“This is my guitar you motherfucker!” he shrieked. “You stole it from me when I was busking in town last summer! It’s my whole life you piece of shit!”
“Oh.” I’d almost forgotten about that. A laugh burst from my lips. This shit was funny. Like some kind of cosmic irony. “You can go then,” I said, waving him away with my bat.
“Really?” he gasped, not waiting for my response as he darted for the door.
I let him get four steps before I chased him, swinging the bat with all my strength so that it slammed into the middle of the guitar, shattering the thing into a thousand shards of wood and wire.
The busker screamed like I’d just butchered his wife or something and I laughed as I hefted the bat again.
“You want it to be your skull next?” I taunted.
The busker’s eyes widened and he shook his head as he backed away from me, his features painted with terror.
“Then get the fuck out of my house! And don’t ever let me see your sorry face again or hear your piss poor attempt at singing either!”
He bolted like there was a rocket jammed up his ass and I laughed as I turned back to the room.
“Kyan!” Blake bellowed and that warning coupled with my instincts helped me dodge aside just as a hammer swung straight for my head.
I threw the bat up between me and the asshole who’d just tried to kill me and as the two weapons collided, it was ripped from my hands and spun away across the flagstones into some dark corner.
My hand closed around the asshole’s throat before he could get another swing in and I threw my arm up to deflect the next blow before it could brain me.
Pain splintered through my forearm as the wooden handle of the hammer collided with it and I roared a challenge as I slammed the motherfucker back against the closest wall.
His head hit the bricks so hard that the strength left his limbs and the hammer fell beside us with a dull thump.
The guy’s hands locked around my wrist as he tried to rip my hand off of his throat and he was damn strong. But I was stronger and as my fingers cut off his oxygen and his eyes widened in panic, I knew he knew it to.
I held his life in my grasp and my pulse thrummed hungrily as I watched his fear spike to panic and finally begin to dull.
The sound of a gunshot snapped me out of the moment and I dropped the asshole just before he managed to blackout, whirling back towards the room and finding Blake standing over the safe with Tatum’s gun in hand as he aimed it at the closest looter to him. There was a shiny new bullet hole in the brick wall beside the stained glass window.
“You’ve got thirty fucking seconds to leave our stuff behind and get the fuck out of here or the next one goes straight in someone’s skull,” he snarled and that flat, black look in his eyes told me he meant that with every fibre of his being.
In less than a heartbeat, every fucker in the room dropped their shit and ran. The guy I’d almost choked out tried to grab his hammer but I stepped on it before he could, snarling at him as he glanced up at me for a moment and then ran for it. I wondered if he’d seen his death in my eyes when I’d been choking him. I wondered if he knew just as surely as I did that he owed his ongoing survival to my mercy. Because there was something about being the owner of that power which had me lighting up from the inside out.
I whirled around to check that the rest of the fuckers were gone and spotted Saint covered in blood splatter as he continued to beat the living shit out of the guy beneath him.
I strode across the room and grabbed his shoulders, forcibly tearing him off of the thief who was still clutching a single roll of toilet paper in his hand like it had all been worth it if he could just keep that.
Saint damn near swung at me and Blake leapt on him to hold him back as I looked down to see if the guy he’d been pounding on was still breathing or not.
He groaned but didn’t seem capable of walking so I grabbed him beneath the arms and hauled him across the flagstones to the door. I tossed him out onto the path beyond The Temple doors and reached down to snatch the roll of bloody toilet paper from his fist.
He whimpered like that was the worst thing to have happened to him in all of this and I ripped a single square from the roll before dropping it on his chest.
“Clean your bloody face up and fuck off,” I snarled. “If you’re still out here when I come back, I’ll toss you in the lake to drown.”
I slammed the door between us and locked it before I turned back to the destruction of our home.
Saint’s lips parted on what was bound to be a tirade which would last into next week, but before he could start it, a scream echoed up to us from the open door which led down to the crypt and we all froze.
“Was that-” Blake began but Tatum screamed again and something cold and sharp slid deep inside my chest, threatening to gut me more surely than any knife.
We all raced for the door at the same time but I got there first, taking the stairs three at a time before landing in the gym and spotting the gate which led down to the catacombs standing wide open.
“If someone followed her down there to hurt her, I’ll rip their organs out and force feed them to them,” Saint hissed behind me, but I didn’t respond.
My own rage had no words. It had no voice and no time for thought.
It was deep and pure and endless.
Tatum Rivers belonged to me and I had no intention of that ever changing. She’d wormed her way beneath my skin and I’d given my word to protect her as my own.
There were no words which could describe the depths of my anger, but as Blake began cursing behind me as we ran, he got as close to voicing them as possible.
We dove into the dark without any need to discuss it. Because it wasn’t a choice we had to make.
Tatum had agreed to belong to us, but perhaps she hadn’t realised the depth of that promise as she’d made it. She’d bound herself to three monsters and we were bound to her just as surely in return.
We might own her, but she owned us too.
And a woman capable of wielding three demons was something to be feared. Especially by any creature who might hurt her. Because if we found her with a single hair on her head out of place, we’d do far more than rain down hell on the perpetrator. That would be a mercy by comparison.
Strong hands grabbed me from behind, one slithering up my bare stomach and making it to my breasts. I threw my elbow back with a shriek of defiance and Merl lost his grip on me with a curse. I darted forward once more, the only light around me the one he was using on his phone to find me. It was a blessing and a curse. Because so long as I could see, so could he.
I raced past tomb after tomb, the scent of death everywhere as dust rose into the back of my throat and made me wanna hurl. The hilt of the knife dug into my hand so hard it hurt.
Just keep going.
Run as fast as you fucking can.
My foot caught on a step and I lurched forward as the ground beneath my feet climbed, my fingers grazing the concrete for half a second before I managed to keep going. Sweat dripped down my spine. The air was frozen but my skin was on fire.
The tunnel suddenly split ahead of me and I wheeled to the left at random, immediately crashing into a wall. I screamed as he grabbed me, turning in his arms and throwing fists, scratching, clawing. I slashed the knife at his arm, but he caught my wrist and slammed it back against the cold stone, making my heart lurch in fear. His phone was wedged in his jeans’ pocket, the flashlight sticking out the top so it glared at me.