Page 110 of While He Breathes

“I have to share you with the others. Max and Darius were losing their minds. I…like them, I guess.”

I chuckle. “You guess?”

He sighs. “I never thought I’d be okay with any other man being around you, but they’re good for you. And they’ll always be in your corner. I can’t take that away from you.”

I shake my head. “You’re overbearing, you know that, right?”

“Oh, I’m very fucking aware. And that’s not going to change anytime soon.”

“Good.”

We stay in each other’s arms for a few more minutes before Orion finally relents and carries me back into the living room, where Max and Darius are sitting at the dining table, and Killian sits beside a very skittish-looking Elsie.

Clearly, she didn’t feel like napping, and I don’t blame her. Not when all we had to do in those cells was sleep and be tormented by men who aren’t worth the air they breathe.

Orion sits down with me in his lap, not ready to be away from me, but I don’t comment on it. Not when this is exactly where I want to be.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

ORION

It’s two days before I can drag myself away from Ember long enough to visit my prisoners, but Killian keeps them occupied in that time.

After an initial round of questioning, Lucas broke and told him where they had been hiding the girls, and just the photos from those cells make me murderous.

Ember has opened up a little about what she went through in the days she was away from me, but she’s going to speak to her therapist about the rest. It’s probably better that way.

As much as I want to know every little thing about my girl, I’m already protective enough without adding new layers to it.

Killian greets me at the door to the warehouse we keep exclusively for dirty work. There’s a cellar in the basement that makes for a perfect torture chamber, and there’s a thrill that rolls over me the closer I get.

I don’t do much of this myself anymore, usually leaving it to Killian, but this is personal.

This is about my Little Flame, and therefore I can’t hand it off to anyone else, not even him.

We take the stairs down into the basement, and I shuck my suit jacket as he unlocks the door and pushes it open, presenting my victims to me.

Lucas and Cain hang from chains on the ceiling, their toes dragging along the concrete floor, not dissimilar to what they forced Ember and Elsie to sleep on.

Both men have been stripped down to their underwear, which are soiled and disgusting. It’s part of the torture, though. What’s more dehumanizing than making a man shit himself?

Their bodies are covered in their own blood and bruises, but it’s nothing compared to how they’ll leave, and a fresh wave of thrill shoots through my bones.

“Ah, gentleman, thank you for your patience,” I say as I drape my jacket over the back of a chair in the corner.

I tug my mask from my pocket and hold it up, showing them the definitive proof that I am, in fact, the Hunter before tossing it onto the chair as well.

“Fuck you,” Lucas snaps, spitting at my feet.

I shake my head and sigh. “You really shouldn’t be wasting saliva. Who knows when we’ll give you water, and your throat is going to get so dry when you scream for me.”

“I’m not scared of you and your bullshit threats.”

I chuckle. Oh, how I love this part. Even though he knows my history, he likely doesn’t know the extent of it, and I look forward to telling him every gory detail.

“Do you know how I got my name, Lucas?” I pause for dramatic effect more than a response. “It all started when I was a kid on the streets. You know the kind, shitty parents who were addicted to hard drugs and couldn’t feed their kid. Foster parents who just wanted the check. A whole sad story of a poor scrawny kid that never knew love.”

I sigh dramatically, ignoring Killian as he scoffs behind me. None of what I’m saying is a lie, and it’s not far from the lifehe lived before I found him. The funny part is how little we talk about those times in our lives, and here I am reminiscing, like it’s a fond memory. I’d be laughing if I were him as well.