The mortal had no time to register the split moment Thaddeus left him to try and escape. In that fractional time, he delivered Rori to her room and returned, sifting him and the mortal far from the apartments. A cement jetty beneath an overpass Cael had showed him earlier. A good place to drop a body without drawing suspicion.
With the bullet spinning slowly at the mouth of the barrel, a plume of powder blossoming at a painfully slow pace, Thaddeus grinned. His lips peeled back from his teeth.
The mortal’s confidence drained, as did the red in his face and the cocky gleam in his eyes. He looked down, his eyes widening. He kicked his legs, which dangled many feet above the river waters as Thaddeus held him suspended in the air.
“W-what the fuck?”
“You talk too much, human.”
Thaddeus manipulated the man’s mouth and tongue, pulling the muscle from between his lips with simple magic. His mouth curled as he sliced his blade, cutting out the man’s tongue. Blood poured from the severed flesh, a fountain of red over his chin. The man tried to slap his hand across his mouth, but Thaddeus held his arms frozen in place, one holding the gun in the position he had fired it, the other at his side.
A howl exploded through the night.
Thaddeus chuckled. He dangled the severed tongue in front of the man’s face. His pitiful tears fed a sickening fuel to Thaddeus’s dark heart.
“Youcrossed a line this eve.”
He magically reattached the mortal’s tongue, but made certain the pain of the amputation continued at full strength. He flipped the dagger in his hand and brought the edge of the blade to the mortal’s throat. The man tilted his chin up, trying to escape the pressure Thaddeus applied. Slowly, he began todraw the blade across the mortal’s neck, flaying him open. The man’s eyes widened further as he gurgled on blood. Blood in his mouth. Blood filling his throat.
A river of red.
“Nooneharms my woman.”
Thaddeus leaned close to the man, balancing on the edge of the jetty.
“Let me make one thing clear. I amnotyour Devil.” Thaddeus began to break down the glamour hiding his true appearance from the mortal as he healed the damage of his blade. He’d be sure this disgusting creature suffered in his final moments, and the fear that rose in his eyes as he witnessed the impossible assured Thaddeus the bloody bastard would scream in his mortal Hell for eternity. “I’mfarworse.”
“W-whatareyou?!” the man screeched. His legs kicked wildly, his shoulders shifting in an effort to release his arms from the magical restraints.
“I believe you’d call me…”
He manipulated the man’s gun hand, twisting his wrist until the barrel and its leisurely expulsing bullet aimed at the mortal’s temple. The man thrashed, huffing, whimpering, his eyes flicking between the bullet and Thaddeus.
“Death.”
He released his magic from the bullet and guided the scalding steel straight into the mortal’s temple, an agonizing pace to anticipate one’s own death approach. The ice in his blood consumed him as he held the mortal’s fearful gaze as the bullet touched his skin and burrowed through his skull, his brain, and out the opposite side of his head. He watched the life snuff from his eyes, his pupils dilating, his last breath shuddering from his lips.
He tilted his head, observing the dead man hanging limpin the air, a thin stream of blood trekking to split on either side of his nose.
“Hm.”
With a flick of his wrist, the body plummeted into the water with a sharp smack.
Worry needled back into his mind as the ice melted and his magic ebbed. He sifted back to Rori’s apartment, her room, and bloody near panicked when he didn’t find her where he’d left her. Rushing into the main living space, he tore through the apartment.
“Rori!”
Goddess, why couldn’t he calm himself? Why did his heart beat furiously, muddling his thoughts? What were these feelings? This desperation?
He backtracked to the bedroom. Relief, dizzying relief overwhelmed him when Rori burst from the bathroom, wet hair a fiery cape of waves around her pale face and narrow shoulders, dressed in flimsy cloth that barely covered her. Her top sat disheveled, dipping low over one breast, lifted at one hip. Steam followed her out of the room like a train as those pillowy lips parted on a gasp and she rushed to him. Rushed. The unfiltered concern in her eyes created a cacophony of emotions, all funneling through his chest.
She grabbed the opening of his shirt where he’d left it unbuttoned and tugged it down, exposing the light scars over his chest. Her fingers brushed over his skin, hot and wet from her shower, but his attention shifted to the blossoming purple bruise over her swollen right cheek. He lowered her hand from his chest and cupped her face, swallowing down the darkness he’d realized spread every time danger threatened his woman.
His lips tightened as he fed his healing magic into her wound.
Myanam cara.
“You need to take care not to make a target of yourself and gethurt.”
