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Chapter Thirty-Two

MALACHI

T he Place is shrouded in chaos as I tear through the front doors, Kasar and Ashe right behind me. Beneath my feet, the marbled floor trembles like it knows the weight of the storm brewing in my chest. Nightfall has draped the building in thick shadows, but my senses pulse with life, drawing my gaze indiscriminately across the flurry of guests being ushered toward the exits, a swarm of bodies caught in the brass and velvet of our grand opening.

“Perry!” I bark, following the faint scent of blood rising in the air as it floods through the silence—sharp and red, mingling with the aroma of terror and gourmet dishes. The staff is evacuating the guests, but not a single one of them is the face I want to see.

Perry meets me halfway, brow glistening with sweat, clipboard cradled against his chest. He’s focused, unrelenting, but even I can see the edges of panic splintering through his carefully composed facade. “Malachi,” he gasps, falling into step beside me, our urgency becoming a shared pulse. “I started evacuating the moment you hung up. The staff went through the back door. Should I call the police or?—”

“We’ll take care of it,” I snap, ripping my gaze from his as adrenaline flares and a familiar scent hits my senses.

Charlie.

“Where is he?” My voice is a growl, low and feral.

“Backstage with the dancers,” Perry urges, urgency licking the edges of his tone. “They said he just stormed back there. I don’t know if he?—”

But I’m already moving. I don’t give a damn about the staff’s fear or the patrons shuffling away. Nothing matters but my daughter.

My heartbeat thrums in my ears, drowning out the rising murmur of evacuations and the creaking wood floors beneath my boots. On the main floor, the last patrons are finally clearing out, but my eyes see through the chaos left behind, singling out every shred of threat. Each shadowy corner potentially holding a trap waiting for me to spring.

As I push deeper into the restaurant’s heart, the air thick with the familiar fragrances of jasmine and thyme, mixed with something metallic and wrong, I am cognizant of the descending weight of dread curling in my stomach. If Kit has dared to touch Charlie, to even come close to harming what I consider mine, I will make him pay in blood. Each silent promise coils behind my teeth, a restraint barely contained by practice and will.

Kasar and Ashe flanking me like a protective vice. My senses feed me their adrenaline, their readiness to engage as we pass the grand dining area dimmed with shadows, the remnants of the crowd washing away like discarded tide. Each step brings tension into focus, sharpening my instincts against the echoes of whispered panic that linger in the air.

“Kit!” I roar out the single syllable, ignoring the cries from those still crowding the front entry. “Where are you?”

The sound of my voice reverberates through the vast expanse of The Place, the perfectly designed acoustics amplifying my challenge. The remnants of tonight’s extravagant opening linger like a bittersweet aftertaste: champagne flutes abandoned on tables, half-eaten plates of food, cloth napkins crumpled like bruised silk across polished wood.

The stage looms up ahead, the programmed lighting effects still running. The curtain on the left ripples before Kit strides to center stage. He’s dragging a struggling Charlie.

The sight is a knife in the breastbone—my heart doesn’t just seize, it stops.

She’s not crying. She’s not screaming. She’s fighting back, and those wide eyes—bright with stubborn fire—lock on me the second I step into view.

“Mal!” she calls, voice clear and strong. She turns her gaze back to Kit, the pure confidence that only a child can have on her face. “You’re in deep shit now! I told you he was going to come and fuck you up.”

Kit’s arm tightens around her shoulders. He smiles. The wrong kind of smile. Everything in me goes still. I can’t even respond to Charlie’s coarse language.

“Let her go,” I say, my voice a stone dropped in the lake of noise. “Now.”

“Sorry, can’t do that,” Kit replies, calm as anything. “We’re having such a good time. Aren’t we, Charlie?”

She doesn’t answer him. Her eyes are still locked on me. Something defiant curls in the corner of her mouth. And then, with the perfect sarcasm only this fearless, goddamn daughter of Blake’s could have, she raises her little chin and announces to all of hell:

“Oh yeah. Being kidnapped by a crazy person is my favorite hobby.”

I grin.

She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t take back the words, even though Kit’s jaw ticks, his fingers twitch where they press into her collarbone.

Perfect. Brave. Mine. Just like her mother.

I force air into my lungs—slow and deep, the way a long-forgotten sergeant taught me when we were waiting for war. When you want to rip the world in half, you breathe. When rage starts to chew the edges of your vision, you breathe. And then, when the final breath leaves your mouth, you move like hell.

“Let her go,” I repeat, but this time, I let the growl drop down into my chest. Let it saturate with centuries of slaughter-cloaked silence. “While you still have the use of your legs.”

Kit’s smile stretches like something dying. “That’s funny,” he says. “You act like she’s yours.” His grip shifts, more possessive now. “She’s not. Neither is Blake. She told me herself. That night? The ‘relationship’ you so proudly strutted around with? It was pretend. A lie.”

Behind me, Ashe snarls. Kasar doesn’t make a sound, but the tremor in the air answers for him. Shadows thicken further near the back of the stage, where the lighting system flickers once, misfiring like even The Place wants this over with.

