Page 41 of Monsters Carve Thrones (Crowned Monsters Duet #2)

“Could be arranged,” the tall one said with a grin. And then they lunged.

I screamed as they tackled me, shoving me to the cold floor. One pinned my wrists, and the other straddled my legs. I kicked, bucked, bit , trying to get free.

“You little–” he cursed as I nailed his nose with my forehead.

I twisted, writhing beneath them, panic and rage giving me strength I didn’t know I had. My hand found the knife at my waist. I didn’t hesitate. I slammed it into his side.

He howled. I twisted again, grabbing his gun. The second guard shouted, trying to stop me. But I fired. Once. Twice.

Blood sprayed the cold walls, and the weight on me suddenly went slack. With a heavy sob, I shoved him off and scrambled to my feet, heaving for breath, blood drenching my body.

I staggered into the hall, shouting, “Olesya! Get out! Now!”

She stumbled from the library, eyes wide in horror. She took one look at me and at the bodies and nodded, falling in beside me as we ran. Gunfire rattled from somewhere near the back of the house. I glanced toward Waylon’s office and, to my horror, realized that it was empty.

Shit. He was alive. And I had no idea where he was now. My breath sawed in and out of my chest. The walls were closing in. The front door loomed ahead. Light was bleeding through the bullets around the frame. Almost there.

“Come on, Olesya!” I yanked her hand as she tripped over a broken floor tile, her breath ragged beside mine. My own legs burned, my lungs clawing for air, blood soaking my clothes and dripping down my arm from God-knows-where.

Almost–

I threw the door open and slammed straight into a wall of blood and muscle. I stumbled back, a scream dying in my throat. My fingers twitched on the trigger, my body still locked in survival.

But I didn’t shoot.

My heart knew before my mind caught up. Those eyes. Those eyes.

Wild, furious. Glacial blue. Fixed on me.

“...Rafe?” I choked out his name, my voice cracked and brittle, like broken glass.

He didn’t speak. His chest was rising and falling in brutal, ragged bursts. His shirt was soaked with blood, spattered down his jaw and throat. His knuckles were red and split. His grip on the gun never loosened.

But his eyes, his fucking eyes, they scanned every inch of me like he couldn’t believe I was real. When he saw the bruises, the cuts, the way my body trembled just standing… something broke behind them.

His mouth opened. Closed. His jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle twitch. He looked like a man who had come through hell on his hands and knees, and now he was staring at the reason he did.

“Rafe?” I asked again, pleading this time. My voice was breaking.

My knees buckled beneath me.

He moved faster than gravity, closing the space between us in a heartbeat, and caught me in his arms before I could fall.

His gun was still gripped in one hand, but his other arm locked around me like steel, pulling me into him, his face burying into the crook of my neck like he’d never let me go again.

I collapsed against his chest, sobbing. Shaking. My hands clutched his shirt, clutching him . The only thing holding me together.

“Hey, little doe,” he rasped against my ear, his voice a gravel whisper. “Hey, baby.”

I could hear screaming behind us. Gunfire. Chaos. But it was muffled now, drowned beneath the sound of his heartbeat against mine. This glorious fucking heartbeat…

“Get her out of here!” someone yelled behind him.

“Laura?” I gasped and turned, my eyes finding her. She was rushing forward, covered in dust and blood, but alive. Alive. My best friend.

Another sob tore out of me.

Then everything snapped into focus.

I turned to her, still clinging to Rafe’s chest. “Get Olesya out now . Get her somewhere safe. Please.”

Laura nodded, no questions asked. She grabbed Olesya’s hand and ducked as bullets cracked outside.

Kieran and Nico were covering them, shooting from behind a stone column.

I watched as Laura dragged Olesya across the yard toward a black car parked at the edge of the estate, flinging the door open. Thank fuck .

“Go,” Rafe whispered, pulling back just enough to look at me. I shook my head, and his brow furrowed.

“No,” I said, voice low and cold. “I’m not done.”

“Adela…”

“I want to see the end of this. I want to fucking end it! ”

He froze, and I saw the war in his eyes. There was pain, rage, and the urge to protect me versus the fire that was roaring in my chest. He nodded once. Not in defeat, but in recognition. Because he knew me, and I wasn’t going to run again when I had the chance to kill the man who abused me.

Rafe stepped back just enough to watch me reload the stolen gun with trembling but determined hands. I looked back one more time, noting Laura buckling Olesya into the car, shielding her head as gunfire rang out again. The car peeled away down the gravel drive. She was safe.

I turned toward the ruined house. To the halls that held me captive and to the man who tried to break me. Whatever relief I felt had taken a backseat until they were all fucking dead. Rafe fell into step beside me, a monster forged in blood and vengeance.

Crack.

A sudden shot fired from the hallway to the right. Rafe jerked but didn’t fall. Didn’t even stagger. Blood bloomed across his shoulder like a red sunburst.

“Rafe!” I screamed, spinning toward the shooter. But he was already gone. Kieran or Nico must have gotten him. A body slumped behind the overturned table. I whipped back to Rafe. “You’ve been shot!”

He didn’t even glance at it. He just turned toward me, breathing hard, jaw clenched like steel. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not !”

“ Adela, ” he growled, low and wild, stepping closer. His voice speared through me. “I said I’m fine. We’re almost there.”

I stared at him, his shoulder bleeding, jaw bruised and covered with blood that wasn’t his, face shadowed with wrath and love and fire.

My knees almost gave out. Because he didn’t even flinch.

Not when I was still in danger. He was the devil I’d fallen in love with.

