Beck smiled. He knew it was a ghastly thing. Beck nodded to the
throne where his father’s body lay, still and cooling. “There lies your
brother. Perhaps we are more alike than you think, Uncle.”
Torin, who had always been a pale imitation of his younger
brother, twisted his unhandsome face into a mask of jealousy. “The
crown should have been mine. My father always favored Seamus. It
should have been mine.”
Beck pointed to his father’s crown. It lay on the palace floor,
covered in his father’s blood. “There it is, Torin. Take it if you can.”
Bound
247
Torin looked between his nephew and the bloody crown he had
slain his kin for.
Then Meg felt it. She felt Cian cry out in Beck’s brain. She felt his
panic and anguish. Cian reached out for the only person he had left,
and Beck felt the call in his soul.
It went against everything in Beck Finn’s nature. His instincts
cried out to kill the pretender. Beck’s prey stood before him, quaking
in his boots. There was no question about the outcome of this fight,
even as Torin’s backup stormed through the doors. He could kill them
all.
And lose Cian.
Deep in his heart, Beck knew that he wouldn’t care once Cian was
dead. It would free him in some ways. He could be the predator he’d
always known himself to be. He could kill and kill and kill until
someone was strong enough to take him out.
But Cian wasn’t dead. He was alive, and he waited for his brother
to save him.
Beck could avenge his father. He could save his kingdom and all
of its people, or he could save the only person in the world to ever