6-HELL VIKING

Rose barely had time to throw up a disruption in the air in front of her before Kaelyn’s free hand snapped out, faster than sight should allow, and caught the spinning blade a breath from her chest.

The warehouse seemed to freeze around them.

The crowd had still been roaring her name a heartbeat earlier, but now the sound thinned into uncertainty as people realized what had nearly happened. Rose stood rooted where she was, Kaelynn’s hand still wrapped around hers from where he had lifted it in victory, her own pulse beating hard enough to feel in her throat.

Mean Betty lay half-twisted on the mat, dazed from the loss and reckless enough to have gone for murder.

Kaelynn let Rose’s hand fall.

He looked at Betty.

That was when the room truly changed.

Whatever had been controlled and polished about him a moment ago remained in place, but something beneath it had risen, old and cold and merciless. The shift was small enough that most of the crowd probably missed it. Rose did not. The air near him seemed to pull tight, as though the world itself had braced.

Betty saw it too.

Her expression changed from fury to something that looked much closer to panic.

“That bitch deserved it,” she spat, though there was less conviction in it now.

Kaelynn walked toward her without haste, the blade balanced lightly in his hand.

Nobody tried to stop him.

Nobody moved.

He stopped above her, and his boot came down hard on the hand she had used to throw the weapon. The crack of bones carried through the ring loud enough to be heard over Betty’s scream, and that scream went through the warehouse like a live wire, stripping every last trace of triumph from the moment.

Rose did not move.

She watched.

Part of her knew she should have flinched. Another part of her, the darker part that the ring had always fed, only stood there and took it in.

“It seems to me,” Kaelynn said, his voice quiet enough that people leaned in to hear it, “that you had every chance to win clean.”

Betty writhed under his boot, breath coming in broken gasps, but he did not so much as glance at the blood starting to spread across her knuckles.

“And when you failed,” he went on, still in that same calm voice, “you threw steel at her heart.”

“Fuck her,” Betty hissed. “And fuck you.”

A murmur rolled through the crowd. Rose heard it but did not turn her head. Her eyes stayed on him.

Kaelynn crouched.

He moved so quickly that Rose nearly missed it, and then Betty was shrieking again, blood running hot down her mouth where he had sliced it open with a neat, brutal line that ruined the sneer she had worn all night.

“There,” he said softly. “That is an improvement. You looked ugly before; now you will smile, be thankful I have left you with life.”

It should not have been funny, but Rose still felt her mouth twitch.

Kaelynn straightened, turning the blade once in his hand before tossing it carelessly out of the ring. It skidded across the concrete floor and disappeared beneath a row of chairs. Nobody moved to retrieve it.

Then he came back to her.

He reached for her hand again and lifted it high, as though the interruption had been no more than a momentary inconvenience. The crowd took its cue from him and roared back to life, louder this time, the chant of Wild Rose rolling through the warehouse with such force that it vibrated in her chest.

She should have been focused on the win.

Instead, she was aware of his fingers around hers. A firm grip. Warm skin. The aftershock of danger still moving through her. The closeness of him. The fact that he had caught a weapon meant for her and broken a woman’s hand without changing expression.

He leaned toward her, close enough that only she heard him.

“Let’s leave before someone else makes a poor decision.”

The low brush of his voice against her ear sent a shiver through her that had nothing to do with fear.

He guided her out of the ring through a path that opened before him just as easily as it had when he brought her in. People stared openly at them now. The whispers rose and tangled around them.

“That has to be her.”

“Blackhand mafia brought her in.”

“Did you see him catch that knife?”

“No, but I saw what he did after.”

Rose kept walking.

By the time they reached the warehouse entrance, Bianca had appeared again, pale and perfect and standing in their way just enough to make it deliberate.

“Kaelynn,” she said, her eyes going first to him and then to Rose with a look so sharp it might as well have cut. “Are we meeting at Chapel Street?”

He did not slow.

“Do what you like,” he said. “I won’t be there.”

The hurt crossed Bianca’s face so quickly Rose might have thought she imagined it, if not for the way it hardened a second later into something colder. Bianca stepped aside, but not before letting her gaze drag over Rose one last time.

Rose felt it like the press of a hand between her shoulder blades.

The black SUV waited beyond the warehouse lights, engine running. Kaelynn opened the rear door for her, and she got in without argument, adrenaline still alive in her veins, the ghost of the crowd’s chant still ringing in her ears.

He slid in beside her and gave a quiet order to the driver.

Rose leaned back and let the silence stretch a little before breaking it.

“I think your girlfriend hates me.”

Kaelynn turned his head and looked at her.

“What gives you the idea that Bianca is my girlfriend?”

Rose glanced out the window again, buying herself a second.

“She has a particular way of looking at me. Most women only look like that if they feel threatened.”

One corner of his mouth lifted.

“Does that bother you?”

She snorted softly.

“You seem very interested in whether I’m jealous.”

“And are you?”

There was something almost lazy in the way he asked it, which only made the question more dangerous.

Rose crossed one leg over the other and watched the city lights slide by.

“No.”

He kept looking at her.

The lie sat between them.

“We were involved a very long time ago,” he said at last. “It ended. She has remained useful.”

Rose turned that over.

“That is possibly the least romantic thing anyone has ever said.”

He gave a low sound that might have been amusement.

“I wasn’t trying to be romantic.”

“Good,” she said. “I would hate for you to embarrass yourself.”

That earned her a real look, sharper and warmer all at once.

“Lucas was right about one thing,” he said. “You are extraordinary to watch.”

She looked at him then.

He was not smiling.

He was studying her the way he had in the ring; she had his sole attention.

“You saw too much,” she said.

