Chapter 24 The Eldest Heir
THE ELDEST HEIR
AUGUSTUS: THAT SAME NIGHT
Marble cracked beneath my fingers as I gripped the sink, the bathroom spinning.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Scarlet splattered violently across the white sink as it fell from my lashes.
The madness of the House of Ares was breaking free, and it only wanted one thing—Alexis.
When I’d crawled across the floor toward my wife with regret, lust, and emotions smoldering inside my chest, my headache had sharpened into a razor blade.
Now a dagger’s edge hovered behind my eyes. The point was slowly scraping across the front of my skull, demanding to be released.
Panting, I raised my head.
I didn’t recognize the man in the mirror.
The scar across my face was a deep maroon, dark circles rimmed my black eyes, and my hair was disheveled.
Pressure mounted and it felt like the invisible dagger was pushing through my forehead and cracking bone.
Unblemished skin mocked me.
The marriage bond zapped hotly inside my chest, and it was all too much.
With a shout, I pulled my fist back.
Crack.
Shards of mirror exploded outward. In slow motion, they flew toward me, a hundred broken versions of myself reflecting in glinting silver, each man more ruined than the last.
Abruptly, the pain in my head vanished, gone as if it had never existed.
The shards dropped to the floor with a clatter.
I stood amidst the ruin, chest heaving, as I waited for the pounding to start up again in my head.
It didn’t.
Equally relieved and horrified, I engaged my mental abilities. I felt the same, but my gut was telling me something was off.
My power was irrevocably changed.
I slowly turned, broken glass crunching beneath my boots.
The man who walked out of the bathroom was not the same man who’d entered.