And in that moment, he was the most terrifying and beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“Okay,” I whispered. I gripped my gun tighter.

“Let’s finish this.” And side by side, we marched into hell one last time.

We tore through the house like a goddamn hurricane.

We were close. Rafe was unhinged, feral, and soaked in blood and silent fury.

I had never seen him like this. And God help anyone who tried to stop us now.

We turned the final corner, and there he was.

Waylon stood at the head of the long table in the office, smirking like he had been expecting us. He reached for his gun, but Rafe shot it out of his hand.

“Sit down,” Rafe snarled.

Waylon didn’t move fast enough.

Rafe lunged and slammed him into the chair so hard the wood cracked. He held the muzzle of the gun to his temple, hand trembling from rage, chest heaving. I saw the muscle twitch in Rafe’s jaw, the tremor in his trigger finger. He was seconds from blowing his head off.

“Don’t,” I said softly but full of venom.

Rafe stilled, seemingly struggling to hold it together.

I stepped forward, and my eyes met Waylon’s.

His lip curled. “So you brought your little dog after all.”

Rafe’s fist cracked across his face.

Waylon wheezed, blood spurting from his nose.

“I didn’t forget,” I said, stepping to the table. My voice shook, but I didn’t stop. “I didn’t forget the night you bent me over this desk and hit me with your belt. I didn’t forget your friends watching. Laughing .”

Rafe flinched, a low sound escaping him. His hand twitched on the gun again.

“You remember that, Waylon?” I asked. “That was the first night I stopped crying. Because I realized that you don’t feel shame. You don’t feel anything. ”

Waylon spat blood and sneered. “You think you scare me, baby?”

“No,” I said calmly. “I think I disgust you. Because I survived you. Because I never came around to enjoy what you did to me. No matter how hard you tried.” I smirked.

He growled, his eyes narrowing up at me, then to Rafe. “What did you do to Waleria? How did you escape?”

Rafe smiled, and it was horrifying. “You wanna know?”

Waylon blinked.

Rafe pulled out her phone, tapped the screen, and pressed the play button. The video showed Rafe talking to the camera, then Waleria chained and sobbing seconds before he ended her life. Her screams filled the room.

Waylon thrashed in the chair. “NO! What the fuck did you do?!”

Rafe shoved him back down with a growl. “She begged at the end, as you heard.”

Waylon was shaking now. His eyes darted around the room. His breathing turned shallow, wet with panic. The power he’d wielded for so long was gone, stripped bare in the presence of the two people he should’ve never touched. The people who walked through the flames of hell to drag him into it.

But I didn’t smile. I didn’t gloat. Instead, I stepped forward. Waylon looked up at me, disbelief in his blood-smeared face. His lips trembled, stained with red. “You raped me,” I said softly, evenly–so much calmer than I felt. “Night after night. You beat me. You starved me. You humiliated me.”

Rafe’s arm was still extended, gun aimed, trembling violently with the effort of holding back. His knuckles were bone white, teeth bared like an animal held on a fraying leash.

“You took,” I said. “And took. And took .”

Waylon flinched, but then the bastard laughed. He lifted his swollen face and turned it toward Rafe, bloody teeth flashing in a sneer. “She’s a fun little ride,” he croaked. “Tight, too.”

I didn’t have time to react. But Rafe did. He surged forward and slammed his fist into Waylon’s face with a sound like a gunshot. Bone cracked. Blood splattered the table, chair, and floor. Waylon gagged and choked.

Rafe hit him again.

And again .

The chair splintered beneath the weight of Rafe’s fury as he beat him into a sagging heap. Waylon cried out, trying to cover his face, even if it was useless. Rafe’s fists were merciless. There was blood on his hands, blood down his arms, blood dripping from his chin.

Rafe grabbed him by the collar, yanking his face up. “ Open your fucking eyes!”

I couldn’t help but flinch at the scream that tore out of his chest. It was so brutal that I would have been shocked to know his throat wasn’t bleeding.

Rafe slammed him back into the chair and stepped away, chest heaving, pupils blown wide with hate. He turned to me, shaking with rage. “Hold my gun, Adela,” he rasped.

I took it, nodding once. His icy eyes were dead. The man I knew no longer existed. And I supposed the woman he knew was long gone, too. Hopefully, we could find a way to navigate the world as these new characters.

Rafe cracked his neck and made Waylon regret everything he’d ever done. He didn’t use the gun. He used his fists, his elbows, his knees. He grabbed a broken chair leg and rammed it into Waylon’s gut. Cracked his head against the wall. Tore through him like a man possessed by Satan himself.

It was animalistic. Wrath in its purest form.

Waylon was barely conscious by the end. He slumped in the ruins of the chair, face a mess of blood and bone. One eye swollen shut. One arm bent wrong. He coughed and spat something dark onto the floor, twitching.

Rafe finally stumbled back, breathless, jaw clenched tight. Blood soaked through his shirt. “Your turn, little doe,” he whispered with a sadistic smile.

I stepped forward, gun in hand, steady.

Waylon blinked up at me, barely there anymore.

“I want to remember this,” I whispered. “You didn’t break me. You honed me into the very blade that would slit your fucking throat.”

He wheezed, half a laugh. I raised the gun, and his eyes widened in that final second.

And I pulled the trigger.

Waylon's head snapped back, blood painting the wall behind him. His body sagged, limp, lifeless. I stood over him, shoulders shaking.

Then I felt Rafe’s gentle hand on my back. “Good girl,” he said, voice rough. “You did it, baby.”