Chapter 34
thirty-four
-Serena-
“Where is she?” Set roars, loud enough to instill panic into Chen, who grabs me, my back slamming against his chest, while the barrel of his gun is pressed against my head. I can’t see Set, but I hear him in the next room. Screams and gunshots vibrate through the air, morphing into total chaos.
Then the door bursts open and one of Chen’s men stumbles in, blood on his shirt and a petrified look on his face.
He's shouting something in Chinese. I can’t make out what it is.
Yet judging by the look on his face, he’s scared shitless.
And to be honest, so am I because whatever comes after him through the door barely resembles Set.
The clothes he’s wearing are marked with bullet holes.
Still, that’s not even what scares me. It’s the fact that it wasn’t the gunfire that tore through the fabric.
It was his muscles—every one of them morphing, expanding, like they’ve grown muscles of their own.
And his eyes... his eyes are so dark you can’t see the white in them anymore, just pure black.
No drop of humanity, just void, like something risen from the depths of hell.
And I have to admit, it’s the most terrifying and the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
He’s breathing heavily like a raging bull, chest heaving, while his tattoos have shifted into writhing images of demons and monsters.
He’s a monster as well. One terrifying enough to make Chen babble senseless words.
His body’s shaking behind me, and I fear his finger will slip on the trigger on accident.
But then Set takes a step forward, and Chen turns the gun on him.
Then he takes another step. And a shot rings out.
Chen fires. And I scream, watching the bullet slice through Set’s shoulder. But he doesn’t even flinch. Doesn’t slow. Just keeps walking as Chen starts shooting again, emptying the whole clip into Set’s chest.
I kick at Chen, trying to knock the gun away. But the second Set sees me move, he lunges, shoves me out of the way, grabs Chen, and… and rips him to pieces.
Literally rips him to pieces. I’m talking body parts flying across the room like a busted pinata. For a few moments, I can't even see straight. I might be hallucinating because Set’s on the ground, on top of Chen, dismembering him limb by limb.
I don’t even have it in me to scream again. The scene so horrifying, I have no idea what I should do next, or if I should move from where I am.
But Set moves.
He rises slowly, blood dripping from what used to be a white shirt. At least, I think it was white because I can’t tell anymore.
His stance, the same as a couple of seconds ago, and the same dark eyes are now locked on me. I’m the only one left alive in this room—except him.
I watch him eat the distance between us, his breath like an animal’s—paced and hard. He stops just inches away when I hear him snarl, and an even angrier expression twists on his face.
Oh shit!
“Set!” I blurt, anxiety in my voice, because he doesn’t seem to recognize me. His eyes are still pitch black, now locked on me like I’m just another target. “Set, it’s me.”
Fighting the panic clawing at my throat, I meet his eyes. He has to know it’s me. “Set, please.” I press, begging him to remember me.
For a moment, he doesn’t move, just breathes, like a predator deciding whether or not to strike.
His hand lifts and I’m suddenly out of air, the world around us seems to freeze.
He doesn’t stop until his fingers gently brush the side of my head. It takes me a second to realize what he’s doing, but then it registers. That’s where I hit my head earlier.
His hand pulls back, and my own goes straight to the place he touched. Blood coats my fingertips. I’m bleeding.
He snarls again, louder this time.
“I’m okay. I’m okay,” I murmur... but then I see it.
He’s not. He’s been shot.
Ignoring any kind of danger, I close the distance between us and start checking his body for wounds.
And what I find is something straight out of a nightmare.
At least a few dozen bullet holes in his chest, his flesh torn, his body bleeding.
The damage is unreal—almost impossible. Yet he’s still breathing.
I don’t have time to start freaking out before he lifts a hand, gesturing for me to wait.
I trust him enough to do it, just to notice one of the wounds slowly starting to close. The skin knits together right in front of me, pushing the bullet out. I don’t have time to process how fucked up this really is, or how unreal it might be watching someone heal like that.
I’ll just have a conversation with myself later, about this, and my poor general judgment that at one point I decided I could outrun a demon, or devil, or whatever the hell Set is.
But for now, I just exhale with relief. He’s still breathing.
“We have to get you out of here,” I whisper, between tears, trying to help him up. Not that I can support his weight. But he moves anyway, fights with himself to walk out with the kind of willpower that defies physics.
We need to leave—now.
I look around me as we step out of the apartment, and I realize it’s right next to a sushi diner.
Set’s car is only a few feet away. So I leave him leaning against the wall, pull the car, right next to the entry, then help him inside.
A few people see us, but by this time, his body’s started to shift back to normal, so he no longer looks like a WWE wrestler.
