No one would come looking when I vanished.
I tried to shout again, and one of the assholes smacked me in the side of the face—hard. It stung. My cheek throbbed. Their rough grips formed steel bands around me, and the more I resisted, the tighter they held on.
Fuck.
Then a roar sounded through the alley, with enough power to deafen.
Chapter 12
“Get the fuck off him.” The bellow quaked through the alley, enough that even the stones trembled.
The grip on me loosened, and the man standing in front of me stepped to the side.
A lone figure approached, but it was the only one needed to dispel a crowd.
Cillian Ashmore.
Mere minutes before, I’d been terrified to see him, but to my surprise, relief rushed through my veins. The hands restraining my wrists and shoulders retracted, and my knees trembled. I didn’t bother holding myself up, just sank to the ground. My knees thudded against the hard surface.
Cillian strode forward, each step deliberate and echoing through the space.
The sunlight glinted off his black horns and highlighted the deep reddish hue of his skin. His hair was a mess, his suit and button-down mussed instead of pristine. His golden eyes werewild with rage, but in this moment, his gaze wasn’t directed at me. Cillian’s hands balled into fists as he approached, and the sheer danger he emanated was like witnessing a live bomb.
“We caught someone who evaded your security,” the bearded man said. “Thought you’d be grateful.”
He bared those long and wicked fangs, and a literal growl rolled through the space. “Thorin. What are you doing here?”
“Just wandering by,” Thorin responded. “No need to be so hostile when we’re simply trying to help.”
Oh fuck. That was where I recognized him from. After all the running, the capture, and whatever was to come, I didn’t have the bandwidth to process the magnitude of this man’s relevance.
“And Chadwick, what are you doing with him?” Cillian asked, his voice crashing down like thunder.
Chadwick—from the meetings.
“We were walking through town and happened to see your personal assistant on the run,” he said, a tremble in his voice he couldn’t quite mask. “We figured we were doing you a favor.”
“And Henrik,” Cillian growled. One of the men who’d grabbed me—middle-aged—straightened up, his lips thin.
Cillian stared them down, and by his lack of response, he clearly didn’t believe them for a second. I opened my mouth but it was dry, the words withered up. What I could even say was beyond me, as I was guaranteed to face punishment after my escape. Now that he’d caught me, what would he do? Send me to the Pits?
At this point, even that sounded better than going with Thorin. The cruelty in the man’s voice wouldn’t leave me any time soon, and I’d seen enough of bullies and beasts to recognize the difference. Cillian was wild, mercurial, but not malicious—a beast. Thorin—he was cruel, like the bullies who used to gang up on me in school. My limbs trembled.
“Thorin, Henrik, have you forgotten you’re not welcome on my premises?” Cillian said, his voice simmering. “Chadwick, our associations are now dissolved as well.”
“But—” Chadwick started then stopped.
The look in Cillian’s eyes was deadly. He loomed over all five of these men, casting a long-reaching shadow. “Get away from him, and get off my property,” he intoned, the threat in his voice not hidden.
For a moment, silence reigned, the tension growing in the air like a bomb about to drop. I didn’t move from my spot, unsure which way the pendulum would swing.
“Come on,” Thorin said. “Let’s leave Cillian to being alone and miserable.”
A few mutters sounded, but Thorin led the way as the group departed, the shuffles and scrapes of their feet on the pavement resounding through the alley. Relief saturated me at their departure.
As much as Cillian had kept me locked away in the Spires, at the end of the day, I’d chosen to take my father’s place. He just enforced the bargain I’d made. Guilt tangled with the anger and fear that roiled inside me.
And I’d broken into his chambers, rifled through his secrets.
