The first of Father’s enforcers tears away from the wall before the echo of his voice has faded. The others move with him, weapons flashing beneath the amber light as they spread through the room, cutting me off from Miro before I can take more than a step towards her.
“Resh.”
The single word is enough. My males surge forward and the room erupts. Steel collides with steel, the impact reverberating through the polished floor as bodies crash together. Someone cries out. Another male answers with a curse that ends abruptly beneath the wet sound of a blade finding flesh. I don’t look to see who fell.
The only thing that matters is the female struggling against Father’s guards.
A sword sweeps towards my throat. The edge skims across the scales beneath my jaw as my claws drive beneath the male’s ribs. Wet heat bursts over my hand. His body folds around the wound before I wrench myself free and keep moving, stepping over him before he’s finished collapsing.
Another enforcer fills the space he’d left. Father has always trained his males to fight as a unit. One falls back as the next steps in, keeping me from reaching Miro.
My female twists violently against the guard restraining her, throwing all her weight sideways. The guard stumbles, his grip slipping just enough for her to nearly wrench loose — before he snarls and lashes out, embedding his claws into her shoulder and dragging her back against his much larger form.
She doesn’t stop fighting even when she’s hurt and bleeding. She drives her heel backwards into his shin, lashes out with her free hand, struggles with everything she has left even though she’s hopelessly outmatched.
Incandescent rage tears through me. I will get to my female. The next male never lands his strike. I catch his sword arm, crush his wrist with my grip, and throw him into the two rushing in behind him. They go down in a tangle of limbs and steel, giving me the opening I’d been trying to force.
Blood slicks beneath my boots as I drive through the gap, every instinct fixed on the narrowing distance between Miro and me. Another blade bites across my side. Steel drags through flesh, and warmth spreads beneath my shirt, but the wound barely registers. Pain has become background noise. If I don’t reach her now, I lose her.
Father steps towards Miro, the steel rising beneath her jaw as his fist buries itself in her hair and jerks her head back.
I launch myself at my father, claws extended, and rip through his throat.
Hot blood explodes over my face as his head yanks sideways. His mouth opens, a wet, choking sound bubbling through the ruin of his throat. His amber eyes lock onto mine, flaring in surprise. His lipsmove as he chokes on his own blood before awareness fades from his eyes and he slides to the ground.
I spin on the balls of my feet, driving my blade into the neck of the enforcer clutching Miro. His body jerks, fingers spasming as blood fountains over us. The tip bursts out the other side of his neck. He’s dead before his hands loosen from around Miro.
I seize Miro around the waist and wrench her clear. She stumbles into me, shaking hard, and I wrap her against my chest, one hand cradling the back of her head while I put my body between her and the rest of the room.
She’s breathing.
Gods…
She’s alive.
“Miro.” I clamp my hands on her cheeks, force her head back, leaving smears of blood on her pale skin. “Miro. Look at me.”
Blood streaks across her face, some of it hers, most of it not. She catches hold of the front of my jacket with both hands as though she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go. She leans into me, searching my face with frantic little glances that tell me she’s checking for injuries as surely as I’m searching hers.
Even now. After everything she’s been through…
She’s worried about me.
I brush the dried blood away from the corner of her mouth with my thumb as gently as I can. She winces when my fingers stray too close to her shoulder, and I stop, forcing myself not to touch it again.
“They hurt you.” The words come out low enough that I barely recognise my own voice. “They don’t get to hurt you and live.”
A weapon clatters onto the floor behind me. Resh’s voice cuts through the office, sharp and controlled as he orders the survivingenforcers to stand down. My father is dead. There is no longer any loyalty to fight for.
Only then do I force myself to look away from Miro.
Furniture lies shattered across the floor. Blood pools beneath bodies that won’t be rising again. The metallic smell hangs so thick in the air I can taste it with every breath.
My father lies where he fell. His eyes stare sightlessly towards the ceiling, blood spreading beneath him, washing across the polished stone.
I look at him for a long moment, waiting to feel something.
Relief.
