Page 41

“Hit me,” he said again.

“No.”

“Do it, Darien,” Don pressed, stepping closer—crowding him. “If you don’t, I’ll bring Roman in here and see how you feel when I beat his face into a pulp?—”

Darien punched him in the nose with his left hand.

Bone snapped. Don stumbled backward.

Bandit and Skoll broke out into a clamorous fight, tumbling across the floor in a blur of darkness and bared teeth.

Don straightened, reset his twisted nose—crunch.

Then laughed like the psycho he was, thick blood oozing down his lips and chin. “There he is!” He advanced on him with a grin. “I was wondering when you’d finally show up.” He swung?—

Darien blocked the hit with his elbow, and he didn’t hesitate this time as he threw a straight punch?—

Don dodged the swing, fist swiping up.

Knuckles slammed into Darien’s chin, the force rattling his jaw and pinching his tongue between his teeth. Blood flooded his mouth, but he shook off the pain. Ducked and swung again?—

Donovan dipped to the side, throwing another punch of his own.

Darien evaded his fist in the knick of time, the puff of air on his cheek indicating how close he’d come to being hit. He acted quickly, landing two hits to the side of the head, a sharp kick to the gut?—

He blinked in disbelief as Don laughed.

As if this were ajoke.

The hits continued from both sides. No room to breathe.

“I hadn’t seen your sister in a while,” Don said between swings, blood dribbling down his chin. Darien blocked what he could of Don’s attacks with his forearms and elbows, but his uncle still managed to sneak through, every blow he landed bone-rattling. His form was good—too good. “She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she?”

Darien spat a gob of blood-tinged saliva on the floor. “We’re talking now?”

“One of my men is interested in her. Obsessed, actually.” He threw another right hook?—

Darien blocked it, the muscle in his forearm bunching in pain from the bruising hit.

The beast forever hunkering in his soul stood up and began to pace, agitated by the turn in conversation—by every hit that stoked the embers of his rage.

Don went on, “Once I’m done with her, I think I’ll let him have his fill.”

The beast paced faster, chewing on Darien’s skin from the inside.

“She can be his little whore until he grows tired of her. Your sister was always good at that, wasn’t she? Being a whore?—”

The beast broke off its leash. Shadow magic blasted out of Darien like a fired cannon, launching Donovan clear across the room.

He hit the wall and rebounded off it, landing on his feet in a crouch?—

Then rose in one fluid motion.

No longer was he smiling.

“I saidfists,”Don snapped, prowling forward like a lion. Wisps of black ballooned out of his shadow, shivering as they expanded…expanded…expanded.Crawling up the walls like billowing smoke.“Looks like I’m not the only one who doesn’t play fair. Let’s compare, shall we?”

Don lifted his hand, and before Darien could so much asthinkof blocking the attack, a blast of magic barrelled across the room?—