“Don’t go there.” He held me tighter. “Ford is locked down. Cruelty and Violence must have fucked with the phone signals, too.”
“Right.” The word wedged in my throat and scraped its way out.
Leaves rustled behind us.
Tor whipped me behind him, the thin slivers of magic that had been searching for Peach expanding into furious tentacles. One arm dove past a thick-trunked tree and dragged someone kicking and snarling into the open.
“Alastair,” I breathed, my whole body going cold.
I hadn’t forgotten his taunts or threats. I hadn’t forgotten that he was close to my best friend in the weeks leading up to her death. I wished Miz were here; he’d kill him instantly. But Tor merely smiled, the sharp edge of a knife in that smile, and purred, “Back for more bloodletting so soon, prick?”
I shot a surprised stare at the back of Tor’s head. So it wasAlastair’sblood we’d used in the potion to push through Cruelty’s shield. I couldn’t say I was sad at the thought of this bastard suffering.
“What are you doing skulking around?” I demanded, fighting through my fear for Virgil, my dread at my parents not answering my calls. I wanted to hear their voices, but at least chances were high they were somewhere else, safe, while I was stuck here at Ford, playing a cruel game that could end in Peach dead. “Were you spying on us?”
Alastair scoffed. He hadn’t changed in the weeks since I last saw him. He looked as smug and arrogant as always, that chipstill on the shoulder of his crisp white shirt. He was alsopresent,not zoned out or robotic like everyone else.
“Why would I spy onyou?”Alastair sneered, speaking to me like I was dog shit on his shoe like always.
And it occurred to me that I didn’t need a psychotic husband to kill this piece of shit for me. My jaguar paced within me, pressing against my skin, and I didn’t simply let her free of her leash; I tore her out of my skin, encouraged the violence boiling in her blood, and grinned in the seconds before I transformed.
Strong paws slammed into Alastair’s chest as Tor’s shadow held my prey in place. I drove him to the ground, bellowing a threat of detailed, gruesome murder in his face.
“If I find you watching us again,” Tor said with obvious pride, “I’ll let her rip your head off.” His fingers dove into my fur, resting on the back of my neck. “Tell your masters we’re having a personal moment, inprivate,and they can mind their own fucking business.”
Alastair scrambled to his feet and bolted.
CHAPTER 33
TORMENT
It took my beautiful wife twenty minutes to shift back, and I didn’t budge from her side until she stumbled to her feet, clothed in my shadow. I expected her to be weak and shaky, rattled, but instead she waslivid.It was a beautiful sight, her grey eyes lit with an inner fire and narrowed to dangerous slits, her jaw clenched, mouth twisted as she gnashed her teeth. I was hard in an instant, and shifted subtly where I knelt beside her, wrapping her in a gauze of shadows and trying not to peek beneath.1
“I know that look in your eye,” Cat said with a note of warning. “We could be caught by the psycho siblings any moment now, or they could send another spy after us.”
“Let them.” I wrapped a lock of pink hair around my finger. “I’ll pluck their eyes out if they dare to look at you. Or your jaguar can have that privilege. I’m sure Madness would love to string them into a belt for you.”
“Abelt,”she said with a laugh that hit me right in the chest, soft and rich, a husky, beautiful sound. “God, how many eyes are you thinking about excising?”
“Many,” I replied, fitting my hand to the warm curve of her hip to draw her closer, indulging in a slow kiss that brought my entire body to life. My awareness of her burned, my need like a firework setting off rounds of explosions in my thumping heart, my twitching cock, my aching balls. “Beautiful—”
She cut me off with a kiss, pushing me down to the leaf-strewn floor and straddling my hips in answer to my unfinished question. I didn’t give a shit that a stick poked into my back, or the ground was cold and damp. My wife sat astride me; I’d endure a vat of piranhas if it kept her this close.
My hands landed on her hips, the generous sweep of them enough to make my cock jolt, brushing the shadows that separated us, a sheer, flimsy shield. Nothing at all.
“I love you,” I said between kisses, each one deeper, hungrier, messier. The taste of her was all over me, scorched into my taste buds, the feel of her body imprinted on mine. I would never get enough of this, even if we lived for a hundred years. “I was so fucking afraid when we found you in that room.”
My hands tightened on her hips, fingers pressing into skin and softness. “You looked right through us, and I didn’t know if I’d ever see these stunning eyes focus on me ever again. Every time you look at me, I remember how goddamn lucky I am to have you back. I nearly went mad in that mirror, not knowing if you were still vacant. I nearly shattered the fucking thing with how many times it refused to show me where you were, how you were, if you were even still alive.”
Her kiss this time was a whisper, a benefaction. “I thought Violence would shatter the mirror before we could get you out,” she said in a voice rough with emotion. A confession for a confession. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
I slid a hand into her hair, curved it around the back of her neck, and brought our foreheads to touch. Her breath stirred across my lips, bringing with it the taste I’d craved since the moment I met Cat along with the velvet spice of something new: power. “However long it takes, we’ll make them pay. We’ll end everyone who helped them, and save the most excruciating, humiliating deaths for those two pieces of filth.”
“However long it takes,” she agreed in a rasp.
“Good. We’re in agreement. But let’s make it official.”
The laugh that punched from her chest when I held up my pinky finger was finer than any song and sweeter than any wine. She linked hers with mine and we shook, creating a binding vow. I used the motion to bring her hand to my mouth, kissing every finger. I was a little obsessed with every single part of her.2
