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It was less humanoid now, the shape of it harder to make sense of. From the bottom of its chin to the top of its head, to the spot where its ears should have been, it had wicked little mouths all over.

I wondered exactly how much damage I was doing. How much power was it gaining from this?

Still the first thing I said was, “I want to go back.”

It made a terrible noise out of every hideous mouth that I thought was supposed be a laugh and struck again.

Some part of me remained while I was in his head, in his past now, and the more I did it, the stronger it was. I could form thoughts as a watcher now, cohesive ones.

And as I came into his body for this memory, I thought, Oh no, not this one. My heart can’t take this memory. It’s too much.

I was looking at a very somber Sloan. She had a manila envelope in her hand, but she was shaking her head, over and over.

“You don’t need to see this, Dom,” she told me, a weak thread to her voice I’d never heard before.

I held out my hand. I had to see. I already knew it would be bad. My lover had left me, breaking all ties, leaving chaos in her wake, and the harder I looked for her, the more damage I found.

That was Jillian for you. She never did anything in half-measures.

She should have known me better. I’d never stop looking for her, no matter what she’d done. She needed me as much as I needed her.

She’d broken our blood bond, parts of me breaking with it. What could be worse than that? What could a manila envelope hold that was more profoundly detrimental to me than the loss of her, the only woman I had ever loved?

Sloan handed me the evidence, and I asked her for a moment alone.

“Please, Dom. Don’t look.”

I shook my head, and she left. She knew me better. I was resolute.

I sat for a long time before I opened the envelope, time bracing myself, staring at the thing like it held horrors I could not bear to stomach.

It did, of course. I’d known it as soon as I heard there were pictures, had it reinforced when I saw the defeated look on Sloan’s face.

My hands shook as I pulled out the stack of photos and began to flip through them.

I was three pictures in when I began to shake so badly that I fell to my knees.

Six pictures in when began to wretch.

Ten pictures in when I began to weep.

Not only had she left me, broken oaths, severed bonds.

She’d been unfaithful, done the thing she knew would break me the most, and with a man I despised. She’d shared her body, all of that beautiful flesh that belonged to me, with my enemy.

I was blind in my agony, lost in my pain, but even crippled and broken, I knew there was calculation behind this thing she’d done.

Why? How could she? It was so uncharacteristic. So wrong.

It didn’t matter what she’d done. And it didn’t matter why she’d done it. I’d still never stop looking for her. What I’d do with her when I found her, well, that didn’t bear thinking about just then.

But him. Declan. To him I’d show no mercy. Not an ounce of it. I had a target now, a focus for the unadulterated rage that had gripped me from the moment she’d broken our bond.

When I came out of the spell, I stumbled to his room, to his bed, on trembling legs.

My own pain had been bad enough, but to shoulder his as well, to feel it unfiltered and fresh like that.

I couldn’t stand it.