Shuddering out a breath, I nodded. “She used to make me ginger cookies.”
Sympathy splashed across Slash Artery’s face. “Ah, shit.” He rubbed the back of his head. “That’s not good. Maybe we shouldn’t— ”
Dig enacted his own plan without forewarning, he jumped to his feet with the blade Slash Artery—the dumbest name—had given him and lunged for his older brother. Dig apprehended Slash with ease, holding the blade under his brother’s throat, keeping him hostage.
“Don’t move.” Dig growled in Slash’s ear. “If you do, I’ll cut deep.”
Slash laughed. “If you kill me, brother, they’llallkill you.”
A whiff of fierce hostility immediately floated through the air and the crowd of Slash lovers snatched for their weapons, training their eyes on Dig.
“No, they won’t.” Dig grinned. “They’re going to killyou.”
It seemed as if Slash were about to laugh again, until his face burrowed into fear. “Don’t you dare.”
“Slash isn’t Soulless,” Dig announced to the room full of Soulless. “Slash has never been Soulless.”
“Shut up!” Slash rocked himself in Dig’s arms, trying to escape. “I’m Soulless.”
“He’s got a Soulmate,” Dig made his voice clear and proud, holding the knife under Slash’s throat. “She’s a nice girl. Sweet, shy. Totally and completely unlike this dickwad.” He ripped Slash around as he showed off his brother to the rest of the crowd. “Her name is Shay, and she visits him in prison,regularly.”
“That bitch is not my Soulmate!” Slash squabbled under Dig’s grasp. “I hate her. I’m going to kill her. I don’t want her.”
“Oh, yeah?” Dig chuckled and used the blade to cut across the pink sequined crop top, exposing Slash’s chest. “Then why did you tattoo her name over your heart?”
Dig threw Slash away from him.
Slash stood in the centre of his followers, his naked chest exposed for all to see. There upon his heart in gentle cursive ink scrawled the name of the woman that no longer made him Soulless.
The crowd around us turned their focus away from Dig and I, their eyes alit with betrayal.
Dig snatched my arm. “We need to get out of here.”
We ran out of the circle while everyone else ran in.
40
Dig and I clung to the side streets, running away from the mess of Slash and his followers and ducked into an old bookstore. The empty shelves gave us a temporary hideout while we caught our breath.
Before I found a spot to collapse, a pain shot up into my chest and I groaned, planting my hand on the wall.
“You okay?” Dig asked. “Princess, did you get hurt?”
He towered over me with those wingspan wide shoulders, those strong arms. He had to tilt his head down to be able to view me properly, his black hair was windswept from his run. His whole face was naked.
I looked up at him.
He looked down at me.
It took him half a second to realise I was staring up at his eyes, entombed in them. An echo of some discomfort hitched him to turn away, redirecting his gaze.
“You forgot these.” I opened his sunglasses and lifted them to his face.
Relief discarded his discomfort, and he accepted the sunglasses. “Thanks.”
When he put them back on, concealing those eyes, he changed. It was like a switch. Dig Graves turned back into Dig Graves. His chin pointed higher, his shoulders arched back, that cocky grin found his lips.
I smiled at that grin. “You know my family? The De Astors?”
