“Speaking of blood…” Eamon looks toward the heavy mahogany doors at the far end of the room. “We have another honored guest who has been waiting most patiently to meet you.”
The doors swing open with a heavy, ominous thud.
A man strides in. He’s older than Eamon, his hair a shock of iron-gray, his frame massive and imposing. He’s dressed in a tailored navy suit, and the power radiating from him is absolute.
I drag rapid inhales through my nose. My heart pounds a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I have no idea who he is, but every instinct screams at me to run.
He doesn’t stop until he reaches my side of the table. He focuses on me. His eyes are the exact same shade as Liam’s—that icy, piercing blue—but where Liam’s are filled with a fierce protection, cold, predatory hunger infects this man’s.
He reaches out and scoops up my hand. I tug away, but his grip is like iron, his skin rough and calloused. He brings myknuckles to his lips, but he doesn’t just kiss them. He rubs his mouth against them, slowly, lecherously. My stomach churns.
“So…” The deep, gravelly voice rumbles through my skin. “This is the lovely little lady who saved myson’slife.”
Panic spikes my pulse. My head spins, and I shake with visible tremors. “Liam…Liam said you were dead. He killed you.”
“I was for some time.” He leers down at me. “A pleasure to meet you, Elexia Carter. I am Darragh Donovan.”
The greeting is low, menacing. He doesn’t let go of my hand. He just steps closer, his breath smelling of expensive brandy and something dark and metallic.
“My son has always been a bit imaginative.” His gaze drops to the swell of my breasts above the silk chemise. “But he lacks the vision to see that some things are simply too strong to die. And he certainly lacks the vision to see a prize like you…shouldn’t be wasted on someone so…cleansed.”
Terror bolts through me, sharp and cold as a blade. I remember Liam’s story. What Darragh did to Liam’s mother. The woods. The blood. How he left her body to the wolves.
He’s a rapist. A murderer.
And judging by how Darragh inspects me now, the way his fingers trace the delicate bones of my wrist, I know. Men like this never stop at one. Their appetites never end. They collect victims. She wasn’t the first.
And despite the predatory gleam in his expression and the way he’s touching me, like I’m already his to break…I refuse to be the next.
And Liam will summon the legions of hell to make it so.
CHAPTER 22
Liam
The needle on my speedometer is buried past a hundred and twenty. Every red light is a suggestion I ignore; every siren behind me is a ghost I’ve already outrun.
My ribs are screaming, the bruises from a week ago feeling like fresh fractures with every jolt, but I welcome the pain. It’s grounded. It’s real. It’s nothing compared to the soul-consuming wrath incinerating my veins.
They took her.
They reached into my world—the world I tried to build for her—and they plucked her out of it like a goddamn prize. They took her to the world I tried to protect her from.
Eamon. Finn.
And whichever nameless shadow they’re bowing to.
I’ll rain down a hellfire on them all. I’ll make the warehouse explosion seem like a birthday candle. This isn’t business anymore. This isn’t about evolution, sanitization, or the crown. This is about my goddess, who taught a monster how to be a man—and tonight, for her, I will remember exactly how to be a monster again.
Not a single drop of blood will touch her. I will drown them in their own and carry her above the red tide.
I grab my burner and hit the speed dial I never thought I’d use.
Claire Ryan picks up on the second ring.
“Liam,” she says, steady and cold as a winter morning in the Catskills. “I just learned the perimeter at the manor has been breached.”
“They took her, Claire,” I growl, taking a corner on two wheels, the scent of burning rubber filling my nostrils. “Eamon was there. They’ve taken her to my skyscraper in Manhattan. The penthouse.”
