We strode up the stone path with Saint leading the way and Kyan cursing so colourfully he could have made a whore blush.
Monroe’s dark silhouette moved towards us from the direction of the canteen and a low growl of fury left my lips as I spotted the hulking figure who he was dragging along beside him.
Tatum’s fingers curled through mine and I squeezed her tight as we marched forward to face her tormentor as one.
Kyan broke into a run with a snarl of utter rage and he slammed into the guy as Monroe shoved him forward, tackling him to the floor with a sickening thump before laying into him with all the fury of the darkness he held deep within him.
We hurried closer and the pale moon slipped out from behind the clouds so that the bleeding face of the creep responsible for threatening our girl was thrown into light.
“Toby?” Tatum gasped just I said, “Punch?”
Kyan had grown sick of beating the shit out of him and he wrapped two huge hands around Toby’s throat, slamming his head back down on the path as he started to squeeze the life out of him.
Toby thrashed beneath him, his eyes wild with fear as the rest of us just fucking watched.
“Enough,” Saint snarled when it looked like Kyan might crush his fucking oesophagus.
When he didn’t stop, Monroe lurched forward to drag him off and I had to release Tatum so that I could help too.
Kyan finally let go and we dragged him back with blood coating his knuckles and his eyes dark with the promise of more violence.
“What’s going on?” Toby gasped, trembling as he cowered on the floor between us.
“Do you like our girl, Toby?” Saint asked in a voice that was dripping with ice and a promise of pain. “Do you like following her around and jerking off over her in the bushes? Do you like taking pictures of her and sending her twisted little gifts to try and scare her?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Toby gasped, his terrified gaze falling on Tatum like he was pleading with her for help.
I swung my boot into his side with a snarl of rage. “You don’t look at her!” I yelled and as his eyes flipped to me betrayal flashed in his gaze, like he couldn’t believe that I was a part of this. But did he really think our friendship would protect him from this? Did he really think I’d value that over Tatum’s safety?
“We found your hoard in your room,” I spat. “So stop fucking lying to us. We know you’ve been stalking her.”
“St-stalking?” Toby stammered, his gaze flitting to Tatum once more. “I didn’t - I don’t – I wouldn’t-”
This time Monroe was the one to kick him and Kyan laughed darkly as the newest Night Keeper shed his headmaster badge in defence of our girl.
“Let me spell this out for you, scum,” Saint hissed, leaning down so that Toby was forced to look at him. “Tatum Rivers belongs to us. She’s off limits to anyone other than the Night Keepers. So no one gets to touch her, look at her, or even fucking think about her as if she might ever be theirs. Did you seriously think you could get away with terrorising her right beneath our noses? I can only assume you wanted to bring our wrath down on you. Maybe you actually enjoyed being an Unspeakable the last time? Maybe you like being the lowest of the low.”
Toby whimpered as he looked between us, searching for mercy and finding none. “I didn’t,” he murmured, like he seriously thought he could escape this fate after we’d found all of that shit beneath his bed.
“I thought you were my friend?” Tatum breathed and Toby just stared back at her, choking down breath after breath as he fought to recover from Kyan’s attack. “Why would you do this to me?”
He just started shaking his head and I tugged on Tatum’s hand to pull her back again. I didn’t want her close to him. Not ever. If I got my way, he’d never lay his filthy eyes on her again in his pathetic life.
“This right here is nothing,” Saint hissed, his eyes manic and his hands curled into fists as he glared down at the shaking boy between us. “It’s just the start. Every single day, one of us will find you and torture you in some new and even more fucked up way. We will come at all times of day or night, never letting you know when and forcing you to live in fear of your own fucking shadow.”
My skin prickled at the darkness in his words, but I had no objection to them. I was more than a little tempted to release my hold on Kyan right now and let him finish what he’d just started.
“But I’ll give you an out,” Saint offered. “One, single way for you to make us stop. When you can’t take another day of it, you’ll come to us and beg for us to cut your fucking balls off. We will make your life so unbearable that one day, that fate will be preferable to living another moment with us coming to torture you. You will quite literally prefer a life without balls to a life with us in it. You’ll beg us to castrate you and we’ll do it. And then and only then will you be rid of us for good.”
No fucking way am I cutting a guy’s balls off. Points for fucking terrifying him though.
Toby whimpered pathetically and a wet patch appeared at his crotch, staining his pants as he trembled beneath us.
“Your name is no longer Toby,” I growled, remembering to play this part right even while I ached
