Page 2

I need a man who'll buy me a house, too.

I swallowed the knot in my throat and croaked, "The house isn't mine."

"Oh, it is," she disagreed, a furrow in her wrinkled brow. "He put it in your name, didn't you know?"

My breathing cut out, heat gathering in my face and burning my eyes.

"Oh, shit, I've said something wrong," she breathed. "If that man's hurt you, you just tell me and I'll go and lamp him."

I blinked. Appreciated the sentiment, and added the new wording to my vocabulary.

"He's dead," I told her, and took the key from Emlyn, throwing open the door.

I didn't look back to see the woman's reaction to Wynvail's death; I threw the key on the table in the hall and took the steps upstairs two at a time.

The living room was still a mess; through the open door, I saw the artwork and photo frames lying on the floor, the takeaway containers spilled across the rug where Cronus’s pit of darkness had knocked them off. I glanced quickly away, memories assaulting me. I’d lost the dagger he gave me during the fall into the Labyrinth.

My body ached all over, and my ass was still throbbing from getting fucked hours ago, but I pushed myself to my limit, clinging to whatever strength I had left. I didn’t stop until I found his room.

His scent wrapped around me like a chokehold, and the tears burning my eyes finally overflowed. Gods. I started to shake.

Beautiful and tough, exactly like he described you. You're lucky, having a man like that.

The first tears fell as I kicked off my boots, and I curled up on Wynvail's bed, letting grief swallow me whole.

CHAPTER2

Islept as long as my body would let me, refusing to move from the bed even when the sun set and rose again. I didn't bother to eat or shower. I snarled when Emlyn tried to wash me with a warm cloth. I was covered in Wynvail's blood; it was all I had left of him.

His blood, this house, and the dagger—the dagger he bloodied himself breaking a shop window to give to me. The dagger I'd traded away like it was nothing.

I buried my face in the pillow when a new wave of keening cries hit, my stomach cramping as pain squeezed my whole body. I'd been sick so many times that my mates had put a bucket next to my bed. I threw myself over the edge now and vomited bile, the gross stuff burning my throat until I tasted blood.

When the nausea passed, I spat the awful taste out of my mouth and rolled onto my back with a pitiful moan. I hadn't felt this sick since Kai and I challenged a massive, green demon to a drinking contest back in Vhadell.

I wanted to go back to that time, when the only thing I had to worry about was where money was coming from this month and if Em would be mad that we scuffed up the kitchen floor on the way in.

But that wasn't true. We'd been terrified, practically every second, that Cassander Locke and his mercs would find us. That hishunterwould find us. Wynvail. All that time he'd chased us across Hell, and I thought he was trying to kill us. Instead, he was following orders. But Locke's or Cronus's? I didn't know if there was a difference, didn't know where Locke's vileness ended and Cronus's began.

I jerked upright when the door creaked open, irrationally thinking it was Cronus prowling towards me. Even if I didn't know what he looked like, I'd built an image in my mind—a smug, oily smile, cruel eyes, an inhuman face and … I was picturing Cassander Locke. Fuck.

I rubbed my face when I saw it was Wane padding across the threshold, something hesitant and brittle in his expression and a tray in his hands.

"I can't eat," I told him, my voice croaky and raw. It hurt to talk.

"I can't either," he replied, a sad smile curving his scarred cheeks. There had been softness in that face before, but now there was only hardness and a deep, carved pain.

I scrubbed my face harder and shifted aside to make room for him.

"I'm sorry," I rasped, my throat burned raw, "I've been so focused on my pain that I forgot about yours."

"I'm fine," he replied, setting the tray down beside me and sinking onto the bed with a groan.

"Try that again without lying," I said, faking a smile.

"I'm free," Wane said after a too-long pause. "That's more than I ever hoped for."

I shuffled closer, casting a disinterested eye at the sandwich and muffin on the tray. "You should have known I'd come for you."