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As if the prick knew exactly what Darien was thinking, his upper lip curled with a sneer. “Now back the fuck up or you’ll be leaving here in cuffs!” he snapped. He gave Loren a once-over and added,“Withoutyour lady.”

Darien saw red, his palms itching with the need to slice this prick’s lips and eyelids off. Loren’s heart raced under Darien’s hold, her fingers tightening around his sleeve.

“Your threats don’t scare me,” Darien said. “Keep hiding behind that badge like a pussy like you did at the precinct.”

“Keep running your mouth and see where it gets you,” the detective countered. “Stir up trouble, you get arrested. It’s that simple, Cassel.”

“Where’s Roark?” Darien fired his question at Finn, beads of rain flying off his lips.

“Not here.”

Darien dug his phone out of his pocket. The cell towers had started working not long ago—they’d betterstillbe working. “What’s your dad’s number, sweetheart?” he demanded. He tried to soften his tone, but it came out sharper than a newly honed blade.

Finn tried to say something, but Darien tuned him out, focusing on nothing but the numbers Loren recited, her sweet voice the only one he was interested in hearing.

“This forcefield is coming down,” Darien snarled, his statement directed at everyone in earshot as the line began to ring. The bald detective’s glare burned a hole in his face as Darien added, “Right thefucknow.”

35

The Warehouse

YVESWICH, STATE OF KER

Lookingat Roman made Shay’s heart hurt.

For one agonizing moment she found herself wishing she’d never come here. She had been so focused on saving the boys, she had thought of nothing else, least of all herself.

So it hadn’t dawned on her how her heart might feel the moment she set her sights on this Shadowmaster again.

Bad—that was how this felt. How her heart felt. It felt really,reallybad.

The more she thought about it, though, the more she realized how selfish she was being. She could never regret her decision to help Paxton and Eugene. They were innocent children, and merely the fact that they had men as horrible as Simon and Trey in their lives should be a chargeable offense.

Maybe what shereallyregretted was ever getting involved with Roman in the first place. If she had kept her hands to herself—literally—instead of letting him touch her in that motel room, she wouldn’t be feeling this way right now. Like someone had punched their hand into her chest and ripped out her still-beating heart.

Roman, Pax, and Sayagul were locked in a tight embrace, their eyes shut. Roman’s hand cupped the back of Paxton’shead, his fingers curling in the boy’s mop of hair, while the small dragon perched on Pax’s shoulder. Her wings were draped around him, her head nuzzling his neck. The low vibratory sound coming from her chest was almost a…purr. Could dragons purr?

All the same, it was the sweetest thing Shay had seen in a long time. And even though she wasn’t a part of it, she felt whole.

Well, apart from that gaping bullet wound in her chest.

She drew a deep breath to ease the ache, but all it did was make it worse, as if clusters of barbed wire were puncturing her lungs.

Was she a fool for having feelings this intense for a man she had met only a short time ago? Or was Roman justthateasy to love?

It was definitely the latter, she decided. This boy and dragon clinging to him like he was their raft in a stormy sea were proof of that.

Roman’s eyes—a rich blend of amber and chestnut flecked with gold—opened, locking on hers. “You’re alive.” His husky voice skittered across her every bone, resurfacing memories of words whispered to her in that motel room. The loving ones—and the sinful ones.

She cleared her throat. “So are you.”

“Oh man, Pax!” Eugene squealed, leaping and pumping a fist in the air. “You should’ve seen it! SheroastedTrey like a hotdog!”

Paxton’s eyes lit up with awe. “Really?” He gazed up at her like she was a superhero from his favorite comic book, the reaction so wholesome and genuine that for a moment she really felt like one.

“Do you have a built-in taser or something?” Eugene asked her, his lisp extra thick.

“I have lightning powers.”