Nikolas stared up at him obstinately.
“Sign it!” Callum barked.
Nikolas’s face twisted with fury but his voice was a pained whisper when he said, “She’s a pretty piece.”
Callum’s body grew taut but he sought patience.
“Sign the terms of surrender and accept punishment as leader of your followers. Don’t sign it and we don’t stop until we’ve brought low every last one of you,” Callum warned.
“A pretty piece,” Nikolas repeated quietly. “She’ll make a beautiful slave.”
At once, Callum’s arm swung out and the back of his fist caught Nikolas with a brutal blow to his jaw, sending him sprawling on his back.
“For f**k’s sake, sign it!” he roared, bending over the wolf.
Nikolas scrambled back to his knees and shouted fanatically, “They all will! When we align with the other immortals who believe as we do, who believe in the divine order of things, all the humans will be what they were always meant to be. Our slaves!”
Callum drew in a sharp breath through his nose.
Then he turned his back to Nikolas and walked three paces away.
Swiftly, he turned again, crouched low and, in a blur of motion, sprung up through the air and landed as wolf on the defeated leader.
He ripped Nikolas’s throat out with his teeth.
First.
Then he tore the warrior’s head off.
Springing back to man, he caught the towel thrown at him by one of his wolves, wiped the blood from his jaws and sauntered to the clothes that he’d long since learned to leap out of while becoming wolf. He grabbed his pants and pulled them up.
As he did so, he turned to Ryon. “Go through every last one until one of them signs it,” he gritted as he picked up his shirt and shrugged it on. “They don’t sign it then send the order to the commanders on the fronts of the other territories. Give every rebel wolf the opportunity to sign the surrender.” His eyes locked on his cousin. “If they don’t, slay them.”
“It’s done,” Ryon replied, eyes lit with fury even through his fatigue.
When Callum was dressed, he turned to walk away.
“Where are you going?” Ryon called.
Callum kept walking and didn’t look back when he answered, “To my queen. We’re going home.”
Chapter Fifteen
Castle
Sonia woke under the heavy hides, feeling the soft sheets and the traitorously pleasant ache that sat heavy in every muscle in her body.
Then her eyes opened.
She stared at Callum’s empty pillows and the memories of the last nine days crashed brutally into her brain.
Even while Callum was away battling the rebellion, Sonia spent that time adhering to his orders as given to her through Regan.
She was to train Kerry and Mabel in managing Clear as Diana couldn’t stay forever, nor, apparently, could Sonia. Under his edict she also began the process of hiring a new shop assistant who her girls would eventually choose and who would work alongside them. This was because Sonia, as soon as the rebellion was quashed, Regan told her, would be moving to Callum’s castle in Scotland.
She could not argue this “fact” with Regan as Regan had as little power as Sonia did.
Furthermore, Sonia couldn’t argue with Regan because Sonia spent those eight days with a very concerned mother. Her mother-in-law had lost a husband and son to this rebellion (Sonia learned) and she greatly feared for her family and her people.