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“Like you didn’t know?” she cried at him in disbelief. “Sean was your best friend; don’t pretend to have been blinded to what he was like. And Dad doesn’t make a decision without running it by you first, so I know you approved me for Aiden too, you asshole. But women can’t be moved around and claimed this way, Lachlan. You can’t claim her.”
“There’s a brand on Ms. Bennett’s body that says I can.”
“Fuck the brand and fuck this family.”
Another grunt left Lachlan as he gripped the handle of the bat with both hands, his head dipping in a nod. “You should know me better than to think I’d let someone live who’s destroying my little sister. However...”—he brought the bat to the side of Autumn’s head with a slowness that made me feel off-balanced, as if everything were suddenly in slow motion—“take what’s mine, and I’ll kill you myself.”
“Do it,” Autumn said with a defeated huff, slipping her mask from her face and letting it fall to the floor. She slowly reached behind her, grasping something in the waistband of her pants as she continued. “Just know, no matter how long you trap her with you, and no matter what she forces herself to say, she’ll never belong to you.”
“We’ll see,” Lachlan murmured, words dripping with challenge and amusement.
“You won’t,” someone said from behind Lachlan. And even in its cruelty, those words had relief pounding through my veins and tears pricking at the backs of my eyes in this volatile situation because I knew that voice like my own.
That voice was comfort and sin and whispered words in darkened rooms. It was promises and teases and a desperate, aching I love you.
WILLOW
My knees nearly gave out in relief, and Lachlan’s dog lurched forward, snapping and barking at me when I stumbled.
“Chaos, release,” Autumn yelled just as a guttural roar filled the narrow hall.
And I went still...
Not because of Lachlan’s unexpected cry of pain, or because I truly feared his dog, that was now whimpering as she checked on where he’d stumbled backward. I froze because a dark chill was seeping through the hall and coating my skin, warning me the threat was no longer just in front of me.
“See, I like what you said,” Diggs began, voice like grated steel. “‘Take what’s mine, and I’ll kill you myself.’ Because I’ve dreamt of pulling this trigger since I woke up to Willow gone.”
That malevolent warning drew in closer. Tighter. Making it hard to breathe.
“But you aren’t my kill,” Diggs ground out just before Lachlan released a pained “Fuck.” His bat lifting weakly in my direction as he ordered, “Destroy.”
“Release, Chaos,” Autumn snapped at the dog just as quickly.
“Pray Nightshade doesn’t find you.”
The instant the sinister voice sounded behind me, amplifying the ominous presence closing in around us, my lungs and heart seized. I felt at once frozen in place and like my body was crumbling under my terror from a voice.
A shudder ripped down my spine when Kieran slipped past me, attention wholly focused on where Lachlan was straightening.
“He’ll slit your throat and bleed you dry.”
A low, cold laugh roughed from Lachlan at Kieran’s disturbing words and was cut short by an anguished curse.
I hadn’t even seen Kieran move. But now that I knew what was happening, I could just barely discern the multiple handles sticking out of Lachlan’s chest and shoulder.
“Looks like I offended you,” Lachlan ground out, clearly trying to suppress his grunt of discomfort as he lifted his bat. “Was it someone important to you?”
“My wife,” Kieran sneered.
“Unfortunate,” Lachlan tsked through his labored breathing just as it felt like the hallway came crashing down around me because Autumn was suddenly holding a hatchet to Kieran’s neck, and Diggs was yelling accusations and demands at her. All while Kieran stood there calmly, and red neon remained fixated on me.
And somehow, throughout all the commotion, the fucking dog had ended up directly in front of me. On high alert.
“Not him,” Autumn begged, unwavering in her threat against Kieran.
“Not your call,” Diggs shot back. “Pick a fucking side.”
“Just—just not him,” she repeated.