“I see what interests me.”

The answer unsettled her more than it should have.

He reached up and touched her cheek, the pad of his thumb resting there lightly, and Rose braced instinctively for the hit of another vision.

It hovered at the edge of her senses but did not fully land.

“When I touch you,” he said, watching her closely, “something happens.”

Curiosity cut through the tension before she could stop it.

“You know?”

“I know that you react.”

She hesitated, then asked the question that had been needling at her since the docks.

“Are you causing it?”

His thumb shifted once against her skin.

“Causing what?”

“The visions.”

That drew the smallest crack in his composure, not surprise exactly, but interest sharpening into focus.

“What do you see?”

Heat rose in her face before she could stop it. Rose hated that he noticed immediately.

His gaze dipped to her mouth and back up again.

“If they show you what I want,” he murmured, “I can understand why you blush.”

She stared at him, not sure if she’d been insulted, taunted, or seduced.

Probably all three.

He withdrew his hand, but the imprint of it seemed to remain.

“You intrigue me,” he said. “Until now, the closest I have come to wolves has been to kill them. I find it… distracting that all I can think when I am near you is whether you would taste the way you smell.”

He shook his head.

“...but I would never kiss a wolf.”

Rose looked back out the window before her face gave her away.

The silence that followed felt fuller than speech.

After a while, he said, “Are you hungry?”

She glanced down at herself, at the fight gear, the wraps, the dried sheen of sweat cooling on her skin.

“Not dressed like this. I need sleep before my shift.”

“You work too hard in the wrong place.”

“I work where I choose.”

“You could work for me.”

“I already do,” she said. “Apparently, as a bounty hunter and now a fight girl.”

That finally pulled a brief, genuine smile from him.

“You’re independent,” he said. “I admire that.”

He was quiet for a beat before asking, “Why are you not with your pack? Is it because you are half-blood?”

The question struck harder than she expected.

Rose turned her head slowly and looked at him, jaw tightening.

“Do you always pry this much?”

His smile faded, though the glint in his eyes remained.

“You are certainly not ordinary.”

She looked away again.

“Not everybody likes handing over their life story on the first date.”

“First date,” he repeated softly. “So you admit this is one?”

She huffed a laugh despite herself and shook her head.

“That is not what I meant.”

“Damn, I was hoping for that first date kiss at the end.”

Rose turned back so sharply she caught the smirk forming.

“You don’t kiss wolves, remember?”

“No,” he said, leaning closer without touching her. “Which is why I keep thinking about doing it.”

Her breathing changed. She hated that he could hear it.

“Does it happen with everyone?” he asked.

She frowned. “Does what?”

“The visions.”

He was close enough now that she could feel the cool drift of his breath at her mouth.

“No,” she whispered. “Just you.”

His gaze stayed on her lips a second longer before he leaned back again, leaving her feeling oddly unsteady.

The drive finished in a silence that did not feel empty.

When the outline of Howl at the Moon rose ahead, dark and familiar in the thinning night, Rose let out a breath she had not realized she had been holding.

The place looked almost peaceful from the road, the main bar quiet, the workshop and gas station sleeping under the last stretch of dark. Her room sat above the back, waiting, ordinary and safe.

Kaelynn stopped the SUV near the back entrance.

“Thank you for tonight,” she said, surprising herself with the sincerity of it. “I had forgotten what it felt like to win like that.”

“You were magnificent,” he said simply.

His eyes dropped to her mouth for half a beat, and the heat of that look followed her as she climbed out with her gym bag and headed toward the back door.

She turned and waved. Then, continued on. She fumbled with her keys in the gym bag.

She felt him before she saw him.

Rose turned, and he was there, pressing her lightly against the wall beside the entrance in a blur of movement that should have frightened her and didn’t.

Not even a little, though it should have.

Instead, all she felt was heat, blood rushing low and hard through her body as his hand braced beside her head and his mouth lowered near her neck.

“I could not leave you yet,” he said, his voice rougher now.

He inhaled once at the curve of her throat.

“You smell like something made to ruin me.”

Another vision flickered at the edge of her mind, not fully formed, just a sense of mouths and hands and hunger.

“Your visions,” he said quietly. “Do they show this?”

Rose swallowed. “Sometimes.”

“Do they show me kissing you?” His voice was rough gravel.

She hesitated.

That was when Xavier moved through her mind, a wound that had never fully healed. The old loyalty, the grief, the part of her that had once believed one bond would be enough to last a lifetime, all of it rose up and held her there for a suspended second.

Kaelynn must have felt the change in her because he did not move closer.

He waited.

The patience of it unsettled her more than if he had pushed.

“Yes,” she whispered finally.

His gaze searched her face.

“More than that?”

Her eyes shut briefly.

“Yes.”

He exhaled once, affected, as if he were almost annoyed.

“Then tell me no,” he said. “Tell me no, Rose, and I will walk away.”

She should have.

She knew she should have.

Instead, she looked at him and saw the danger, the curiosity, the dark pull of something she did not understand and did not trust, and what came out of her mouth was not no.

“Yes.”

For the first second, she barely believed she had said it.

Then his mouth was on hers.

Rose’s hands went to him, catching at his coat, then his shoulders, as his mouth took hers apart slowly.

The world narrowed to heat and breath and the rough sound she made when his tongue brushed hers.

He pinned her hands above her head with one hand, making the size difference impossible to ignore. The weight of him, the hunger in the kiss, the strange and terrible rightness of it all, sent her head spinning. She was giving in to the hell viking, and it felt delicious.

When he pulled back, it was only enough for her to breathe.

Rose opened her eyes.

And horror hit.

His eyes had gone jet black, and his fangs had lengthened.