“She said she feels our bond too,” Kit continues, and now his voice is rolling, almost triumphant, wrapped in the kind of deranged joy that only delusion can afford. “Said she was scared and just needed more time to understand. She’s coming right now, you know. Told me she’d be here—to reject you. In front of everyone. Then you can see it up close when I mark her.” He laughs, light and awful. “Going to bite her pretty little neck right here on your stage. Make you watch.”

The air inside me dies, like breath turned to ice. For a half-second, I believe him. For one sharp, gut-punching heartbeat, I feel the fracture of something I thought I never wanted. That Blake isn’t mine, no matter what my jaded, scarred soul tells me. But then I remember her voice.

I remember the way she fits in my arms, so perfect like she was made for me. I remember the way she laid her hand over mine and said I want this when I told her I wanted to mark her. I remember the truth in her eyes when she whispered I think I’m in love with you. That was no performance.

If Blake said that, it was only to buy us time. To help keep our Charlie safe.

I step forward, boots knocking against the edge of the stage’s wood. Angled lights still pulse overhead with their automated choreography—casting harsh shadows down Kit’s face, making his grin twitch, ugly. My fangs pulse against my gums, half-extended. I let them.

“You get one chance, Kit,” I say, and the growl uncoils inside me, curling low and dangerous. “One chance to get your hands off my daughter before I rip them from your body.”

At the word daughter, Charlie chokes back some kind of sound. Not fear. Something else. Something disbelieving and brittle and maybe—just maybe—hopeful.

Kit barks a laugh, more animal than human. “She’s not yours, vampire.”

I take a step forward.

“She is,” I say. “She’s mine in every way that counts. And you?” I glance down at his hand where he grips her shoulder—small, pale fingers crushed beneath skin I am seconds from tearing apart. “You just crossed a line I’ll never let you walk away from.”

“You’re wrong.” The words are snapped like teeth. And then he’s moving.

Kit shoves Charlie down hard into the edge of the stage, showing he’s more angry than logical. She tumbles, arms up to shield her head, but she’s nimble—already rolling away, trying to scurry off the polished floor with wide, scared eyes fixed on me. My instincts flare so sharp I nearly shift forward—but I force myself to stay grounded.

She isn’t bleeding. She’s crawling away. I can get to her in seconds—but right now, I need to finish the goddamn monster behind her.

“Get her,” I growl, flicking my eyes toward Kasar.

He’s gone in a blur of black and shadow, the world bending around his body as he snatches Charlie in the space between heartbeats—and then they’re gone, vanishing into the curtains with a rush of wind and the rustle of velvet.

Kit releases a savage roar at the loss, the whites of his eyes showing as he lets his madness take him. He shifts.

Bones crack, skin splits—his entire frame gives way to the beast inside him with none of the decorum or control most shifters possess. Knotted fur bursts across his skin as his face contorts—nose elongating, jaws tearing through flesh. His scream becomes a snarl as his human form disappears with a wet crunch, and the wolf—massive, ash-gray, foaming at the mouth like something diseased—lands on all fours in front of me, claws scraping the polished wood like chalk on slate.

Like typical shifters, he’s larger than a standard wolf, but he isn’t the first one I’ve faced. My lip curls up, snarling in natural response to the predator in front of me.

“Keep the room clear,” I instruct Ashe, never taking my eyes off of the massive wolf in front of me.

He doesn’t reply, but his presence is gone. Which is good. I don’t want to risk anyone coming in only to end up as collateral damage. Because I’m not here to protect someone now.

I am here to end a threat.

Kit lunges.

It isn’t finesse. It isn’t practice. It’s an unhinged obsession. A full-bodied snarl, a leap propelled by fury and madness wrapped in too much muscle. Teeth wide. His form is blur-fast, but I’m already moving. I sidestep with a pivot, fluid and precise, violence honed down to ritual. My fist meets the side of his gray-furred muzzle as he passes, and the bone-deep crack that echoes across the room is fucking satisfying.

For half a second, Kit lands hard, stumbling. He shakes it off in a whirl of blood-sharp breath and claws scoring the floor beneath him. He recovers quickly. Good. I don’t want this over too soon.

I want him to suffer.

This time, I don’t wait for him to strike. I run.

Boots hammer against hardwood and stageboard alike, the wood trembling beneath the force of my stride. Somewhere in my peripheral vision, the velvet drape rips downward, where his claws had swiped too wide—an accidental tear, but symbolic nonetheless. The curtain’s falling, Kit.

I leap, twisting midair with a snap of twist and momentum. He meets me, jaws open, snarling, but my boot connects with his throat and we crash down together onto the stage before we roll off into the dining area. Chairs splinter around us, red velvet flying like entrails of indulgence torn free. Kit lands hard against the edge of one of the tables, teeth bared, claws flailing, snarling high and hoarse. There’s panic in the sound. Good.

Let him know, beneath that delirium, that this was never a fight he could win.

My knuckles are split already. I feel it without seeing it—warmth slicking down the inside of my thumb, wet and constant. Doesn’t matter. Pain doesn’t register when fury is the only thing singing in your veins.

Kit scrambles and launches again, his body blurring, pale gray fur streaked with shadows as he lunges at me like a rabid thing with no concept of death—only the need to conquer, to claim, to destroy.

I meet him eagerly.