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The Beast had done it again.
Blood covered Dane’s fists. Some his own, most his opponent’s. Sweat dripped into his eyes and his every muscle burned from exertion. The other man lay strewn across the dirt floor at his feet, groaning and barely conscious. The stench of blood and sweat, mixed with the filth of this bloodthirsty crowd, filled Dane’s nostrils and made his heart pound with fury.
All the while, the crowd around him roared in outrage and ecstasy.The Beast has done it again. Dane eyed his opponent, whose face he’d beaten to a bloody pulp.
The Beast they called him, and a beast he’d been.
It hadn’t helped, though. Not even the rush of a fight could appease the sick sense of foreboding. The fear. The frustration.
The rage.
Dane’s gaze moved over the lowlifes who were clamoring for their money and the brutes who were keeping the frenzy under control.
They werehisbrutes. Dane was their leader, though the criminals and whores of Vestry Lane knew him best as the Beast—King’s personal guard and the leader of his army.
Not the King of England, of course, nor of any other kingdom. King was anything butroyal. Though in this narrow cobblestone stretch that separated the best neighborhoods from the worst, the man known as King might as well have been the ruler of the country, for his power here was absolute.
King was watching now from his private seating area above the ring. Like an emperor overseeing his gladiators, the tall, dark, ruthless leader watched it all from the sidelines.
Dane got a nod of approval from the fierce overlord who’d become something of a friend these past ten years he’d worked for him. As much of a friend as a man like the Beast could ever have.
But it wasn’t King’s approval he was after at the moment. For not even King with all his power could help. He’d tried. King had sent his best men out to roam the streets alongside Dane as he’d set out on his quest to find her. Lillian.HisLillian.
But she was gone. Three days now since she’d disappeared and no one could find her. He’d known before most when she’d been discovered missing. He’d had eyes on her for years now, though she didn’t know it. King had his spies throughout the city, but Dane only had eyes on Lillian. Hearing about her secondhand was as close as he’d come to her in a decade because he’d learned more from King than just how to fight.
He’d learned how to rise in the ranks, how to gain power and favor and respect. But mostly he’d learned how to protect. How to protect King, yes, but also Lillian.
Always Lillian.
Even as a child he’d known it was best not to love, for loved ones were a threat. The more one held dear, the more one could lose. Love was a weakness. But when it could not be avoided, it was best to keep them at a distance.
So he’d done just that. He’d kept his distance from the girl who’d shown him kindness. He’d left her to the sort of life he could never provide. But he’d had eyes on her all this time. He’d paid a tidy sum to the servants of her father’s household to ensure that she was happy. That she was safe.
And for what?
All to discover that she’d gone missing, lost in the night like some babe stolen by fairies.
A snarl ripped through him that had his opponent moaning in fear and the crowd around him roaring once more, ready to watch him tear this man limb from limb.
But he wouldn’t. It would do no good.
Fighting hadn’t helped Dane’s seething fury, and he’d been a fool to think that it might. He didn’t feel better for nearly beating a stranger to death when the man he truly wanted to murder was Lillian’s father. How could Lord Garman let his only daughter disappear? And why wasn’t he combing every street and back alley to find her as Dane was?
Another growl escaped as he made his way to the edge of the crowd. He didn’t have to push or shove. The crowd parted of its own volition. No one wanted to get too close to the Beast. He hadn’t risen through the ranks of the gamblers, thieves, and murderers who made up this dark part of the underworld by being reasonable.
Unpredictable was more like it. And brutal. Merciless when it was required.
Leniency only ever led to more chaos, more trouble. Fear in their eyes meant safety and order within the King’s territory. And so the crowd’s silence as he passed was welcome.
Their gasps and whispers behind him, a familiar reminder.
Once upon a time he’d tried to cover the scars of his back, but not anymore. These days he listened with grudging amusement when King and his men passed along the latest theories about how he’d gotten them.
It seemed some believed him to be a former slave. Others thought he’d had a life at sea as a pirate before working for King.
No one knew the truth. No one would even guess that the brutish, vulgar, terrifying Beast had been raised as a gentleman. Well, he’d been raised as the bastard son of a gentleman. The Earl of Fallenmore’s unwanted charge. A reminder that he’d been cuckolded.
