by Nora Ash
“Where I go, she goes.”
He arched an eyebrow at me and continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “She can stay with Blaine’s wife—safe, but out of the way.”
It was a better deal than I had hoped for, so I nodded my agreement. Evelyn would be safe and sound, if a little bored, until we had Brigs beat, and then I could take her back home. Thankfully, my father seemed only mildly irritated at my timing and otherwise completely uninterested in my choice of bride. I should count myself lucky—not fight down a small jab of pain that he was so uninterested in my happiness.
He had murdered Jeremy and put Isaac in jail. That he had little interest in me apart from the power my strength could provide him wasn’t a surprise. But it still hurt.
“Blaine, take them to your wife’s room. And after, you can show Marcus the little trump card we have in the basement.”
Trump card? I lifted a brow at my older brother, but Blaine just turned around, heading out of the drawing room with a nod at Evelyn.
We both followed him in silence, my mind racing over what—or who—he could possibly be keeping in the basement. There was a soundproof room down there, with concrete floors and walls, and more than one unlucky sod had spent some unwilling time in it over the years. Did we have a hostage?
I glanced down at Evelyn. As much of an advantage a high-ranking hostage would be against Brigs, I’d rather she never learned about it. I was pretty sure keeping people prisoner was the exact sort of thing she didn’t want any involvement with.
Blaine’s right-hand man, Rob, stood leaned outside a door on the second floor. He looked up from the process of cleaning his nails with his hunting knife and gave Blaine and I a nod when we walked down the hallway.
“Rob, this is Evelyn. I need you to guard her as well as you do Mira, understood?” Blaine said, looking back at the ginger girl by my side. “Any harm comes to her, you’ll be dealing with my brother.”
Rob didn’t try to hide his grimace as his eyes flicked from Evelyn to me. “Got it.”
“Evelyn, this is Rob—my right-hand man. He’s a solid bloke. Don’t hesitate to ask him for anything you need, yeah?” Blaine said.
She nodded, though I could tell from her arched brow that she likely had a few comments about this whole arrangement she was biting back.
I touched her cheek gently, capturing her attention. “I’ll be back soon.”
“You should be the one resting up in a room,” she said with a frown. “You just got out of the hospital. I don’t want you running around and getting yourself into any more trouble.”
I ignored the amused flicker on both Rob’s and Blaine’s faces at Evelyn’s bossy tone. “I’ll be fine. I promise.” I planted a quick peck on her lips and couldn’t hold back a smile when she still looked rather unhappy as I pulled away. It was an entirely new experience that someone cared this much about my well-being.
“Ah, young love. Come on, brother, before your lovely lady decides to shackle you to the wall. We have business to attend to.” Blaine’s tone was amused, but Evelyn flushed with obvious embarrassment at his comment. I glared at him, but if he noticed, he ignored me.
I gave Evelyn’s hand a small squeeze, a reminder of my promise to return shortly, and then left her in Rob’s care. As much as I’d rather stay with her and ensure her safety myself, I knew she would be as safe as possible with the man who was also responsible for Mira’s security. And I had a war to fight. I’d been out for far too long, and despite everything, I wasn’t about to leave my family alone to fight off our enemy.
Blaine led me down the stairs again and into the basement. It covered the full expanse of the house, and we made our way through our father’s extensive wine cellar before we came to the closed metal door where both the twins were waiting for us.
“We caught a rat,” Liam said, but the smile on his face held little joy. I knew neither of my younger brothers enjoyed the violent aspects of our job, preferring to handle the more above-board aspects of the business. But war was war, and no one was going to get out of this without getting their hands dirty.
“Brigs’ right-hand man. Well, after Leo,” Louis continued. “He’s been stewing down here for the better part of twenty-four hours, so I do believe he might be ready to talk soon.”
“Dad expects some information before dinner,” Blaine said. His mouth had a grim set, and it dawned on me that he didn’t want to do what was necessary either.
“You brought me to torture him,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
“Well, he did shoot you,” Liam said. “You usually don’t take that kind of thing very well, but by all means, if you want to have a cozy chat instead… it would certainly make clean-up less sticky than usual.”
A hot rush of anger washed through my body, setting off the so familiar tingle in my spine. “He is the one?” The one who tried to shoot Evelyn. Hurt her. My hands flexed with the need to maim, and I took a step forward toward the door, nearly giving in to the darkness swarming in from all sides.
I don’t know where the tiny voice at the back of my mind came from, but it stopped me dead in my tracks as a single question rung in my head like a bell: What would Evelyn say if she knew what I was about to do?
Unexpected nausea pushed the descending darkness aside. I shook my head to clear it.
“We’ll talk with him,” I said, giving all three of my brothers a hard stare before I pushed through the door.
I didn’t recognize the man who sat tied to a chair in the middle of the room, since his face had been hidden when he attacked us in the park, but he had a bandage wrapped around his leg in the exact spot I’d shot him to take his aim off Evelyn.
Again, the darkness pushed up to battle against my self-control. This man had tried to shoot the woman I was meant to protect. My love. He didn’t deserve to live.
But Evelyn hated violence. Had nearly refused a life with me because of the brutality in my world.
