Things were starting to look all right: after all, Skrillex had somehow charmed a (still tiny bit scary) smile from the dangerously attractive wolfess. That is, until she spoke. The green-eyed thief heard the raven lady’s reply with a jolt of dread in his heart. No longer a vampire pack? So he had done all this searching, all this wandering and hoping and worrying . . . for nothing? Well, damn. If Munashii Gekko was no longer a “vampire pack” (that title still made a twinge of disgusted derisiveness squirm in Skrillex’s stomach) then where the hell was he supposed to go? He searched the she-wolf’s face, his own gaze now guarded to hide the overwhelming disappointment threatening to drown his very soul. She, of course, allowed nothing to show other than that same soldier-like seriousness—her semi-playful smile vanished now, as if it had never been there.
A wind perfumed thickly perfumed by impending rain and old death lifted the inky velca’s name to Skrillex’s limp harks. They straightened instantly, a humorous gleam returning at the same time to the black-splashed demon’s freakishly toned lanterns. “Devil’s Angel?” he murmured back, tail daring to sway gently in a display of friendly jesting. What an appropriate title.
A shattering of forest undergrowth tore Skrilly’s attention away from the terrifying brown-eyed, night-dark female to an even more terrifying night-dark female—this one with a rugged pelt speckled by red and reeking of a recent fight, her fur rumpled and spiked with drying blood. She stalked up like some kind of soul-eating demon, crown low but plume waving high and proud. Alphess proud.
At this point, Skrillex’s brain released a panicked torrent of thoughts that mostly said: SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT His rather well-built body stiffened into an uncontrollable rigor mortis, traitorous muscles freezing in their place and holding the masked male hostage, hackles beginning to lift into tense pins along stiff shoulders. It took a ridiculous amount of willpower to freaking relax enough to answer the Queen before she clawed his fur off. Or something equally painful.
“Milady—um—Alphess of Munashii—uh—dammit—” Skrillex wanted to bite himself. Instead his settled for grinding his teeth together and forcibly ripping that glib and charming part of his soul to the surface. His mother had not birthed a coward. Just . . . a moderately introverted debonair lady-killer. “I’d like to believe that I’m capable of dedication. I’m not a traitor, or anything. I . . .” The glares of both the Empress and her minion scorched holes in Skrillex’s alabaster pelt. How did one articulate their good points without sounding completely cocky? “I’ve come this far looking for a pack. Forgive my directness, Alphess, but I’m not exactly the kind of wolf who busts their tail for nothing. If you need me to serve your pack, I will do so.” Within reason, he added silently to himself, remembering those corpses. “Time will only tell if you see my brand of loyalty as satisfactory.”
For a moment, Skrillex looked like someone’s knight in shining . . . um, fur. He stood erect, cranium poised strong but not too strong, venom-colored orbs confident but humble, handsome face the picture of honesty and quiet inner strength. As an afterthought—and because Skrillex suddenly realized he probably needed to do so before the Alphess forcibly knocked him over herself—the brute stretched his neck to the side, fully exposing the most vulnerable part of his throat.
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