“I know.” Her hands reach back, running through my hair, and she plants a soft kiss on the side of my neck. “I’m exhausted,” she says through a yawn.
We rinse the blood and sweat from our skin, and she sways a little when she steps out of the shower. I scoop her up, carry her to our room, and tuck her in bed.
It’s early, but her eyes are already drifting shut. “Hey,” she says through a yawn. “When did you turn the basement into a torture chamber…sex chamber…whatever it is?”
The mattress dips under my weight when I sit, running my hand over her head. “It didn’t start out like that. I only soundproofed the walls because I wanted you to have a place where you could scream if you needed to.”
She smiles, eyes still closed.
“Then I found Cronus and, well, the chains felt necessary.”
“It’s the best gift ever,” she mumbles.
I brush my lips over her bare shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll have it all cleaned up before you wake up.”
“Leave the chains.” Her voice is barely above a whisper now as she gets closer to sleep.
She’s so tired. I’m not sure how fully aware of this conversation she is, so I try my luck. “Only if you call mesir.”
She doesn’t respond right away, so I assume she’s finally out, but then in a sleepy voice she says, “Okay, sir…”
I run a hand over my mouth.Fuuck!Why does that…?
“…rup. Syrup.” She opens one eye, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Syrup butter cup.”
I shake my head, grinning. Jess is right, this thing with the nicknames is getting out of control.
When her breathing settles, I slip downstairs. The second I'm alone, the image of her bleeding hits me like a hammer.
“Fuck!” My fist hits the wall hard enough to crack it. I should’ve known. How did I not catch it? She has no idea how close I came to breaking when I saw those scars along her hairline. I don’t blame her. Gods, I don't. It’s the only way she knew how to handle it.
But I do blame Dante. Forcing her to kill, to use her dark magic without teaching her control. It’s dangerous, especially with her being so young. Her light is tucked so far underneath her grief it will be a miracle if she finds it again. She may never be the same, and I will make him pay…if I can find him. Cronus wasn’t as much help as I hoped he would be.
I pull my head back, snapping it forward and slamming into his nose. As much as I enjoy the sound of his bones cracking, the sight of his blood pooling at his feet, I’m getting impatient and want to get back to Frankie. His severed horn is still warm in my hand when I point it at him. “Stop with the bullshit and tell me what the fuck he’s up to.”
His words come out wet and broken when he forces them past his swollen throat. “He’s going after the redhead.”
We figured Jess would be a target, that’s why she moved in with Ronin. I press the tip of his horn to his throat. “What else?”
His head pulls back as if an inch will stop me from shoving it through him. “He’s different now that he’s a shifter. Not just physically, but his abilities too. He can create shifters, siring them, stripping away their free will. He doesn’t even need K4 to do it.”
Fuck! The power he would have if Frankie were ever sired to him is unimaginable, but it won’t happen. I’ll lay fire to anything that gets in my way, before I let that happen. He’s not invincible; everyone has a weakness, and I plan to find his. “How do I break him?”
“I told you what I know, now kill me already,” he pleads when he sees the flames dancing around my fingers. He puffs out his bloodied chest, thinking he’s going to die with a bit of dignity.
I toss his horn and grip the back of his neck, sending the stink of burning flesh into the air. “You are his second-in-command,” I seethe, an inch from his ear. “THINK!” His broken screams fill the basement when I drive a finger into his empty eye socket. “I’ll go for your good eye next, now WHAT THE FUCK IS HIS WEAKNESS?”
“Okay! Okay!” he wails. I release his neck, stepping back before I end him. “Just…just please fucking kill me after this.” He pauses, expecting me to make a deal, but all he gets are my black eyes boring into him. “His visions…they’re not the same anymore. They come in flashes. He misses things. Gets others wrong.”
I stop moving. That changes everything. If he isn’t able to see the future clearly, we’ll finally have a chance against that fucker.
He sucks in a shaky breath and adds, “And something is making him weak…I don’t know what, but he disappears sometimes…goes into hiding for weeks at a time, but he always comes back stronger.”
“Where does he go?” I scoop his horn back up, a subtle reminder of what will happen to the other one if he doesn’t answer.
“I-I don’t know. Ask the Beast. If anyone knows, it’s him.”
“Who the fuck is the Beast?”