“You may remember our brother, Marcus,” Louis said as he closed the door behind us. “Recently out of the hospital after you gunned him down. Not your biggest fan.”
My attacker fidgeted in his ropes, his eyes roaming over my face. “The crazy one.”
“Real smart move, aggravating him then, isn’t it?” Liam said, rolling his eyes. “How about this—you tell us everything we want to know about Brigs and his plans, and we let you live. You’re not going to get a better offer if our father has to come down here and speak to you himself, I can tell you that much.”
The man in the chair narrowed his eyes. “Yeah? How about this, then: you untie me and let me go, tell your daddy I escaped and take your beating—and I won’t tell him that the girl who’s been shacked up in your brother’s flat for the past few days is a spy for Brigs. I bet he would love to know that his son has been fucking the enemy, giving away his secrets for a bit of pussy.”
The beast inside me returned in an instant, much stronger than before. I knew what would happen if my father ever found out about Evelyn’s involvement with Brigs—he wouldn’t care that she’d switched sides. He wouldn’t care that I loved her more than life itself. He would kill her.
Every cell in my body itched to give in to the intoxicating rage bubbling in my blood, the monster snarling viciously to destroy the threat to my beloved. He dared threaten her—he dared.
“Or even better—how much is she worth to you? I saw the googly eyes you were giving her in that park. Perhaps we should be discussing the terms of your surrender? Unless you want to see the little tramp get butchered by your own father, of course.”
My blood pounded in my ears like a war drum, drowning out all sense until everything was darkness.
The monster demanded pain.
And I obeyed.
* * *
“Marcus.”
The vaguely familiar voice penetrated through the shroud of fury, pulling me back up from the void as if hooking me with a line of clarity.
“Marcus, come back to me.” Warmth
seeped through my shirt to my skin where a soft hand touched me.
I blinked, my vision, still edged by blackness, slowly returning along with my conscience. My heart was hammering in my chest, my breathing ragged. I found myself kneeling in a pool of blood. My brothers were nowhere to be seen—and neither was the hostage. The man who had threatened my Evelyn.
But the pool of blood led to an unrecognizable corpse, and I knew what had become of him.
“It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here now.”
She had come for me. She had come to pull me from the darkness.
Slowly, I turned my head and I saw her. She stood by my side, my own personal guardian angel. My Evelyn.
Evelyn.
I stared at her through the haze, at her worried face with the soft lips and her full figure. Everything about her was warmth and light, and I needed her more than the air I breathed.
She made a squeaky little noise of surprise when I got to my feet and grabbed her face between my palms, but it was swallowed by the heated kiss I pressed to her lips. Sparks of elation and need fired from where our lips met all the way down through my body to my cock, already stiff and heavy between my legs. I ripped my lips from hers and pressed my mouth to her throat, moaning with the taste of her warm skin. My hands slid down her body and tore, and then the warm, full softness of her breasts spilled into my palms.
Yes.
“Marcus—oh.” Her voice broke off in a soft moan when I buried my mouth in the full globes, a nipple slipping in between my lips as if seeking the warmth of my tongue of its own accord. When I suckled deeply, she cried out and buried her hands in my hair.
There was nothing in the world but her. Nothing but her body and the overwhelming need to drown my darkness in her light until all the anger and all the horror went away, like it always did in her embrace.
Still with my lips around her swollen nipple, I fumbled for the opening to her pants. They gave with a ripping sound, and a shudder went through her when my fingers slipped in between her thighs, seeking entry to the core of her being. The core of her light.
“Marcus, stop,” she breathed, her voice hitching a little when I switched to her other breast, sucking the nipple into my mouth with the same desperation as my hand pressed up between her legs. “We can’t do this now.”
I moaned against her breast, the sound as broken as my mind. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t, or the darkness would consume me again until there was nothing but a shell left. But I couldn’t hurt her, either.
I forced my mouth from her breasts and pressed my face in against her neck, breathing heavily from the sheer force it took to obey. Her scent—of honey and woman and Evelyn—filled my nostrils and fanned my desire to the point of physical pain. “I need you. Please, Evelyn. I need you. It hurts so much.”
“Oh, Marcus,” she whispered, and this time her voice was filled with pity—and love.
I kissed her because I couldn’t stop myself. Even now, even when I was less than human, less than nothing, she loved me.
Her arms wound tightly around my neck until I pulled back. Then she took my hand and moved it back down between her thighs. When my fingers found her heat, her eyes fluttered closed and she sighed softly.
Relief mixed with my need, and I groaned. She was wet. She wanted me.
I ripped her pants so I could spread her thighs apart and rubbed my palm the full length of her slit, shuddering as warm slickness coated my skin. Yes, this was it. This was what my entire being yearned for—had yearned for since the first time the monster appeared. Evelyn.
She yelped when I spun her around and pressed her up against the wall, but she didn’t resist. Only arched her hips backward, inviting me in.
Yes, yes, yes!
I ripped my jeans in my desperation to get to her, and then there was nothing between us, nothing to stop me from finding what I longed for so desperately.
Evelyn’s cry was sharp when I seated myself in her tight heat, but the rush of blood in my ears blocked it out as her soft flesh clenched around me.