I just hope it’s dark enough so that no one spots the blood. Not that anyone gives a damn here anyway. It’s Vegas, shit like this happens here all the time. We’re probably not even the first freak show they’ve seen tonight.
I immediately drive straight to the Sphinx’s underground parking lot, then get him into the elevator, taking us up to the penthouse. Set’s still healing, but by the time the elevator doors slide open, there’s a pool of blood at our feet.
He’s bleeding everywhere. And that freaks the hell out of me.
The second he steps inside the penthouse, he collapses to the floor, the effort too much for him to bear.
“Set,” I drop beside him, shaking him, trying to pull him back to consciousness. And it takes him a couple of minutes before he regains focus.
“I’m healing too slow,” he says, his voice hoarse and strained. “Get the forceps from the bathroom. Take out some of the bullets.”
I rush to the bathroom, realizing this probably isn’t the first time this happened. Because who keeps forceps in the bathroom?
I’m back so fast that I scrape my knees plunging to the floor, already pulling out a few bullets from his arms like he asked. I’m terrified of causing him pain, but even more terrified of what’ll happen if I don’t.
Ripping open his shirt, I start pulling bullets from his chest with the forceps.
I know he feels every bit of it because his beautiful face shifts each time I drive the metal into a wound.
But as I take a moment, I see his flesh knitting itself together, just like it did before.
Taking them out speeds up the healing more than letting his body fight to expel them.
So I hurry, checking every wound, every inch of his skin.
His muscles are a map of perfection, even smeared with his blood, and the shape of his face is almost back to normal—not that I mind the extra sharp jawline and extra defined cheekbones. Who could ever mind that, anyway?
Only the darkness in his eyes remains. He still looks at me as if he’s weighing whether or not to kill anyone in front of him.
By the time I’m down to the last bullet, the first wounds I attended are completely healed, but I can see he’s losing his strength.
The raw sounds he makes whenever I draw the forceps in a wound are beginning to falter.
He’s weakened, still, I can’t leave him lying in the middle of the living room.
Planting my feet to the ground, I help him up, then struggle to drag him to the couch, because there’s no way we’re making it to the bedroom.
He seems lighter now, but he’s still built like a tank.
And it’s too much for my body to handle.
He needs rest. There’s nothing else I can do for him now but let him recover and pray he’ll make it through. Strange thing to pray to God for the devil’s son. But I do it anyway. I need him to get through this.
It’s almost afternoon, and he still shows no signs of waking up.
I’ve cleaned most of the blood off him, so I decide to take a shower to rinse the blood from my hair, then try to grab an hour of sleep.
There’s not enough room for both of us on the couch.
At least not without risking making him uncomfortable or even causing him pain.
After checking on him once more when I get out of the shower, I head to his bedroom and almost crash on the bed. I didn’t even realize how exhausted I was, but now, it feels like I can’t keep my eyes open for a second longer.
It’s dark outside when I wake, and guilt wraps around me for sleeping so long. I instantly rush to the living room to check on Set. But the moment I make my way into the room, I realize he’s not there.
My first instinct is to check his bedroom, but a large silhouette on the balcony pulls my attention. He’s outside.
I hesitate, like some part of me knows better than to go to him. Things were a lot easier when he was unconscious. Now everything feels even more complicated than last night, when he tore through all of Chen’s men like it was nothing.
But this needs to happen. We need to settle this. I need to find out who he really is.
I slowly step onto the balcony and notice he’s changed clothes. The shredded shirt’s gone, replaced by a white T-shirt, and his black pants swapped for joggers. To be honest, I don’t even know which look suits him best. Because he’s pure temptation in anything he wears.
My breath catches in my throat every time I see him.
And tonight is no different. If anything, he’s much more imposing than before, and I can’t stop myself from staring at him.
He knows I’m here. The shifting in his stance as I approach him is visible, but he turns before I get too close.
He might look normal again, still, his eyes are pitch black.
“Go away,” he says, his voice barely his own, more like something sinister and ancient warning me to obey him.
“I’m supposed to be mad at you. Not the other way around,” I snap, infuriated because this isn’t on me. None of what’s happening right now is on me. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be scared. You’re a damn devil.”
“Then be fucking scared and leave me alone. Go away, I said,” he growls, the warning in his voice unmistakable now.
Still, not enough to scare me. “No, you won’t hurt me,” I answer, unwilling to leave him. I saw this in his gaze that night when he had a nightmare. He’s fighting the evil within him, and I’m not gonna let him do it alone.
“Don’t be so convinced,” he says, taking a step toward me, his body shaking as if he’s about to lose control at any moment.