Kristen glared at the man standing in the doorway.
He hadn’t heard a single footstep leading up to the office.
How did he bypass the guards and the packhouse patrols?
Kristen narrowed his eyes.
The room had gone cold somehow, or maybe that was just him, every hair on his arms standing up at once the way they only ever did around something that didn’t belong in the natural order of things.
His gaze swept over the man in front of him — dark hair swept back long enough to brush his collar, an all-black ensemble that looked tailored rather than thrown on.
He stood like he owned the room already, weight settled easy on his heels, not a single muscle tensed despite being surrounded by wolves who could tear him apart in seconds.
His face was split into a wide, easy grin and his eyes were a piercing, unnatural red
Vampire…
Kristen stood up abruptly, the sofa creaking loudly behind him, his pulse already climbing fast.
“Aw, is this how you greet your future husband, Alpha?
You hurt my feelings,” the vampire drawled.
The word Alpha sounded both sensual and utterly disgusting coming from his lips.
He raised his hands to clutch his chest right over where his heart would have been beating, if he weren’t already technically dead.
Fuck, I’m marrying a dead man, Kristen thought, despair settling cold and final in his stomach.
Behind him, he was distantly aware of his mother’s stance shifting into something harder, more guarded, the kind of posture she only ever wore when she expected to need her claws within the next sixty seconds.
“Julian Vance.
What is the meaning of this?” his mother asked sharply, eyes fixed straight on the man like she was already deciding exactly how many ways she could kill him before he made it past the doorframe.
“Oh!
My sincerest apologies, pack Alpha.” He swept into a mock bow, low and theatrical, sweeping one arm out with a flourish that belonged more in a royal court than a wood-paneled pack office, the smirk never once leaving his face even as his spine bent.
“I simply got bored waiting, you see.”
Nobody moved.
Nobody said anything.
The silence stretched out long enough that Kristen could hear his own pulse in his ears, could hear the faint creak of his father shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
Julian’s eyes swept around the room until they landed on Scarlet, lingering there a beat too long.
“Ah, what a pity you won’t be mine after all.
You look quite beautiful — your blood must taste exquisite,” he said.
His tongue slipped out, brazenly flicking over his bottom lip.
Beside her, their father went rigid, one hand twitching toward her instinctively before he visibly forced himself to still it.
Scarlet didn’t flinch, to her credit, though her jaw tightened as if she was biting down on something venomous.
“Careful,” Scarlet said, her voice flat and cool in a way that didn’t match the white-knuckle grip she had on the back of the nearest chair.
“I bite.”
“I should certainly hope so,” Julian said, delighted, like she’d just confirmed something he already suspected.
“Shame I’ll never get to find out firsthand.”
What kind of insane monster was this?
Kristen felt his leftover anger boil over.
The half-shift overtook him instantly as he marched across the room to where Julian stood — claws lengthening, the air around him going sharp and electric, his vision narrowing down to a single point — He wrapped his elongated claws around Julian’s neck in an iron grip, pinning him and leaning close to his face growling low and dangerous. Read the latest chapters at novelping . com.
He half expected fear, but Julian’s pulse — slow, sluggish, barely there at all under his palm — didn’t even pick up.
“Shut your fucking mouth about my fucking family monster,” he said, the words coming out barely understandable, wrecked and barely human with the edge of the shift still riding underneath them.
Julian wrapped his own hands around the one at his throat instead of fighting it off — almost lazily, like he had all the time in the world.
He tipped his head back to look up at Kristen’s golden glare, red eyes flickering with open amusement, utterly unbothered by claws that could have opened his throat with a flick of the wrist.
He rose up onto his toes, slow and deliberate and brought his mouth flush against Kristen’s ear.
Kristen’s heart skipped a beat.
“What a kinky mutt you are,” Julian said, low and sensual, right against his skin, each word drawn out like he was savoring it.
“And a foolish one, calling me the monster — when I’m not the one currently trapped halfway between a wolf and a man.” he whispered, and then licked, slow and unhurried, along the shell of Kristen’s ear, like he had every right in the world to do it.
“Fuck,” Kristen growled and practically flung Julian away from him, wrenching himself backward, so startled he shifted fully back into his human form right there on the spot, claws and fangs and everything retracting all at once in a rush that left him slightly dizzy.
His hands flew up to touch his damp ear, his face flushing a violent crimson.
He couldn’t tell if it was from pure rage or unexpected arousal.
