Hope.
Comfort.
Then he turned and stabbed the second guy.
The music mingled with the screams and whimpers.
“Damn, this is going to be bloody,” Izzy murmured.
I shrugged. “You need to report Iago’s assault on you, Izzy.”
I felt her body tense, and I didn’t ask for more information. She’d share when she was ready.
All she said now was, “There will be nothing to report on a man who's gone, Lilah.”
I chewed my cheek, not sure what to make of it all. For some reason, my body didn’t reject what was happening in front of me. I knew the man I loved planned more torture. I knew as he sucked in air nice and slow like it was feeding his soul that he was going to truly enjoy what he was about to do.
I knew it all.
And it made me love him more.
He hummed as he bent down to glare at both the men at their eye level, just inches from their faces. “Did you think the Armanellis would let you get away with drug smuggling in our territory when we cleaned this up years ago?”
He ripped off the duct tape from Iago’s mouth. The man had long since stopped talking; his groaning was all that could be heard, just louder now without the barrier of the tape.
“Now,” Dante snarled, and I found my body reacting in a way it shouldn’t have to all this.
My mind swirled at seeing my wolf take his territory back; all of my insides tingled with a newfound kink completely unlocked.
“I should ask Lilah and Izzy what part of you they want as a gift, but I can’t bring myself to let any part of you remain. So instead, Cade, call the police. I need acid for Iago.”
“Wait!” he cried. “I know where the drugs are. Only half are on this boat. Please!”
Cade stopped him. “Police already found both locations. We got it all.”
Dante chuckled.
It sounded so far away, though.
The tingling didn’t seem very pleasurable anymore, either. It was like I was losing the feeling of myself, like my mind was running away and I couldn’t catch it.
“I don’t feel right,” I murmured to Izzy.
I heard her mumbleshitand something about the back of my head bleeding, but I lost that running mind.
It got away.
And everything went black.
* * *
I’d handledbrain traumas in my nursing career. I knew what they were, knew they could affect speech and cause paralysis, comas, death.
I knew all that.
I just hadn’t expected to experience it myself.
Snapshots of what I thought was reality pushed through my subconscious to the all-encompassing black abyss I kept falling into.