Page 29

Her wounded face, injured, and not just from the beating she’d taken but from the way I hurt her, flashed through my mind.

You’re not the male I thought you were.

I gritted my teeth, remembering her parting words, but they were nothing I hadn’t deserved.

I finally reached the large steel door at the end of a cave, one that I’d carved out myself several years ago.My blood and sweat were in every gouge along these walls, and in the archway I made for this door.The door itself had been forged in hellfire by my own hands, because it needed to be strong, secure.Safe.

Pressing my hand to the steel, I let my powers pulse through it, allowing the seal I’d created to recognize me.I felt the barrier drop.

Then taking the key from my back pocket, I unlocked the massive padlock and slowly opened the door.

A vicious, bloodcurdling snarl ricocheted off the walls as I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.I turned to the massive hound standing across from me, mouth foaming, black fur matted, and red eyes blazing.

I was the only one who could approach Kurgan.I was the only one he let near him.

The thick steel cuff around his throat was attached to a long, heavy chain, stopping him short so he couldn’t attack anyone else who came in here, but he didn’t need it when he was with me.He wouldn’t attack me.

“Be easy, Kurgan.It’s Jagger.”I strode closer, lowering the stag to the floor in front of him.“You’re okay,” I said as his snarls and growls increased in volume.

I hadn’t been here for a couple of weeks.I hated staying away so long.Maddox had brought his food to him in my absence, but that meant in all that time, Kurgan had no real interactions other than Mad throwing him food from the door.Only a few of us knew about Kurgan—me, Lothar, War, and Maddox—because Lucifer insisted he be kept a secret.

Holding out my hand, I stepped closer, nice and slow.Sometimes, when I was forced to stay away for longer periods of time, the madness took a firmer hold and only my scent brought him back.His snout wrinkled as his growls increased and his fangs extended, longer than any other hound’s I’d seen.

He finally caught my scent and instantly calmed.

“That’s it.It’s just me.”I ran my hand over the matted fur on his head, and he lowered it, letting me scratch him more vigorously.“Eat your supper.”

Kurgan ripped into the venison, making short work of the huge stag.

Water trickled down the stone wall in the corner, filling a large basin, giving him a constant supply of clean drinking water, and he drank from it now, washing all that meat down before he finally turned to me and sat on his haunches.

“Got you some warm water for a wash.”He didn’t like to shift for anyone else—War occasionally, but no one else—so he wouldn’t have washed while I’d been gone.I took the rag and soap that I’d tucked into my back pocket and the towel that I’d slung around my neck and put them down by the bucket.

His red eyes came to me, more animal than any other hound I knew, then he tilted his head back and with a painful howl shifted.He did it so infrequently that when he finally did, his shift was slow, like his joints were made of rusted steel needing to be freed up with force.

Finally, he stood across from me, his gaze on the floor, his dark hair just as wild as his fur had been.Kurgan wasn’t just the biggest hound I’d ever seen in his animal form but in his human form as well.

Kurgan rarely spoke, though when he did, his voice was so deep and blended with the beast that he terrified most beings.

He dragged the bucket closer and proceeded to wipe the dirt and blood from his skin with the rag, dipping it in the water, soaping up, and slowly and methodically cleaning himself.

He paused suddenly and turned to me, and his eyes had changed, shifting from red, to green.

I knew what was coming, what he always asked every time I came here.

“Female?”he asked, his voice impossibly deep and rusty.

“Your female’s safe, son.”

“Meat?”

I nodded.“I took her a stag as well.Steaks and a few roasts and left it on her doorstep.Her house is safe,” I said, telling him what I told him every time.“She has blankets, and locks, and your brothers are guarding her?—”

He growled another of those bloodcurdling growls, and I lifted my hands.“From a distance, they watch her from a distance.No one’s getting close to Lenny, son.I won’t let anyone get close to her.”

He nodded, grunted, and continued to clean the dirt and blood from his skin.

I sat leaning against the wall, and when Kurgan finished, he did the same.He sat against the wall, his legs out in front of him, ankles crossed, imitating me.It happened occasionally, these moments of lucidity, but again, only with me.