Fuck my sensitive ears, Kristen thought, with no small amount of disgust at himself.
Of all the things to inherit from being the family’s strange, abnormal, oversized wolf, this was somehow the single most mortifying.
“Dumbass,” Scarlet muttered under her breath, just loud enough for him to hear, the corner of her mouth twitching despite the situation.
Julian was still standing there, unbothered, licking his own lips and raking his gaze slowly over him like he was something laid out on a menu, deciding what to order first.
Kristen took a ragged, deep breath and turned to look at his family.
They were all looking at the two of them — his mother with her arms crossed so tight her knuckles had gone pale, his father with an expression Kristen couldn’t quite name, somewhere between protective and devastated, and Scarlet with one eyebrow raised so high it had nearly vanished into her hairline, clearly torn between horror and the faint, unwilling urge to laugh.
Kristen flushed, mortified all over again at the realization that his entire family had just witnessed that whole depraved little display from start to finish, ear-licking and all.
He cleared his throat aggressively, trying to force the blush off his face as he clenched his hands into tight fists.
“Why are you here, monster?”
Julian chuckled, thoroughly amused.
“I thought wolves had exceptional hearing.
Hmm.
Must be another trait that got lost during your evolution,” he said, tapping a finger against his temple in mock contemplation like he was genuinely concerned for Kristen’s wellbeing and not just enjoying himself immensely at Kristen’s expense.
I might actually kill a monster today, Kristen thought savagely.
“I came to personally deliver our marriage contract.
You’re welcome, by the way,” Julian announced, spreading his hands like he was presenting a gift.
Kristen scoffed.
“You just told my parents today.
Are you really that eager for our blood, you addict?” he said, his tone scathing, hoping the insult landed even half as hard as he meant it to.
Julian looked at him with an indulging smile, as if he were spoiling a pet merely by allowing Kristen to ask questions.
Kristen bristled in deep indignation.
“On the contrary, my dear Alpha—”
Ew, Kristen thought, utterly repulsed by the nickname.
“—we negotiated this terms a month ago.
Your parents agreed, and then promptly went radio silent,” Julian explained, his voice petulant and whiny as if he were the victim of an unfair business deal. Visit novelping(.)com for the full chapter.
A month ago?
Kristen whipped his head around to look at his parents.
They refused to meet his gaze, keeping their eyes trained strictly on the vampire.
“So I sent a little…
reminder.
A wake-up call.
A friendly little ‘how’s it going’ letter,” Julian said, glancing pointedly at Kristen, something gleeful and cruel flickering behind his eyes.
“Did you enjoy it, Alpha?”
Kristen looked at him, confused.
A letter?
To him?
He hadn’t received any—
Suddenly, the pieces clicked together.
The shift in the wind.
The suffocating smell of blood right outside their borders.
It hadn’t been some random rogue.
It hadn’t been bad luck, or a stray attack.
“YOU SENT THAT MONSTER AFTER US THIS EVENING?!” he said, in absolute disbelief, his voice cracking right down the middle.
“Bingo!
Look at you, you’re so smart!” Julian said condescendingly.
Kristen’s hands curled tighter at his sides, nails threatening to slip back into claws all over again.
“I could have died!”
“If you had, it would have been your own fault for being weak and slow,” Julian said, the playful smile instantly vanishing from his face.
His voice turned ice-cold, and his red eyes glinted with an ominous, predatory sharpness.
And just like that, Kristen was reminded all over again that there was another predator standing in this room right now — one who only happened to be playing at being prey, for now, “It would have been better if you died out there, because a weak mutt wouldn’t be fit to stand beside me anyway.”
His mother growled loudly, attempting to walk towards him, luckily his father stopped her with an arm around his waist.
His mother’s hotheadedness comes out at the worst times.
“Now,” Julian said clapping his hands together once, the cold gone from his voice as quickly as it had arrived, replaced again by that same easy, lazy amusement, his gaze sweeping slowly across every face in the room — lingering on Rachel, Richard and a beat on Scarlet, before settling back on Kristen like he’d been the destination the entire time.
He reached into his jacket and produced a folded sheaf of papers Kristen hadn’t even noticed him carrying, setting it down on the desk with a soft, deliberate sound that seemed far too loud for the silence in the room.
A slow, satisfied smirk rose back onto his lips.
“Shall we discuss the contract?”
Vance is sooo hot!
marry me!
♡(> ਊ <)♡