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Bang.
I fired a shot from my gun, a feminine scream sounding from behind the large wooden door that stood to one side as the guard dropped to the floor.
Ava.
I found her.
CHAPTEREIGHT
The walls rattled, shaking with the force of an unknown explosion.
My body trembled, the adrenaline fading as I lay half-sitting on the blood-covered mattress beneath me. The manacles were just long enough to allow me to grab the blanket that had been shoved near my head earlier. Even with the blanket, however, shock was keeping me cold.
The room was beginning to dim, and lights danced across my vision. Blood loss was starting to settle in, and it wouldn’t be long before the hallucinations began to claim me. He came for me.
My devil.
My monster.
I could hear men shouting through the small window. Gunfire erupted in the distance. But I was safe because the devil and I had made a bargain. He would never let me die. I leaned my head back against the wall, closing my eyes. They were too heavy anyway. Like cinderblocks.
A shot erupted outside my door, and I screamed, my eyes flying open as I groped for the blanket. That was close. Too close.
My breath stalled in my lungs; my gaze locked on the door. Was it him? The monster who invaded my dreams? Or was it the demon who’d tortured me? Would Kellan come back to finish what he started, just to spite my husband? Kill me before he could rescue me?
Was this all staged?
My thoughts stalled as the hinges on the warped wooden door creaked ominously, filling the dark silence that had been stifling me. My breath caught in my throat, heart hammering away in my chest as the soft light from the other room bathed his lean frame in an almost angelic glow, while his face remained entrenched in the lurking shadows.
I could almost sense his stormy gray eyes roaming my nearly naked body with such intensity it made my skin crawl. His hands rested lazily in his trouser pockets, his head tilted slightly, as if I was a mystery he needed to unravel.
This was not my avenging angel. Nor was he my white knight. The man standing before me was nothing more than a demon with a devilish smile wrapped in an expensive suit. A snake in the garden, ready to strike.
Instinctively, I brought my arms up to shield myself as he stepped froward, ignoring the chafing of the manacles against my already raw wrists. The soles of his shoes echoed loudly against the concrete floor, signaling his approach. The sound echoed like thunder in my ears.
There was nowhere to run. I was trapped, like a caged animal. Even if I could escape, if these manacles didn’t chain me to the wall, there was nowhere for me to go. The approaching demon had taken everything from me. As he always promised he would do. Now there was only him.
Just like he wanted all along.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It took you long enough.” My body was tense, but having my monster so near set me at ease. The pain that racked through me seemed to lessen as his angry gaze assessed me from head to toe. “You were always horrible at asking for directions.”
The pain in his eyes made me want to reach out and take him in my arms.
They say monsters don’t feel pain, but that was far from the truth.
Monsters felt more than anyone. Pain. Love. Sorrow. That was why they became monsters. To leave behind the overwhelming emotion that clung to them like frost clinging to the last vestiges of winter before spring bloomed.
“Moya lyubov’,” he whispered brokenly.
I smiled at the endearment, replaying it in my head before the darkness suffocated me once again.
CHAPTERNINE
“Moya lyubov’,” I whispered as I approached her, my steps slow and calculated. She smiled up at me, but something about it didn’t sit right. Her eyes were lazy and unfocused, skin pale. She repeated the words I’d said drunkenly, and then she was out. Ava’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she slumped against the wall behind her.
My heart stuttered.
