“No matter.” Harcourt closes the distance between us with a single step. “It can be removed with the right tools.”
His words turn my stomach, and bile rises.
This is exactly what I feared would happen, the danger of my profession catching up to me, threatening to spill over onto those I care about. This is why I ran from Ezra, why I tried to keep him at arm’s length. My world is full of Harcourts, men with grudges and guns who see people as assets to be liquidated or liabilities to be eliminated.
He pulls out a small case, flipping it open to reveal a syringe filled with clear liquid. Even through my Heat-addled brain, alarm bells ring with crystal clarity.
“Stay back,” I warn, the staple remover slipping in my sweaty grip.
Harcourt steps forward, gun in one hand, syringe in the other. “This doesn’t need to be unpleasant, Vescari.”
“Told you I’d find you, Harcourt.”
The greeting slices through my labored breaths, and Harcourt whirls, gun swinging toward this new intruder.
Jade steps from the shadows between two tall bookcases, his bleached blond hair almost white in the dim light. His face looks carved from stone, blue eyes flat and empty enough to chill me despite the fever.
“The Omega,” Harcourt sneers, recognition flashing across his features, the gun now pointed at Jade’s chest. “Good, I’ll have two of you to auction off now.”
Jade’s mouth twists into a mockery of humor. “Things won’t go your way this time. I’ve spent months tracking you down to ensure you never cage another Omega again.”
Through the haze of fever, I watch Jade’s fingers flex at his sides, his weight shifting forward onto the balls of his feet. The stance of a fighter preparing to strike.
Harcourt chuckles, the sound rich with condescension. “You think you can take me? I don’tneedtwo Omegas. I can just as easily put a bullet in you and tranquilize him. Business as usual.”
“You’re not leaving this shop with him,” Jade says with the certainty of someone who’s crossed a line and has no intention of stepping back.
“Why do you even care?” Harcourt waves the syringe at me without taking the gun off Jade. “Do you have any idea who this Omega bitch even is?”
“Yes.” Jade’s lips curl back from his teeth. “He’s the man who saved me.”
What happens next blurs into fragments of reality that my Heat-soaked brain struggles to assemble into coherence.
Jade darts forward, a flash of movement too quick to follow. Harcourt squeezes the trigger, and the gunshot rings out, deafening in the enclosed space of the bookshop. The bullet embeds itself in a shelf of poetry anthologies, sending splinters and pages flying.
I flinch, ears ringing from the blast, as Jade collides with Harcourt. Metal flashes in Jade’s hand, then disappears as he drives it into Harcourt’s stomach.
Harcourt screams, his gun and syringe clattering to the floor as his hands fly to the wound, fingers scrabbling at the knife hilt protruding from his abdomen.
“This is for every Omega you’ve ever sold.” Jade twists the knife, his face inches from Harcourt’s, watching as pain contorts the older man’s features.
Harcourt staggers backward, his expensive shoes scuffing across the hardwood floor. His mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water, words failing him as his body registers the fatalwound. Blood seeps through his fingers, staining his tailored suit a deep crimson.
The shop fills with the iron-rich scent of fresh blood, cutting through the scent of aging paper and the sweetness of my Heat. It coats the back of my throat, metallic and thick.
Jade doesn’t stop. He follows Harcourt’s stumbling retreat, driving him back into a bookcase that shudders under their combined weight. Books topple from the upper shelves, thudding around them, spines breaking and papers scattering.
Jade yanks the knife free, and I gag at the wet squelch, before he plunges it in again, higher this time, just below Harcourt’s ribs.
Harcourt slides down the bookcase, leaving a smear of red on the dark wood. He stares in shock, pupils dilated with pain and the realization he’s going to die.
Jade stabs him again in a frenzy.
I should look away. I want to look away. But my body refuses to obey, transfixed by the brutal picture unfolding before me.
Jade straddles Harcourt’s failing body, knees pinning the man’s arms to the floor. The knife rises and falls, each downward stroke punctuated by a wet thud and a splash of crimson. “Not so powerful now, are you?”
Jade’s words register through the pounding of my heart, the rushing in my ears, and the insistent throb of Heat beneath my skin. My legs give out, and I slide down the side of the reference desk to the floor. The cool hardwood soothes my overheated skin, anchoring me to reality when my mind threatens to float away on a fever tide.