He’d raced from the Cluster, hearing the anger in Gabriel’s voice, and he’d burst from the brothel, nearly blowing the entire door off its hinges…just in time to see Valerie pressed against the alley wall and Gabriel’s fist connect with her head.
“Dravka,” Valerie whispered, pressing a hand to his chest. He realized he was growling again.
He made the effort to stop, closing his eyes.
She doesn’t need this right now, he told himself.Pull yourself together so you can be useful.
He took a few more calming breaths. When he opened his eyes, while the rage simmered underneath, he didn’t feel like it would control him. Not any longer.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped to her. “I’m sorry you saw—”
“It’s okay,” she told him, biting her lip, worrying it when she cast a glance to Gabriel on the ground. “But we have a serious problem.”
Realization seemed to dawn on all of them at once.
“Vauk,” Ravu rasped, raking a hand over his head. He’d just finished with Celine Larchmont, had just given the woman the Blue Light drive…and now her son was bleeding all over the pathway she’d just walked down.
“When he wakes up,” Valerie said quietly, “he’ll have you imprisoned. Or worse.”
Vauk, vauk, vauk.
“There’s an easy way to make sure he won’t wake up,” Tavak murmured.
“Not helping,” Valerie snapped quietly, not taking Tavak’s words seriously…though Ravu and Dravka knew better.
“What thevaukare we going to do?” Ravu rasped.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Damn it, think!
“We need to get him inside,” Dravka murmured, his tone low and guttural. Roughened. “Someone might have heard…”
Right.
Valerie nodded and then watched as Tavak and Ravu hoisted a limp Gabriel up. She ran a hand down her arm, over the tender place there where Gabriel had gripped her roughly. She felt a headache blooming across her temple where he’d hit her.
And Dravka…
She’d never seen him like that before. He would’ve killed Gabriel if she hadn’t managed to stop him, if Tavak and Ravu hadn’t been there to pull him off.
Dravka was watching her, studying her. As if he was worried thathe’dfrightened her.
And while shewasfrightened, it wasn’tof him. It wasfor him.
She would never be scared of him because she knew that he would never hurt her. But she knew what he thought…
To help assuage his fears, she went high on her toes and pressed a kiss to his downturned lips. He blinked, his shoulders seeming to relax. There was a little splattering of blood across his cheek. It was a dark red, so she knew it wasn’t his.
“I need to think,” she whispered, almost to herself.
Dravka nodded and they both went inside the brothel. She cast a look over her shoulder, hoping there had been no witnesses. But London Street seemed quiet enough and the brothel was set back far enough into the alley that no one strayed too close.
Dravka shouldered the broken door closed, as much as he could. Once they were inside the walls of the brothel, once she breathed in the familiar scent of leather and brandy, of Celine Larchmont’s lingering perfume, she thought she could focus.
Celine.
A small breath left her and she reached for the card she’d managed to tuck back inside her pocket when she’d spotted Gabriel weaving down the alley.
