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Scarn laughed again. “No, Lux. I know I did.”
The nightmares slipped their leash. Only an inch. The lights flickered. Scarn clicked his tongue. “None of that now.”
He pressed a button on the phone. The screen changed.
My mate filled it.
Liv stood at a curb, one hand gripping her bag strap, collar shoved high against her mark. Her hair had come loose near her cheek. A black sedan idled in front of her. The image shifted again. A scope view. Crosshairs settled over the side of her head. The world stopped making sound.
My foot moved before I ordered it. One step forward. Every guard in the room snapped their weapons toward me. Scarn’s smile vanished into something colder. “You have roughly ten seconds to surrender, or she dies.”
The crosshairs trembled once, then steadied. Liv turned her head as if she sensed something.
My lungs stopped. “Fuck you,” I said.
Scarn glanced at the phone. “Nine seconds.”
I wanted to tear the building apart.
I wanted to rip the South from the city brick by brick, wanted to peel every name out of Scarn’s mouth with my knife, wanted to drag him into every nightmare he had sold himself to avoid.
I wanted to be a monster.
For her, I went still.
I lowered to my knees.
Marble bit through my pants. Cold. Hard. Real.
I placed my hands behind my head.
The room inhaled.
Scarn’s guards stared as if they had witnessed a god bleed. Let them. Let every man here remember exactly what she was worth. I turned my head enough to meet his eyes. My voice stayed calm. Gentle, almost. “You’re going to die for this.”
Scarn gave a pleased little sigh. “Chain him.”
Two guards moved in. Metal snapped around my wrists first, silver etched with southern binding sigils. Then another chain across my shoulders. Another around my throat, loose enough to keep me breathing, tight enough to make its point.
My power slammed against the bindings and recoiled. Pain bit into my bones, but I didn’t make a sound. On the phone screen, Liv still stood at the curb, alive, unaware, a sniper’s crosshairs breathing over her skull.
I kept my eyes on her until Scarn turned the screen away. That was the first mercy he stole. The last one he would ever get. Scarn stepped closer, careful now, pleased enough to forget fear but not stupid enough to get within reach. “Congratulations, Lux Draven.”
I lifted my eyes to him. His smile spread. “You wanted to be the man who unified the eastern territories of Valkyrie.” He swept one hand toward the dead security screens, toward the silent tower, toward the city beneath all this glass and steel. “The crossings, the docks, the ward stations, the trade roads, the old clan borders. All those pretty little fractured pieces finally answering to one command.”
My jaw locked so hard my teeth ached.
Scarn’s voice softened. “And you did it.” He crouched in front of me, phone still in his hand, Liv’s life glowing behind his fingers. “Too bad it’s under southern command.”
Chapter 28
Liv
The black sedan rolled to the curb with one inch of window lowered. I froze. Every stupid cell in my body went alert, my skin prickled, my fingers locked around my bag strap until the fake leather cut into my palm. The mark under my collar warmed with one cruel pulse as if to ask if I missed him yet . . . I did, but I also wanted to hit him in the face with my shoe. HARD.
The back window rolled down, and a man with a southern ward badge made eye contact with me. My heart raced in my chest as the car rolled to a stop before turning and driving away. Southern officials weren’t exactly unheard of in this area, but it was common knowledge after the bombing near the tower that the relationship with the South was stressed, to say the least.
I stood there for three full seconds, staring after it. Something about the way he looked at me made my skin crawl. “What the fuck was that?” I whispered. I wrapped my jacket tighter around me.
