him and not enough on the rest of you.”

The picture drops from Clarissa’s hand, and she pins Merti up onto the wall. His feet are dangling, and he’s gurgling on his own blood. She’s crushing his windpipe with her bare hands as her eyes begin to flicker through colors. Green and gold and brown and blue. Purple and red and yellow and white. She can’t kill him. Not in this kind of rage. She would never be able to forgive herself.

But Sebastian beats me to the punch.

He thrusts himself into Clarissa, and she turns her anger onto him. She’s swiping at his face and clawing at his chest. Burying her hands into his skin as he howls in pain. Penny is backing away from everything, her eyes wide with fear. Opossums aren’t meant for things like this. They aren’t built to take on fights of this magnitude. They are manipulators. They play with their minds.

They aren’t physical creatures.

I can hear Clarissa and Sebastian battling one another as I stalk toward Merti. He’s so entranced by the fighting that he doesn’t even see me approaching. I wrap his arm around his back and bend him forward, pressing the top of his head into the dead-end wall.

Then my lips lower slowly to his ear.

“Igo will never get away with this,” I say. “None of you will.”

And before he can say another word, I run his body into the wall, snapping his neck on impact.

Chapter 17

~ Sebastian

Ipress Clarissa into the wall as her fangs are bared to me. She swipes at my face, and I back away, trying to dodge her claws.

The fire in her eyes is unmistakable. She’s clouded by the anger of her Wolf. I press my hands into her shoulders and shove her back into the wall, hoping the jarring of the rock behind her back will knock some sense into her.

I don’t want to hurt her.

But she can’t kill Merti.

“Get out of my way!” Clarissa roars.