Page 136 of Ballad of Nightmares

“I’ll let Mills tell you that, boss.”

Millie was grunting about her wound when they reached her in the foyer, and she groaned at the bandage wrapped around her waist.

“Wait,” Sam said before she could secure it tighter. “Let’s see it,” he said with a gesture of his hands.

“I’m not unrolling this fucking thing—“

Shadows picked her up by her wrists and sat her on the foyer table before she could say another word, and they strapped her down. Millie raised an annoyed brow as Sam hovered over her, his eyes turning scarlet, and her lips pursed.

“This is bringing out all your overprotective male instincts,” she grunted. “And anger that I haven’t seen in years. You’re losing your shit.”

“Was there ever a time when you doubted me being an overprotective ass?” he asked as he loosened the bandage and lifted the corner.

“Never said that that,” she said, now staring at the ceiling. “I just wanted to make sure you knew it.”

Sam ignored her as he poured over her wound, looking for any glimpses of green through his scarlet vision. It was just as nasty and black as it had been that morning, and Sam didn’t like the look of it.

“She still isn’t healing,” he said to Rolfe.

Rolfe nodded and came to stand at his side. “I got out everything I could see, boss,” he said.

Sam turned back to the wound. He squinted, ignoring the putrid smell coming out of it, and bent lower.

A glimmer of what looked like green glitter caught his eye. “Roll, can you grab the tweezers?” he asked his friend.

Rolfe ran off, and Sam blinked the red out of his eyes, the normal world coming to life around him as he settled his hips against the table.

“You really don’t need to restrain me anymore,” she said.

“I thought you were enjoying it,” he replied.

Millie rolled her eyes. “Hard to enjoy something when your heart is breaking,” she grunted.

Sam turned back to her, a lump rising in his throat at the way Millie was staring at the ceiling. It’d been at least a century since he’d seen such a look on her face. He reached out and squeezed her thigh.

“I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you about her,” he said softly, and Millie swallowed whatever emotion laid in her eyes.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I should have listened to you.”

“I could still be wrong—“

Millie laughed. “Samarius Cain…wrong.” She shook her head. “I’ve been your Hand for centuries. Never once have you been wrong about anything, no matter how hard the truth was to swallow.”

Sam looked over her, noticing how she continued to avoid his gaze, and he hated himself for making her feel this way.

“Bring her to the castle,” he said. “We’ll talk. Maybe we can all figure this out together. If her friends are being used as you suspect…”

His voice trailed, and Millie finally looked at him. Sam grasped her hand.

“We’ll bring them home, too.”

“Here you go, boss,” Rolfe said as he came running from the kitchen, tweezers in his hand.

However, Sam didn’t look away from Millie, and he kissed her knuckles before turning his attention to Rolfe. The shadows tightened back around her torso, Sam’s eyes turning scarlet once more, and he bent over her to find the glitter again. He had to hold her wound open, grateful for the grip his shadows had over Millie as she began to squirm, though it wasn’t grunts of anxiety that left her.

It was pain-filled laughter.

Sam fixated on the glimmer in the cut, steadying his hand as he pressed the tweezers inside. And when he grabbed it, Millie jerked her hips off the table, crying out.