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The force of his body colliding with mine sent us stumbling backward into the wall, my head hitting it with a crack. But I’d unsheathed the knife from my belt and impaled it into the man’s neck before I could feel any pain.
His gurgling was music to my ears, but only when I felt his hot blood on my hands could I catch my breath. The man’s body went slack, and I instantly let go, staring at him as he fell to the floor with a heavy thud.
My heart dropped. My ragged breath ceased when I got my first good look at his face.Prince Alastor?
Sid croaked, and the bed creaked, reminding me Del was in the room. I spun around to face her.
Her face was horror stricken. Her mouth hung open as she propped herself up on an elbow and stared down at her husband’s body, one dainty hand curled around her throat. Her chest heaved, tears stained her cheeks, and her hair fell in black tangles around her shoulders. Her clothes were rumpled and torn, her neck already bruising from his hold on her, and any remorse I began to feel vanished, replaced with the need to kill her husband all over again.
“Del,” I breathed, my heart breaking to see her like this. She gaped at him as I stepped over Alastor’s body. “Del,” I said again.
Her umber gaze snapped to me as I reached for her, and she shrank away. My heart plummeted, and dropping my hand, I clenched it at my side.
“Fin,” she rasped, shaking her head. “What have you done?”
10
Del
“Fin?” I lay on my back on the bed, propped up on one elbow, the fingers of one hand curled protectively around my aching neck.
Sid huddled close to me, his head and beak resting on my arm.
I shook my head, breathing hard. This couldn’t be happening.Hecouldn’t be here. Alastor couldn’t bedying. I was dreaming. Trapped in a nightmare.
For years, I had longed for two things—to see Fin again and to be free of my wretched husband. Suddenly, I had both. My wishes had come true. But at what cost? Alastor lay on the floor, gurgling his last breaths. He had been my tormentor for so long, but in a perverse way, he had also been my kingdom’s protector—the only thing holding his father at bay.
I tore my stare away from my dying husband to look at my rescuer. At my kingdom’s executioner.
Fin was barely recognizable as an older version of the young man I had known all those years ago. He was broader, harder, and rougher than before. He loomed over me, wearing the armor of a Sierra soldier, his hair hanging around his head in damp waves, and the knife grasped in his hand still dripping with Alastor’s blood. If not for his eyes—the exact shape and shade of green as Liam’s—I might not have recognized him.
“What have you done?” I rasped.
Fin clenched and unclenched his jaw, his nostrils flaring with his next breath. “He waschokingyou.”
“He wouldn’t have killed me,” I said, averting my gaze to watch the pool of blood beneath Alastor’s body slowly creep across the hardwood floor. I let out a short, hollow laugh. “At least, he never did before.” I rubbed my tender neck, shame at revealing as much to Fin making my cheeks burn.
“Del...” Fin moved closer, kneeling on the floor in front of me.
My chin trembled, tears welling in my eyes. I focused on my unlaced pants, attempting to piece together some of my shattered dignity, but Alastor’s rough attempt to undress me had torn several of the loops, leaving the ties nothing to latch onto. A tear glided down my cheek as I shifted the bottom part of my tunic to better cover myself.
At the sound of footsteps pounding up the corridor to my rooms, Fin stood abruptly, brandishing his bloody knife and angling his body between the doorway and me. My heart was suddenly hammering, the panic lacing my blood making my veins vibrate.
Whoever was coming would see the unconscious guards, then Alastor’s body, then Fin in his no doubt stolen Sierra armor, holding a bloody knife. Itlookedlike he intended to harmme, too. If it was Garath who approached, he would see only the armor and the blood, and he would shoot Fin without a second thought.
I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t lose Fin like that. Not when he had only just crashed back into my life.
Sid launched into the air as I scrambled off the bed. I stepped in front of Fin a fraction of a second before Garath appeared in the doorway, pistol drawn and finger on the trigger. He aimed at me initially but quickly shifted higher, targeting the man looming behind me.
“Garath,” I said, my voice low and even, and I raised my hands. “Put the gun down. The danger has passed.” I glanced down at Alastor’s body.
Sid glided around the room, then landed on top of the headboard.
Garath’s gaze swept from my dead husband to my neck, then beyond me to Fin and his knife, before returning to the mess on the floor. “Damn it,” he said, lowering his gun. He did not, however, tuck it back into the holster on his hip. “I really wanted to be the one to end him.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Fin bit out, accusation dripping from every word.
I realized at that moment that Fin saw me as a victim, as someone needing to be saved. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t see that putting up with Alastor was my way to protect my kingdom—and my son.
