Epilogue #2
I stand, heart slamming hard enough that my side twinges, phantom pain where a knife once kissed me. The floor is cold under my feet. I take two careful steps toward the dresser, reaching blindly for the phone, when the sound changes.
No more rattling. A soft thud, then another. Then the crack of glass shattering somewhere near the kitchen.
Samson explodes into barking, all composure gone. It’s loud and vicious, nothing like the yap he uses when he wants treats. He charges toward the door, toenails skidding. I follow on instinct, grabbing my phone on the way and fumbling with the screen as I yank the bedroom door open.
“Sam, heel,” I hiss, because I don’t want him charging into whoever just came through my window.
He hesitates for half a second at the threshold, torn between training and instinct, then opts for the latter. He streaks down the hallway, barking his head off.
“Shit,” I breathe, and move faster, pulse roaring in my ears.
The cottage has that strange, shadowed quality it gets when the moon is the only light. Broken glass glitters on the kitchen floor near the back door, a dark shape bent half through the frame. Another figure is already inside by the time I skid to a stop near the couch, hood up, face shadowed.
Samson lunges, teeth snapping. A boot connects with his side in a brutal kick that sends him yelping and sliding into the table. The sound he makes tears through me worse than the crash of glass.
“Hey!” I shout, instinct overriding fear as I move toward him. “Don’t touch him—”
The second guy is faster than I am. He’s on me in two steps, grabbing my arm, yanking me forward. The phone flies out of my hand and skids across the floor toward the sofa.
“Well, look at this,” he sneers, breath hot and sour in my face. “House isn’t empty after all.”
My free hand curls around his wrist, but he tightens his grip, fingers digging into my skin. Pain flares, and I hiss. “What do you want?” I manage, trying to keep my voice steady even as panic crawls up my spine. “Take whatever you need and go. Just—leave the dog alone.”
“The dog?” The one near the door laughs, stepping fully inside now that the way is clear.
He’s got something long and wooden in his hand—a baseball bat.
“Cute. We’re not here for the dog, sweetheart.
We’re here for the easy score.” His gaze flicks around the room in quick, practiced sweeps.
“Guy like Volkov? Bet he keeps cash around. And that Charger out front’s practically begging me to take her for a spin. ”
“I’m not giving you his car,” I say, voice shaking despite my attempt at steel. “You can have whatever cash I’ve got and anything that’s not sentimental, but you’re not touching his Charger.”
The bat guy’s expression shifts, and he grins. “Wrong answer, princess,” he says.
He moves faster than my brain expects from someone who smells like cheap liquor. The bat cracks across the side of my face, not full force, more a backhand with the grip, but it’s enough. Pain explodes across my cheekbone, bright and hot.
The world tilts.
I’m weightless, then my back hits the wall near the couch, and I slide down, legs folding under me. My ears ring. The room doubles, triples, then snaps back into one smeared image. I can taste blood, metallic and thick, in the corner of my mouth.
“You can,” the guy says, voice distant and distorted. “And you will, or this gets ugly.”
You don’t know what ugly looks like, I think hazily, which is probably not the smartest thought to have while concussed on the floor, but my brain goes to the only reference point it has for real monsters, and they’re not standing in my living room right now.
Samson whimpers somewhere to my left. Jericho is nowhere in sight, which is good, because if anyone touches my cat, I might find out I have a little Beast in me, too.
There’s a buzzing in my head that might be adrenaline or the beginning of losing consciousness. Everything feels far away. My phone is a dark rectangle near the couch leg, just out of reach. The guy looms over me, shadow blotting out what little light the moon is giving.
“Try again,” he says, raising his hand like he’s going to hit me again.
I brace for impact; instead, the world explodes in a different way.
There’s a crash, a snarl, the sound of something heavy flying into something heavier. The guy above me jerks backward, eyes going wide, and then he’s tackled from the side by a blur of motion that’s all muscle and rage.
They hit the floor hard. The breath whooshes out of him in a choked grunt. The other intruder swears, raising the bat, but he doesn’t get the chance to swing before Samson throws himself at his leg, teeth bared, barking like the hound of actual Hell.
The ringing in my ears shifts. Under it, through it, I hear another sound.
Dominic’s voice.
