Meghan hovered her palm over his cheek and wept harder.
August turned and spat blood from his mouth.
Plink.
“Desuv,” he said, his mouth cleared of saliva and blood, his gruff voice emerging.
“Deserve,” she repeated dumbly.
And the sight of him standing proud and unbroken sent a giddy light through her.
“The first thing he has said right,” Brone snarled. “The first thing you have both gotten right.”
Her brother’s voice droned. A strange buzzing filled Meghan’s head.
Meghan looked at the porcelain-white piece amidst his spit.
Her fingers trembling, she reached and touched—
They had knocked his tooth free.
“Meghan, step away from that dastard now.”
Fingers clasped hard around her shoulder, digging in enough to pull her free of August’s side.
Cursing, Meghan struggled against her cousin.
With a terrific roar that chased gooseflesh over her skin, August used each broad shoulder to shove off her brothers. Both men tumbled under the force with which he upended them.
He closed the space in a single stride and hauled Arran from her.
Transformed from mortal to monster, blood and sweat dripped from August’s honed physique.
He pressed her cousin by the neck against the wall.
Steady. Unrelenting.
August kept him pinned.
“Let me be clear,” he wheezed, his chest heaving. “I have allowed your offenses against me this day, but if you touch her—”
He squeezed Arran’s neck slightly.
“If you put your hand on her, you die.”
Click.
August stiffened.
“Release him,” Campbell said, a pistol pointed steadily at the back of August’s head.
She saw the inner battle he waged.
He had not fought for himself once.
Only when he felt Meghan was threatened had he moved.
And he would take a bullet.
