Page 84 of Inked & Bloodbound

Hold on. Please hold on. I’m coming. Amore, I’m coming.

When I reach my car, I breathe a sigh of relief and duck down beside it to avoid a couple of patrolling vamps. It won’t be long until they discover that Megan is missing, and I intend to be far away when that happens. I place her in the front seat and pull the buckle across her bony chest.

Her eyelids flutter open, and she blinks slowly as she struggles to identify me. Unsure if I’m a friend or foe. The dark, hollow space inside her calls out for a modicum of warmth and kindness. I reach inside her mind and flood her with benevolence. As much as I can give her.

“Where are we going?” she rasps. “Please don’t take me back. I can’t go back. Please…just kill me… I can’t go back.”

“I’m taking you home.”

Beau is waitingfor me on the porch of the safe house when I pull up, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. When he sees me carrying his daughter, his face crumples.

“Is she—” he starts, but his voice breaks.

“She’s alive,” I say, even though the word feels wrong. “But she needs a hospital.”

She’s alive, yes, but there’s no life in her. She’s a shell in the truest sense of the word. An empty husk, broken by months of torture and abuse. Beau may have his daughter back physically, but she will never be the same again.

I lay her on the porch swing, and Beau drops to his knees beside her. His hands hover over her weary body like he’s afraid touching her might make her disappear. Then he puts his head in his hands and sobs. Huge, loud, wet cries that cause his chest to heave and the air to thin around him.

With hesitation, I do something I’ve never done before. I lay my hand on his shoulder, and I comfort him. He doesn’t reject it. He just takes Megan’s hand between his and kisses it, smearing his tear-soaked lips on her bony fingers. When I look at them, all I can think about is the woman I left behind.

Lily, hold on. I’m coming.

Megan stirs, and with huge effort, drags her head to find the source of the noise. When she sees her father kneeling at her side—the unshakable former cop who loved her from the moment she was born and never gave up hope, sitting and blubbering uncontrollably—she smiles.

“Hi, Daddy.”

My work here is done. I squeeze Beau’s shoulder and turn to leave. I have to go, have to get back to Lily. Have to protect her from this darkness. At least now I have the strength to do it.

There’s already something happening in my body. Something magical lifting and restoring the strength to my bones. It’s small, but it feels like an imperceptible tingling in my fingertips. A tiny electrical current pulsing through me and growing stronger with eachmoment. I roll up my sleeve and hold my arm up to the porch light. The blackened vein is fading, slowly, retreating like a beaten army.

At last.

Beau stands up, wipes his tears with the back of his hand, and clears his throat. “We’re done here. The contract is fulfilled.”

Instantly, my whole body lightens. The tingling in my hands spreads outward—my muscles remembering their strength, my reflexes sharpening to predatory precision.

Beau wipes his hand on the back of his pants and holds it out to me, and I take it, shaking his wet fingers between mine.

“It’s done,” I say.

He jerks his hand back and pulls me into an awkward bear hug, wrapping his arms around me and slapping me on my back like he’s trying to break me in half. The affection doesn’t come easily to him, or me, so we hold a stiff embrace for a second before breaking apart.

“How was it? What did they?—”

“It’s better that you don’t know,” I say. “Not tonight, at least. You should focus on getting her well. Keep this moment a happy one.”

“Thank you,” he rumbles. “I mean it.”

I nod. “I know.”

A jolt of electricity passes between us, landing somewhere in my core, and I take a deep, grounding breath. This is what I’ve been missing. This is what I need to save Lily from the dark underworld she didn’t ask to be a part of. This is what I need to keep her safe from my family. The full force of my hundreds of years of strength, no longer restrained by the bloodbinding.

On the walk back to my car, I pick up a rock and crush it to dust with my bare hands and smile to myself. The powder falls through my fingers like sand, and I think about how easily I could do the same to bone.

For the first time in months, I feel dangerous.

And I’m about to unleash hell for the woman I love.