“Wrong fucking house,” he snarls, and it’s the voice I’ve heard on the field when he’s calling plays and the voice I’ve heard in my ear when he’s telling me to breathe.
I blink hard and force the blur to clear.
He’s straddling the guy who hit me, knees braced on either side of the bastard’s ribs, fists already red as they drive down again and again into his face.
His expression is focused, flat, the way it gets when he’s in his killing headspace and the rest of the world narrows to whatever’s under his hands.
“Dom,” I croak, but it comes out more like a wheeze.
He doesn’t hear me over the sounds of impact—the wet crack of knuckles on bone, the broken noises the guy is starting to make. He’s gone somewhere deep and old, a place built long before me, where violence is language and punishment and prayer all at once.
I try again, louder. “Dominic!”
His head snaps up.
His eyes are wolf-bright, wild, unseeing. Blood slicks his knuckles, his forearms, and spatters his shirt. His chest heaves, then he focuses, really focuses, and those dark eyes lock onto me near the wall.
Everything in his face shifts.
The fury doesn’t disappear, but it angles. His gaze drops to my cheek, taking in the swelling, the blood at the corner of my mouth, the way I’m half-slumped. His jaw flexes.
A slow, wicked grin carves its way across his face, then he winks at me and turns back to the man beneath him and, with one last, brutal punch, knocks him limp.
The room goes quiet for a second, except for Samson’s barking and the panicked swearing of the other intruder, who’s finally managed to kick the dog away and is stumbling toward the broken back door.
“Uh-uh,” Dominic growls, pushing to his feet in one fluid movement. “We’re not done.”
He grabs the knife from his belt as he stalks across the room—the black-handled hunting knife I’ve felt in far nicer contexts, glinting in the half-light.
The second guy tries to bolt, scrambling out into the yard, but Dom’s faster.
He catches him on the porch, slams him into the railing so hard the wood splinters, and the two of them crash down the steps in a tangle.
I haul myself up on shaking legs, one hand braced on the wall, and stagger to the doorway.
The night air is cold on my overheated skin.
My head throbs in time with my heartbeat.
Samson limps past me, growling low, but stays inside when I snap my fingers without thinking, falling in behind my heel like Dom trained him to.
Outside, under the weak slice of moon, the world shrinks to the shape of Dominic’s body over the intruder’s.
He’s got the guy pinned on his back in the dirt, one hand locked around his throat, the other wielding the knife.
It flashes silver once, and then it’s just vicious movement.
I don’t focus on where the blade lands. I don’t need to see the details to know what’s happening.
The sounds tell me enough: a choked gurgle, a wet gasp, a thud as limbs go slack.
I should be horrified.
I am not horrified.
My breath catches in my chest for an entirely different reason.
My body remembers every time those hands have been on me, what that knife feels like cold against my throat when he’s reminding me who I belong to, how his voice sounds in my ear when he’s half out of his mind and still careful with me.
He wipes the blade on the guy’s shirt in a quick, practiced swipe, stands, and looks down at his work with a cold, assessing detachment that would make most people take a step back.
I take one forward.
He hears me before he sees me. His shoulders tense, knife still loose in his grip, then he turns.
The moon hits his face just right, catching the sweat on his temple, the smear of blood on his jaw.
His eyes are still sharp with adrenaline, but when he sees me standing there barefoot in the doorway, they soften in a way that has no business belonging on a man standing over a fresh body.
“Little Sin,” he says, voice threaded through with that rough affection that always makes my knees go weak. “You okay?”
I take him in. The split skin on his knuckles. The bruises already blooming along his forearm where someone had landed a hit. The tension running through him like a wire vibrating under the surface.
All the fear I felt five minutes ago when I thought I might die is gone. Burned away, scorched into something hotter and more dangerous.
“Yeah,” I say, and my voice comes out a little rougher than I intend. “He just—” I touch my cheek and wince. “He got one good shot in. I’m fine.”
His gaze tracks my fingers, jaw tightening. “Motherfucker,” he mutters. He steps in close, tilts my chin gently to the side, examining the damage. His thumb is warm against my jaw, careful even now. “Did they touch you anywhere else? Knife, gun?”
“Just the bat,” I say. “And a boot to Samson. He’s going to be dramatic about it for days.”
Samson whines behind me on cue, as if to prove my point. Dominic gives him a look over my shoulder, then returns his attention to me.