“God!” I roared as every cell in my body burned with completion. This was it—this was how it was meant to be, how I could finally find my soul again. Inside my beloved, inside her light.
I grabbed her hips and pulled almost all the way out before my need for her forced me back in. And again. The sharp spikes of pleasure every time I bottomed out in her nearly tore my mind apart, but it was a blissful sort of insanity. All I wanted was to lose myself in her until all that remained of me was the part of my heart she had saved.
“Evelyn. I love you. I love you.”
I took her without thought for anything but the relief of finally being with the woman who was meant to be mine, my gasped confessions of love accentuated by her responding cries and the wet sounds of her sex swallowing my cock.
When I finally came inside of her, filling her with my essence in pulsing spurts, it was as if she drained the darkness from my mind as well.
For a long, blissful time, there was nothing but the perfect feeling of her soft body in my arms and her still-quivering pussy around my slowly deflating cock. Nothing but peace and light as my sanity slowly returned and the monster disappeared back to the depths.
It lasted until I opened my eyes and saw the woman I loved pressed up against the dank basement wall beneath me, her body shaking with her silent tears.
* * * *
Chapter 21
Marcus
My heart pounded in my chest, but it was an oddly dull sensation. Like it was muted by the sense of falling, of the walls closing in around me.
I had hurt her. Hurt her. My Evelyn.
Slowly, moving as gently as I could, I pulled out of her.
She groaned when my cock slipped from her swollen entrance, and the sound cut through the numbness like a knife.
I'd been wrong. All these years, I had been so wrong. There wasn't a monster living in my chest, taking over my conscience when the darkness closed in.
I was the monster. All the time. With every fiber of my being.
I hurt her.
She remained leaning against the wall, her sides still moving rapidly from her gasps for air.
I knelt down behind her and slid my hands in between her folds, opening her up again. Everything in my brain screamed at me to get away from her, to never touch her again, but I couldn't do that--I had to make sure I hadn't caused any serious damage to her body. I had to know there wasn't any internal bruising. Or bleeding.
Her soft little sex was swollen and flushed red, but only my semen dripped out of her still quivering channel when I opened her. The proof of our coupling made a trickle of desire travel down my spine, and my cock give a half-hearted attempt at rising again.
"What are you doing?" she murmured, her voice drugged and hoarse. Had she been screaming while I took her? Had she screamed at me to stop?
The wave of nausea in my stomach intensified, making my cock fall again. I let go of her slick folds and got to my feet again, looking around for something to cover her with. I'd ruined her clothes in my desperation to get inside of her, and she didn't need to suffer the indignity of being dragged through the house for everyone to see what she had been put through. In my hands.
There was nothing but broken body parts, blood and the splintered leftovers of the chair our attacker had sat on in the small cell.
I unbuttoned my own shirt, the only piece of either of our clothing that had made it through somewhat unscathed and held it out to her.
Evelyn wrinkled her nose at the blood spatters on the fabric, but she took it anyway. She was so small compared to me it came down well past her mid thighs.
"Come," I said to her when she gave me a careful look, as if she didn't know what to do now. "I will take you up to Mira. You'll be safe with her."
Evelyn grimaced, her eyes darting to the floor between us and the door. Some of the blood had formed a pool in front of it.
Of course she didn't want to walk through a man's f
resh blood.
Without a word I reached out and lifted her up, biting back a groan when my wounds gave sharp shocks of pain. I had undoubtedly burst more than a few stitches when I killed Brigs' man, and fucking Evelyn like a beast likely hadn't helped.
I relished the pain as I stepped over the blood with Evelyn in my arms. I deserved pain—and so much more.
I hurt her.
I bit down on the wave of despair and self-loathing that washed over me as I made my way out of the basement and up the stairs with the woman who should have been my bride in my arms.
The door to the room Evelyn shared with Mira was open, and I could hear Blaine's quiet voice from within. Rob was nowhere to be seen, but he didn't need to be there as long as Blaine was present. My older brother would never in a million years let anything happen to his little family. Nor would he hurt them himself.
Both Mira and Blaine looked up when I stepped through the door, both with a look of mild concern on their faces.
"You all right, love?" Blaine asked.
"Oh. Yeah," Evelyn said. A faint blush touched her cheeks when she realized we had company, and shame ate at my gut. She shouldn't have to bear the humiliation of others knowing what I'd done to her, but I didn't have any other choice. I put her down next to the bed and turned to Blaine.
"Can I speak with you?"
"Sure," he said, giving Evelyn another glance before he followed me outside the room, closing the door behind him.
"I need a favor," I said, not letting him ask any of the questions I could see written across his face. "You said you had an out for Mira and Aidan?"
Blaine nodded once. "I do."
"I need Evelyn out of here. Tonight. For good. Can I count on you?"
He sighed and ran his fingers through his black hair. "You know neither I nor the twins will ever repeat what he said about her. She's safe here."
"Can I count on you?" I repeated, my voice tight from the tension in my body.
"What happened, Marcus?" he said, folding his arms across his chest. "Is it because she saw you... ah, hulking out?"
