The air grows colder the deeper we get. I have no fucking clue where we are under the city. My internal compass is completely thrown off. The Mercers live south, which means there’s a long stretch of tunnels running in each direction. East, West, and North, splintering off into the Barons’ territory. There are countless exits if he can get to one. It crosses my mind that Billy has no worries about Lucia’s bombs down here. Are they all cleared out? Or am I toying with a different kind of death?
If I wasn’t so enraged, maybe I’d care.
The flashlight beam picks out old iron brackets, rusted chains hanging from the ceiling like skeletal fingers. Somewhere far behind me, I hope the fight is over. That she’s safe. If not–fuck–that’s not something I can consider. Not until I’ve caught this bastard and made him regret messing with what’s mine.
His footsteps slow, and his breath comes in heavy rasps. I can hear it bouncing off the stone. I kill the flashlight and darkness slams down, pitch black and absolute.
I move by feel, my hand trailing the wall, footsteps soft on the damp floor. He doesn’t know I’ve gone dark. He’s still running blind, still thinking he has distance.
A clatter ahead–metal on stone, followed by a whispered, “Shit!”
He’s dropped something. A weapon? Doesn’t matter.
I round the corner and see him stuck in the dirt, cell phone light illuminating the space.
He’s stopped–back against the wall, chest heaving, knife in his shaking hand pointed into the black where he thinks I am.
Heart pounding, I slam into him from the side, pushing him offbalance. He flails, arm swiping the knife through the air, and misses. Billy’s shorter than me, and I manage to get behind him, forearm around his throat, knee driving into the back of his leg. He buckles. The knife skitters across the floor. I kick it away, spin him, and slam him face-first into the hard wall. My forearm pins his neck; my free hand wrenches his arm up behind his back until the joint pops.
He laughs, high-pitched and manic.
“You think this ends with me?” he rasps. “You think killing me or Liam or Mateo stops anything?”
I leverage my weight against him, driving my thumb into the nerve crest above his hip, right where it rides the bone. He spasms instantly, a strangled scream ripping out of him as his legs start to give.
“I think I can keep finding new places to make you hurt,” I snarl into his ear. “So start talking. Why are you performing these archaic rituals? What’s the point?”
“Transformation,” he whispers. “One from each territory. They’ll fall one by one. Cleansing the ground that should belong to the darkness. Sacrifices were stolen once before. The Guardian will not be stopped… willneverbe stopped. Don’t you see that? It’s bigger than me and you. Bigger than a King and his whore.”
“Don’t you fucking call her that!” I drive down on the same nerve again. He screams, voice swallowed by the tunnels. “Don’t even think about her.”
He wheezes through it, blood slick on his teeth from a busted lip.
“Oh, we thought about her plenty,” Billy rasps. “Pretty little thing from Strong Manor. Came with us so easily. So eagerly. It wasn’t until she was all tied up that she fought like a feral cat. Had to bind her tighter every damn time.”
He coughs, then grins up at me through the blood.
“Do you know how good it felt,” he whispers, “being the one to fuck her first? Listening to her choke on those pretty little cries when I ripped off her panties and forced her to take it? Shebeggedme to stop, but he took my brother away, had him murdered, and fuck him. I was taking something from him the way he took Will from me.” Hiseyes glitter. “That’s right, smart boy. Your Baroness didn’t come to your King a virgin. I popped that tight little pussy, and fuck was it good.”
Something inside my chest splits open.
Billy’s grin widens, a man toying with the edge of a knife. “I worried that when she survived, she would tell, but who knew her brain would come back so fucking scrambled that it didn’t even matter?”
I don’t remember deciding to move.
My hand leaves his arm and slams into his skull, smashing his face back into the wall. Once. Twice. Bone thudding against the stone. My forearm crushes his throat as I drive him higher, feet scraping for ground that isn’t there.
He chokes, laughter breaking into blood.
I find the nerve again and bury my thumb into it with everything I have.
He detonates–scream tearing loose and body convulsing in my hold.
But it isn’t enough.
Not even close.
Something I’ve been holding back, black and starving, uncoils in my spine and takes the reins. And I let it. I lift my hand, cinching it around his throat, thumb digging into the racing thrum of his pulse. “Tell me who’s behind this. Who is the Guardian?”
