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He doesn’t say anything, those gunpowder eyes completely opaque. I grab the desk and pull myself to my feet, approaching slowly. I’m completely in the dark here, but I keep talking.
“I thought about telling you these past few nights, but I was afraid. Afraid that your arms would turn cold around me, afraid of the hatred in your eyes when you learned I could have helped you save your mother and didn’t. Afraid that all that passion and depth of feeling would turn into—” I motion at his face. “Into this. Gloom. Doom.”
And gloom and doom is what his face expresses as he rises to his feet and walks slowly toward me, the stake he used to disembowel Romano still in his hand. I witnessed him wield guns today, blades and a jagged piece of wood, and I can’t help shuddering imagining what else he could do with all of those items if he decides he wants revenge.
My thighs squirm as I remember how he wielded his gun inside me. I remember those deep, scary, and yet amazing things he told Romano he felt for me. Now all there is in his eyes is burning death.
“You say it’s dark,” he recites, stopping just inches from me. “And in truth, I did place a cloud before your sun. But do you not see how the edges of the cloud are already glowing and turning light?”
I frown. “Did you just quote Nietzsche to me?”
He raises his blood-coated hand and streaks two fingers down my cheek, his gaze following in their wake. Any normal woman would recoil from being touched by a killer like this, yet my core heats up, and it’s all I can do not to fall to my knees and beg him to forgive me and let me suck his dick. I’d probably give in to the urge if it weren’t for the knife jutting out of his shoulder, the bloodless color of his lips and the splits in his skin from Romano’s whipping.
“You’re hurt,” I mumble. “Let’s just get your wounds tended to, and then we can talk.”
“Talk?” He lets loose a laugh filled with devilry. “Oh, no. We sure as fuck won’t be talking.”
Aware that I’m utterly fucked, all I can do is tremble in front of him. I’m ready to plead that he at least let me have a look at his wound, since he’s clearly lost a lot of blood. He may not believe it, but even when he’s ready to take my life, his life is all that matters to me. All the pain he’s ever felt, it’s soaked its way into my very organs, and all I want to do is to save him.
But just as he traps me against the bookshelves, a clang resounds through the room. Then more sounds follow as the locks unbolt. The door swings open, and the Kings march in, Justine hot on their heels. I whimper as my eyes meet hers.
It hits me that the Kings must have watched it all on the same camera on which Micah saw me on my knees for Rufus and Raphael earlier. Sade even told me in the texts he’d let Micah have his way with Romano. And there was no way they could have intervened before the bomb was disarmed. The risk was too great that Romano would just blow us all up.
Justine’s body slams into mine, her arms wrapping around me. I can see Annie over her shoulder, her eyes popping out of their sockets as she takes in the blood and the bodies. Nausea must smack her in the stomach because she clasps her hand over her mouth and bends down from her waist. She seems unable to hold it back, which sends her running from the apocalyptic scene. Through the blurry shield of my flowing tears, I make out a large man following her, who I imagine is Carlton, but I can’t be sure at this point.
I collapse in Justine’s arms, almost dragging her down with me, but she plasters me to her body and keeps me on my feet. She starts dragging me toward the door while the other Kings and their men gather around Micah. Holding on to her with one arm, I turn around and reach for him with the other.
“I can’t leave him,” I cry. “His wounds, he’s going to bleed out!”
“The guys are taking care of him, and you need attention now, too.”
I keep moaning and looking back through the door at the people gathered around Micah.
I catch a last glimpse of him before we turn left into the hallway. He emerges from the clutch of his men, his eyes finding mine with the sharpness of a scythe.
The rest of the mansion is a hellscape, but I don’t think Annie got to see much of it, judging by her violent reaction to the horror in the study lounge. Something tells me that Carlton locked her up in a safe place until the nightmare was over.
“What in the living hell,” I breathe as we pass dead bodies that men in tactical gear are now dragging out, leaving trails of blood on the marble floor. There’s splintered glass everywhere, broken mirrors, and the unmistakable smell of death imbues the air. No human could stay sane after experiencing this.
“Just keep your eyes ahead,” Justine says, swinging my arm over her shoulders so she can walk forward while also supporting my weight. She bats off the men in tactical gear each time one of them tries to help. “We’re going to the servants’ wing. The boys made sure it had the best protection. It’s a world away from this hell.”
“You sound incredibly composed for someone who’s just witnessed the fucking apocalypse.”
She pauses, and when I glance at her, I see a tension in her features that’s never been there before. “I knew Sade was a Heathen King when I fell in love with him, and what I was getting into when I accepted his proposal. I also knew he’d never be free until Romano was out of the picture.” She shakes her head. “Trust me, I’m acting tougher than I feel, and I’m not doing it for myself. I’m doing it for him.”
I frown at the ground, watching my steps among the shards of glass. “And you can live with it? With him taking lives?”
“It helps to think he only ends men like Romano.”
I’d decided to keep my eyes down and try to keep the impact to a minimum, but the scenery hits me like a hammer in the chest. It’s a massacre. My eyes fall on the shreds of a shirt stained with blood, and I stumble over a severed male hand with golden rings. I stop to retch, but Justine keeps dragging me.
“Pull yourself together,” she urges. How can she be so cold?
“People,” I manage between bouts of retching. “They killed innocent people tonight!”
“Eva, listen to me.” Justine places herself in front of me and slaps her palms on my face, forcing me to look at her. Those caramel eyes with the long dreamy lashes, once the eyes of a poet, are now imbued with a layer of steel. “The Morningstar mercenaries came here ready to kill innocent people. They had plans to riddle with holes the bodies of servants, of students, kill everything that breathed, but the Kings and their men stopped them. Believe me when I tell you—” Her palms squeeze my cheeks harder, forcing me to pay attention, “the people you see lying around came here to kill us. To cause fucking mayhem. I know, it’s not a pretty sight, but trust me, our guys killed only the guilty.”
“Shit,” I whisper. “When did you become so hard?”
