Page 127 of The Hunter

CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE

Christopher toppled over the rack of weapons against the wall in his ballroom. Picking up a weight, he hurled it through the window, the glass shattering in a spectacle of moonlit shards. A terror he’d not thought existed weakened his limbs, then the next moment his muscles would surge with strength and fury. His heart threatened to burn out of his chest. He felt feral and trapped and out of control.

Helpless.

He looked down at his hands, still red and sticky with Millie’s blood—no, no, not all her blood. A great deal of it was fake. A stage prop. He’d have known that if he’d been in his right mind. He’d had enough blood on his hands to recognize what was real and what wasn’t.

Christopher had pressed his palm to her side while the thick liquid overflowed his fingers as he’d tried to stanch the flow. He’d clutched her to him and chanted her name like a madman.

The medics had pried him away from her, and then the fucking surgery had been overflowing with wounded. He hadn’t caught the reason before he’d lost it.

A rage the likes of which he’d never before felt had engulfed him. He’d broken things, he’dalmostbroken people.

Then he’d remembered he and Blackwell knew of a surgeon, one of the best in the business, with a proclivity for gambling. Dorian had promised to forgive a fortune of debt if the doctor saved Millie’s life, so they’d brought her here, to Christopher’s home.

That had been an hour ago and the surgeon wouldn’t let anyone into the room. He had insisted that the more people present while he worked, the higher the rate of fatal infections.

It had still taken seven men to tear Christopher from her side.

So now he destroyed everything in his path. Because a helpless rage drove him to it. Picking up a staff, he broke it over a pommel. It wasn’t enough. Staggering over to the wrecked stand, he pulled it apart, embedding one of the metal legs into the wall, enjoying the splintering of the wood paneling.

“Argent.” Dorian slid into the room, emerging from out of the shadows.

Yanking on the leg, but unable to free it from the wall, Christopher kicked at the broken boards, shattering it beneath his boot, creating huge, fractured holes.

“Christopher,”Dorian said more sharply, surveying the carnage with his usual self-containment. “The doctor has finished, he’s ready to report.”

Christopher met Dorian’s eye and knew it was bad. He shook his head and held a hand up against whatever words were about to end his existence. “Not like this, Blackwell. I can’t lose her like this. I won’t survive this time.”

“I know.” Dorian rested a hand on Christopher’s shoulder. It was the first time the Blackheart of Ben More had ever touched him. “For those of us who’ve perpetrated so much death, the retaining of life seems even more elusive.”

“I don’t know what to do.” Argent’s neck could no longer hold the weight of his head, and he let it drop.

“Someone else has arrived,” Blackwell stated evenly. “Someone who needs you.”

Jakub.

A boy who could very well lose his mother. The thought drove Christopher forward, and he flew toward the French doors.

He found Jakub in the enormous, empty grand entry, small and clean in a long white nightshirt and a coat. The boy squirmed away from the rotund Mrs. Brimtree and ran to Christopher.

Braced for the child’s hysterics, Christopher reminded himself to be strong for the boy.

But young Jakub shocked him by stopping dead in front of his boots and blinking those gigantic eyes up at him, like he’d done that first night after Dorshaw’s attack. As always, it disarmed him completely.

“It’s going to be all right,” the boy said.

Christopher swallowed around a dry throat. “How do you know?” he asked hoarsely.

“Because you’re here.” The veneration in the child’s eyes broke his heart. “Everything always turns out well when you’re here.”

The doctor, Raymond Cromstock, was a middle-aged fellow with impressive jowls despite his lean frame. He descended the stairs with a carefully composed expression.

It was only after Jakub reached for his hand that Christopher realized it was still stained with blood. Fake and otherwise.

He tucked the boy against his leg, instead.

“The bullet went clean through,” Cromstock informed the assemblage. “And there is precious little damage to the organs, as far as I can tell. Her body didn’t react well to the shock, but as long as there is no infection or fever, it’s my opinion that Miss LeCour is out of danger.”