Faolan backed against the dresser, gun still raised. He breath came in short, ragged gasps.
“Don’t move,” she said. “You fucking move, and I’ll put the next one between your eyes”
He writhed on the floor. “I’m bleeding… I only came because I love you.”
She shook her head, voice full of venom. “Shut your mouth.”
“You were so beautiful. I had to have you the moment I saw you. That’s why I kept you for myself. I tried to forget, but when Zel debriefed me…I knew it was you. I had to come back.”
She kept the gun trained on him.
She didn’t dare blink.
Her hands were strangely steady now, but her insides were trembling like glass under pressure.
He whimpered, soft and petulant, like a child denied a treat.
Then…
“Faolan!”
Her name in a desperate, beloved voice.
Thane.
Footsteps thundered up the hall. Then the door slammed open so hard it rebounded off the wall.
Thane stormed in first, eyes feral, gun raised in a smooth, practiced arc. His chest was heaving. His jaw clenched so tight it looked carved from stone.
Behind him was Zel, white-faced and furious.
Lirian followed, deadly silent, eyes already sweeping the room.
Then Maro, rage rolling off him like heat.
And just behind them was a stranger. He was tall. His suit was immaculate, but his hands were fisted and his eyes…
His eyes were burning.
“Anatoly?” Maro said, voice disbelieving.
The stranger surged forward, his gaze locked not on Faolan, but on the crumpled figure on the floor.
“What did you do to my daughter?”
The man on the floor—Tolya—tried to sit up, blood leaking through his fingers.
“I… Dimitri… How…” he began, voice shaking.
Thane moved instantly, stepping between Faolan and the man, shielding her completely. One arm reached back, blindly, and she felt his hand grip her waist, holding her against his shaking body. His hands moved up and down her sides, as if looking for injuries.
Only then, only when he touched her, did her legs begin to give way. The adrenaline was wearing off and her ribs were burning.
Faolan let herself sink into him.
The weight of it all, the years of nightmares, the memories drugged into a haze but never quite lost, crashed down in a tidal wave.
She felt Thane lower them both to the floor, his gun never wavering from its target.
