Chapter 290: Two transformers blew
\\C\\W\\\ Death\\\\
Damien hadn’t spoken. He stood slightly apart, his body language screaming predator, and Exile could see the way the nearest males instinctively leaned away from him. Smart. They could sense what he was. The snake beastman’s tongue flickered once, tasting the air, cataloguing threats, and identifying which of these fools smelled most like aggression.
The woman was still talking, her pitch rising. "And I won’t stand by while you keep her contained! She needs to choose for herself! That’s how it works! And I have the strongest males here, all max level sixty, so you HAVE to listen to me!"
Victor’s wings flexed once. A subtle threat display that made the front row flinch backward. "You don’t know her. You don’t know us. And you’re putting every male in this crowd at risk." Victor took a deep breath in. Then, almost bored: "And level sixty? What are you, babies?"
Exile bit back a grin. There it was. That particular brand of Victor arrogance that only surfaced when someone was stupid enough to threaten what belonged to him. The eagle didn’t get angry. He got dismissive. Because anger implied the threat was worth emotional energy, and Victor refused to grant that to anyone who wasn’t Felicity.
"Are you threatening me?"
"I’m stating a fact."
"You can’t threaten me! I’m a woman! I’m PROTECTED!"
Damien spoke then, and his words slid out like venom dripping from a fang. "We could break every bone in your arms and legs and remove your tongue. You’d still be viable for breeding. Just less noise, I mean, we have done it before..."
The crowd went still. The woman’s face drained of colour, then flooded red with fury.
Exile exhaled slowly. Damien. Always Damien with the throat-punch diplomacy. The snake didn’t bother with Victor’s measured authority or Voss’s surgical precision. He simply told you exactly what he was capable of and let you decide whether you believed him.
The answer was always yes. People always believed Damien.
"W-W-WHAT—HOW DARE YOU! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU MYSELF!"
Victor shot her a flat, bored look. "Last warning. Every man in front of you dies in the next five seconds, or you walk away. I’ll leave the guards, though. I’m feeling generous."
"The fuck are you on about? No way you could-"
"Alright." Victor’s wings spread wide, blocking out the dying light. "Your choice."
Exile moved.
Not because Victor needed help. Because Felicity was inside that manor, and every second this mob existed was a second too long.
The light came everywhere at once, brilliant, blinding, a flash of pure destructive intent channelled through Victor’s amplified power. The sound hit next, a concussive boom that rattled Exile’s teeth even from his position behind the vehicle. The air tasted of metal and burnt copper, sharp enough to sting.
When Exile’s vision cleared, the woman, Maddie, was on her knees, screaming. The ground around her was scorched in a perfect circle. Two hundred males, gone. Not bodies. Not even ash. Just shadows burned into the earth where they’d stood, afterimages of men too stupid to walk away when given the chance.
The tiger guards stood frozen, their striped faces blank with shock, claws still extended toward threats that no longer existed.
Exile stepped out from behind the vehicle, brushed vine debris from his shoulder, and strolled toward Victor with his hands in his pockets.
"Nice," he said, casual as commenting on the weather.
Victor’s wings folded back against his shoulders. His red gaze swept the empty space where the crowd had been, then flicked toward the manor. Toward the upper windows, checking.
Always checking.
Voss was already turning, his attention shifting from the aftermath to the building behind them. "She’s going to ask what that noise was."
"Tell her a transformer blew," Damien suggested flatly.
"She’s not stupid."
"Tell her two transformers blew."
Exile snorted. Victor’s mouth twitched, barely, just the ghost of amusement crossing that severe face before he smoothed it away.
"I’ll tell her the truth," Victor said, already moving back toward the entrance. "Someone came to our door uninvited, and we answered it."
"Romantic," Voss muttered.
"She likes honesty."
"She likes not having two hundred corpse-shadows decorating her front lawn."
Victor paused mid-step. Considered this. Then: "Damien. Handle that."
"Handle what? The shadows?"
"Make them gone before she looks outside."
Damien stared at Victor for a long, flat moment. "I’m a snake. Not a cleaning service."
"You’re whatever I need you to be when it involves keeping that woman from frowning at me over breakfast, just go get Snow Team to help you."
Exile watched the exchange with barely contained amusement. These men, these terrifying, apex-predator, could-level-a-city-block males were genuinely concerned about whether their wives would be annoyed with them.
The tiger guards, still bewildered, hauled Maddie to her feet and began escorting her back toward her townhouse. She was babbling, incoherent, her arrogance shattered into pieces too small to reassemble. Back to her remaining twenty husbands. The ones she called useless.
Exile watched her go and thought about Felicity. About the way she said each of her husbands’ names differently, Victor with that slight catch of breath, Voss with a teasing lilt, Damien with a softness that made the snake go absolutely still, Ivan with a quiet steadiness that matched his own, Lucan with a smirk.
She didn’t call any of them useless. She didn’t call any of them hers to hoard.
She called them home.
And every single one of these deadly, unhinged, hopelessly devoted males would burn the world to cinders before they let anyone take that from her.
Voss was already pulling out a cloth, wiping soot from his sleeve with fastidious irritation. "Someone needs to tell her before Marx, or Tommy tells her."
"The ears do the thing," Damien said.
"The thing," Voss confirmed.
"The flat, disappointed thing."
"Yes."
Victor’s jaw tightened. "I’m going in first."
"Why you?"
"Because she won’t stay mad at me."
Voss and Damien exchanged a look, and even Exile raised a brow.
