I tugged at the collar of my dress shirt, feeling strangled by the stiff material. When I started playing hockey at a competitive level, I knew that showing up to the stadium before the game dressed to the nines was required, but I didn’t think I’d hate it this much.
Klaus reveled in it. Tonight, he dressed in an expertly tailored, slate-gray, Tom Ford, three-piece suit with a white dress shirt. The deep red of his tie and pocket square complemented the color of his fur.
To put it simply, he looked like a fucking snack. Sex on hooves. The hottest krampus I’d ever seen.
From the way Holly was staring at his moonlit silhouette, I could tell she agreed.
We were parked in the shadows at the back of the stadium parking lot, waiting for the little blackmailing shit to arrive. Our plan was simple.
Find out who they were, intimidate them until they saw how stupid it was to blackmail two monsters and their mate.
“Do you really think he’ll show?” Holly whispered. She leaned forward and peered out the front windshield.
Klaus scoffed from the backseat. “Of course he’ll show, princess. Would you trust someone to pick up $150,000 on your behalf?”
“No,” she said thoughtfully. “I guess I wouldn’t.”
Headlights flashed across the parking lot and an old Volvo parked across from the statue.
“That’s our cue,” I told Klaus.
He shrugged off his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. The bulge of his forearms served as a momentary distraction.
Why was that so hot?
“You stay put, princess,” he said. “Flurry and I will handle this.”
A pathetic wisp of a man hopped out of the car and darted towards the statue, but Klaus and I were quicker. We were on him within moments, with me at his back and Klaus standing in front of him, blocking his access to the bag we’d filled with dirty jock straps.
“Who the fuck are you?” Klaus bellowed, his deep voice echoing out over the parking lot.
“I, uh–” Trying to put some distance between him and Klaus, the man stepped backward and collided with my chest. His head swiveled back and forth between us, a pathetic whimper slipping past his chest.
I let out a snarl as I recognized the jacket he wore. There was a small tear on the sleeve, the fabric matching what we had discovered in the forest.
This was definitely our guy.
Klaus’ nostrils flared, his fangs bared. I growled, anger rolling through me.
“Do we scare you, you pathetic little shit?” Klaus’ mouth twisted into a crazed smile, his eyes sparking with hatred. “You should be fucking terrified.”
I gripped the man’s shoulders tight, holding him in place. “We won’t ask you again–what is your name?”
He swallowed hard. “M-Mike.”
Klaus grabbed the lanyard hanging around Mike’s neck, making him yelp.
“Hmmm,” Klaus said, tapping a claw against the laminated badge at the end of the lanyard. “It says here you’re a member of the press. A reporter, I take it.”
I dug my fingers into Mike’s shoulders. “I thought you looked familiar. You wouldn’t happen to be Holly’s ex, would you?”
His body went rigid in my grip.
“Answer me,” I growled.
“Y-yes,” he sniveled.
Klaus snarled. “Oh, Mike. You are fucking with the wrong people. How dare you blackmail us and our mate.”
“You-your mate?” he stammered. “Holly is your mate? I thought she was just some chick you were both fucking.”
“Don’t you ever talk about her like that,” I seethed, fighting the urge to wrap my hands around his throat. “You aren’t even worthy of speaking her name.”
“I just—” Mike started, but Klaus cut him off.
“You just what?” he bellowed. “Thought you could blackmail our mate to make a quick buck, you despicable little rat.”
Klaus thrust his arm forward and Mike lurched against my chest with a shriek.
His balls.
Klaus literally had the guy by his fucking balls.
“Listen here, you piece of shit. I should rip off your pathetic excuse for a dick and shove it down your throat.”
“No!” Mike cried. “Please don’t!”
“As if begging will help you…” Klaus stood there for a moment, giving Mike enough time to truly feel fear. “Because I have a speck of humanity left in my monstrous heart, I’ll let you keep it. Under one condition.”
Klaus’ shoulder tensed and Mike screamed again. Klaus must have tightened his grip.
“You’re going to delete those photos. You’re going to quit your job. You’re going to take a trip somewhere far, far away from here.” Klaus leaned in, his face only an inch away from trembling Mike. “And if I see you around the NMHL, Holly, or us, ever again—Flurry and I will find you and we will tear you apart limb from limb.”
Mike let out a sob.
Klaus jumped back suddenly, slinging his hand back and forth. “You motherfucker. You fucking pissed on my hand.”
I couldn’t help but snort over the fact that we scared the guy so badly he pissed himself—and the fact that Klaus got pissed on.
His face scrunched in utter disgust, Klaus wiped his hand on Mike’s jacket and growled under his breath. “Do I make myself clear, Mike? You’re going to fucking disappear or we’ll make you disappear.”
I knew Klaus was bluffing. We would never harm someone or break the law, but Mike didn’t know that. Klaus was damn scary when he went all krampus.
Mike’s body vibrated, and he gave a slow nod of agreement.
Klaus leaned in again, his tongue slithering out of his mouth to dance in front of Mike’s face. “Now get out of my sight.”
I released Mike’s shoulders and he couldn’t stumble away fast enough.
We watched him scramble into his car and pull off before we made our way back to the truck.
“Mike, that jerk,” Holly said the moment we opened the door. “I should have known it was him.”
“You could tell it was him?” Klaus asked, squirting a generous amount of hand sanitizer into his hands and vigorously rubbing them together.
“It all clicked. The car, the short stature, the part of the letter that mentioned humiliation. Now that I think about it, it’s so typical of him.”
“Is it typical for him to piss himself?” I asked, breaking out into laughter.
Holly’s perfect mouth gaped. “He pissed himself?”
“Unfortunately,” Klaus sighed. “Right on my hand.”
“Oh gods,” Holly laughed. “How?”
I grinned. “Klaus threatened certain parts of his anatomy.”
“And I don’t regret a single second of it, princess,” Klaus said, puffing out his chest. “No one threatens me and my mates.”
I leaned over to whisper in Holly’s ear. “I think he was into it, to be honest.”
“Oh shut up,” Klaus snapped over Holly’s laughter.
“So it’s over?” she asked when her laughter subsided. “We don’t have to worry about the pictures.”
“It’s over,” I reassured her.
“And if not, we’ll hunt him down and do what we threatened,” Klaus added.
Holly furrowed her brows. “And what was that?”
“Well,” Klaus puffed out a breath. “I might have said I’d shove his dick down his throat and that Flurry and I would tear him limb from limb.” He shrugged, as if dismemberment was some nonchalant thing.
Holly gave us a wobbly smile. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
Yep.
She was our mate.