I walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the garden, each step heavy with dread.
Draugr’s growl was low, seething.“When I went back to the warehouse tonight to finish Keller… the security system was down. Both changelings on watch are gone. And so is Keller.”
The words detonated in my chest. For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Then fury erupted, sharp and uncontrollable, ripping through me like wildfire. I spun, every instinct screaming to destroy something or everything.
But Sorcha was in the room, so I forced my steps out the doors, onto the patio. The night air hit me, cold and useless against the heat boiling in my veins. The rage needed release, and it came fast. I roared, the sound shaking the dark, and grabbed the nearest table, hurling it across the garden. It splintered into the trees, missing one of the vampire guards by a hair. He ducked, wisely silent, while I ripped a chair from the stone and sent it flying next.
“Lucien.” Draugr’s voice cut through the crackle of my fury. Steady and grim.“There was fucking demon evidence. Residue from those motherfuckers. This wasn’t a simple escape. Kellerwas already touched, already theirs. They followed him and helped him out.”
I clenched my jaw until my teeth ached. Touched.That was why he’d slipped free, and I’d let the bastard breathe one more night.
My hands shook with the need to destroy something more. I should have killed him the moment I had him. Should have burned the body to ash before he could slither back to the filth that owned him.
“This is on me,” I snarled into the phone. “I’ll fix it.”
Draugr grunted.“We’ll fix it. But don’t lose your fucking shit now. Keep your mate steady. Leave the hunt to me until we get a lead.”
“Fuck,” I roared, “keep me in the loop, and Draugr…hurry up.”
The call ended, but the rage didn’t. My chest heaved, every breath a promise of violence. If he didn’t find him soon, I wouldn’t be able to sit around, I would burn the whole fucking city down looking for him. He had to die, he had to pay for what he did to Sorcha. Now that I had a feel for his bones under my hands I would not rest until I knew he was dead. I had promised Sorcha…I would not fail her.
“Lucien?”
Her voice was soft, but it cut sharper than any blade. I snaped around. Sorcha stood framed in the open doorway, her hand over her heart, her eyes wide with worry. The glow from the sitting room haloed around her, fragile and too bright against the storm rolling through me.
Fuck.
I forced the fire back, shoved it down deep where it burned but wouldn’t touch her. The doctor’s warning rang in my skull…no stress, no strain.The last thing I could do was unleash this in front of her.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, stepping toward her, careful, steady. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.” My voice was low, rougher than I meant, but I softened it as best I could. “Just business.”
Her brow furrowed, lips parting like she wanted to argue. I saw the tremor in her hand, the way she was holding herself tight, and it only escalated my fury, not at her, never at her, but at Keller. At the fact that the bastard still breathed. That the shadow of what he’d done was still haunting her.
I reached her in two strides, pulling her into my arms, holding her close even though I was still shaking with rage. “Don’t look at me like that, baby. Don’t worry.” My lips brushed her hair as I pressed her into my chest. “I’ll handle it. You’re safe here. With me.”
She nodded against me, though the tension in her body told me she wasn’t fully convinced. And that killed me more than Keller’s escape.
Inside, the storm still raged, every part of me screaming to hunt, to tear, to destroy. But outside, for her, I forced the calm. For her, I would hold it back.
Even if it burned me alive.
Chapter 19
Two weeks had passed since I saw Lucien out on the patio that night with rage tearing through him, his hands bloody, his voice low and lethal as he’d tried to shield me from it.
Two weeks of him pretending calm.
He thought he could mask it, thought that the soft touches, the protective words, the kisses pressed to my hair would hide the storm inside him. But the bond betrayed him. I felt the fury, felt it like a pulse under my own skin. It was there every night when he left as soon as dusk fell, returning only when the horizon started to pale with dawn.
Every night, he came back smeared in blood and that awful, sulphur-black substance I now knew was demon essence. Every night, he’d shower, scrubbing himself clean, and then pull me into his arms as though holding me could cleanse him too. He never spoke of it. Never explained what was driving him. He thought silence kept me safe.
It didn’t.
I lived with the weight of it, with the ache of knowing he was fighting demons outside while I was trapped fighting my own inside. Still, he called every night, sometimes twice, sometimes more, always to hear my voice, always to check on me. And the moment he got inside, before he even looked at me, hedemanded a full report from the men. Then, only then, did he let himself come to me.
That was our rhythm. His war. My waiting. Until the night it broke.
I’d just gone into the kitchen, craving something normal, a sandwich maybe with some nice soft bread, cheese, and nothing heavy. My hand was on the knife, about to cut, when I heard it. Shouts. Footsteps running as a loud commotion started outside.
