Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kane had insisted Sophia arm herself and arm herself well before they left, pointing out that with a giant hole torn in the side of the warehouse, there was no telling who or what might have gotten inside in the past twenty-four hours.
Several of the witches that had been outside to cast the perimeter spell had volunteered to stay after everyone had left, and clear the place of any supernatural evidence that might otherwise be stumbled upon, so Kane wasn’t even sure if Kevin Thompson’s body was still on the premises. But he assured her, that if it wasn’t, he’d speak to Jourdain to find out what had been done with the corpse.
Taking a deep breath, she mentally asked herself for about the hundredth time if she really wanted to see a dead body. No, not really. But she felt like she needed to, felt like she needed that closure. All the others that had hurt her, even Nate, were dead, their bodies long since disposed of. Hell, she hadn’t even been able to go on a fiery rampage and destroy Olivier Rodolfo’s Garden District villa where she’d been held captive for five years – even if she hadn’t been conscious of the time passing in her stasis – Kane and the pack had already demolished the place. And she may have come a long way in healing thanks in large part to Kane, her brother, Morgan, and Jamie, but there was still so much anger, especially in her dragon. She was almost positive that was why she continued to have control issues. And perhaps, seeing the last of her attackers dead would placate her beast enough so they could finally move on.
The warehouse looked different tonight, dark and quiet, whereas last night it had been a lightning storm of unleashed power and raw animal aggression. But the witches had done a fair job of cleaning up, she noted. There were still a few blackened scorch marks on the corrugated metal walls from her and Travis’s fire, but the bloodstains had been cleaned up and everything that had once been Evangeline’s had been removed.
“This way,” Kane said, motioning her forward. He brought her to a back room with a heavy steel door that could be bolted from the outside. “This is where I left him.”
She nodded, grabbing the handle, but Kane’s hand on her arm stopped her. “I can smell him,” he said. “So he’s still in there.”
Sophia nodded again. The witches must have focused on the main part of the warehouse, assuming the battle hadn’t spread to any of the back rooms.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
Sophia didn’t hesitate. “I need to.”
Kane’s lips were set in a tight line, but he didn’t try to discourage her. “Whatever you need to do, for however long it takes. I’m right beside you.”
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door wide and stepped through. Kevin Thompson was sprawled on the floor, his shirt askew and partially open, the buttons having been torn off, perhaps in a struggle. His skin was a ghastly grayish blue, his mouth partially open, and his dead gaze seemed to look right at her.
Unnerved by the sight, she moved around to the other side of the body so he was no longer staring at her. His blond hair was stained a deep, dark red, the hilt of a knife still protruding from his skull. Spotting the bite marks in the man’s neck, Sophia took grim satisfaction in the sight. Kane had drunk from him, nourished himself, taken strength for the fight that was to come. At least the man had been good for something.
Sophia had read the file on Kevin Thompson. As a human, he’d been a common thug. As one of Rodolfo’s men, he hadn’t been much better, his main job, securing the women brought in that Rodolfo sold to the highest bidder in his flesh trafficking trade. How many of those women had he hurt as he’d hurt her?
An image of him, crouched and snarling over the torn and bloody flesh of her thigh, her blood smeared across his face and splattered in his hair, flooded her mind and a scream of rage ripped out of her mouth. Her foot lashed out, kicking at the corpse over and over again as she continued to shout and bellow, raining expletives down on a prone body that had died too quickly, too mercifully, for the pain and suffering he’d helped cause.
She stopped only once her throat was sore from screaming and her leg hurt from repeated kicks and stomps. A clicking growl rose in her throat and she turned narrowed, dragon eyes on Kane. “We should dispose of the body, right?”
He nodded.
With a snarl, Sophia spat a fireball at Kevin Thompson’s battered corpse and watched him go up in flames. Her dragon writhed within her in both appreciation and satisfaction.
Kane stayed beside her, an arm wrapped around her waist, a silent pillar of support, while Sophia cried out the last of her suffering. Neither of them moved or spoke until nothing remained of her previous tormentor but a smoking pile of ash and bone. Her past was at rest – her future awaited her.
∞∞∞
Leaving the warehouse after disposing of the bones, Sophia had been in the mood for barbecue, and after stating as much to Kane, she watched with a grin as he dissolved into hysterical laughter. Placing his arm around her shoulder and tugging her close to kiss the top of her head, he said, “Dark and hungry. A woman after my own heart.” But he did take her to a barbecue place to indulge her admittedly macabre craving.
It was after she’d finished a rather messy basket of ribs and was wiping her sticky fingers clean that she looked at Kane and said, “Ask me.”
Kane’s eyes popped wide. “What? Here?”
Sophia grabbed up another napkin and wiped a stray bit of sauce from his beard, smiling fondly. “Yes. Here. When it comes to us, a proposal over food seems perfect.”
Leaning forward, he whispered, “But I don’t have a ring.”
She shook her head, still smiling. “I don’t care.” Sobering, she added, “Five years of my life was stolen. I can’t get that time back, but I can control what happens next, and I don’t want to waste even a moment of that time that could be spent with you.”
Kane jumped up from his chair too fast and sent it skidding back with a loud scraping noise, drawing the eyes of the other patrons, so they had an audience as Kane knelt before her and took her still sticky fingers in his. “I love you, Sophia St. John,” he began, the sincerity in his eyes making her chest ache with love. “Yours is the only face I want to see before I go to sleep and the only face I want to see when I wake up.” He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “You are who I want to play with, work with, and especially, eat with,” he added with a grin before stating solemnly, “Forever. You make me happy in ways I never imagined. Will you marry me?”
Her eyes brimming with joyful tears, Sophia wrapped her arms around his neck and slid out of her chair and into his arms. “Yes,” she said, nodding. “Yes.”
As the other diners applauded, and let out a few hoots of happiness in their honor, Sophia kissed Kane’s smiling mouth. “My king,” she murmured against his lips.
“My queen.”
