However, he had not heard a word after he’d caught Macauley’s scent coming from a direction that was not his home. He began moving towards it without a second thought or to what he would do when he found him. He thought perhaps Macauley was at one of the pack officers’ houses, or one of his betas’, but Ramon informed him—as he doubled his speed to keep up—that mostly unmated women lived on this particular side of the compound.
“We go to the breakfast hall in the morning before we are assigned to our post,” Ramon said, oblivious to Adres’s situation. “We wanted to escort you over. We are all honored to be under your command now, my Lord.”
Still ignoring Ramon’s compliments, Adres followed Macauley’s scent to a small cottage, and the scent of pheromones and lust permeated the air.
Ramon let out a dirty chuckle. “Seems as if a few of the shifters are taking advantage of the curfew and starting their nights a little early.”
Vicious jealousy yanked hard on him, overriding his senses as he stormed towards the female beta’s door. He could smell her syrupy lust from yards away, heard the whispered promises she made to Macauley to take good care of his needs.
Hatred threatened to choke him. He was about to kill again. And he had no doubt he would have if the legion twins he’d assigned as Macauley’s guards had not stopped him.
The frigid northern air rolling off the snowcapped mountains was nothing compared to the icy daggers piercing his stomach. Seeing Macauley next to the six-foot, scantily dressed woman who was a picture-perfect model of what an alpha’s mate should be made his fears of inadequacy grow to exponential heights.
Macauley appeared confused for a moment, but when he noticed Adres standing off to the right, he looked like he might have been happy to see him… until he noticed Adres’s displeased glare, and his smile fell. Good. Know that I am serious, young wolf. It wouldn’t be wise for Macauley to taunt him.
Adres watched as Macauley leaned towards the woman and attempted to whisper something in her ear, but he was not fucking having it. Adres shot a burst of his intimidating power at Macauley, hard enough to jolt him. It made Adres hot in more ways than one when Macauley took the blow and absorbed it before he turned and smirked at him, as if he wanted to feel more of that.
“Do not tempt me, wolf. Leave her side. Acum!” Adres sent his voice on the breeze so the other vampires couldn’t hear him. Macauley tilted his head as if he wasn’t sure how he was hearing him, but he quickly left the woman gaping on her porch and walked towards him with that sexy, innocent smile on his full lips. But what Adres heard going on between him and the she-wolf was anything but innocent.
Macauley didn’t stop walking until he was standing so close that Adres had to tilt his head back to maintain his irritated glare.
Macauley lowered his head, his rough jaw scraping against his temple as if he was marking his scent on him, and Adres fought over whether to shove him away or to keep bathing in it. “You are the only one that can glower at me like that and not have their throat ripped out.”
Adres’s breath sawed in and out, and an irrational urge to do something lethal to that beta made his vision cloud around the edges. “If you care for her at all, you will stay away from her.” He turned away, unable to remain there another moment so he didn’t act on his threat. He’d only taken a couple of steps before he was grabbed from behind and wrapped in a hold so strong, he couldn’t shake himself free.
“Send your men away. Now,” Macauley demanded against the shell of his ear, his rough voice low and threatening. “So they don’t witness what I do to you.”
Adres blinked as his cock began to harden, and emotions that were neither anger nor despair fought in his chest and kept him in place.
“I will meet you in the war room, my Lord, after the men are posted,” Ramon said from somewhere to his right. Adres was not used to having anyone waiting for his orders and following his commands, but he gave the Lord Protector a jerky nod before he flashed away with the legion behind him.
Macauley spun him around when they were alone, his insistent fist forcing Adres’s chin upwards so all he could see was the intensity reflected in Macauley’s blue eyes. “First of all, do not turn your back on me… ever. Second, do not threaten a member of my pack.”
“You threatened her life,” he admonished, “not me. Stay away from her.”
“Wow,” Macauley murmured, stroking one side of Adres’s cheek and gazing down on him as if he were something beautiful. When the pad of his calloused fingertip grazed over the scar above his ear, Adres pulled away.