He grabbed the fucker’s hair and ripped him away from Nika.
Blood spilled down her neck and confusion glazed her eyes.
Tynan landed across the room, sprawled on the floor. He scrambled backward, sending stacks of books tumbling. “You don’t want to do this,” said the leech.
Oh, yes, he did. The need for violence was clawing at him, spurring him on, cheering louder with every step he took.
“Madoc, stop.” Nika’s voice was soft and weak, but the plea was still clear.
Madoc didn’t give a fuck. He was past caring. This bloodsucker had gone too far this time. Too fucking far.
He reached down and pulled Tynan up by his hair until his legs dangled over the ground.
Power flowed like icy water through Tynan’s voice. “Put me down.”
The compulsion to obey made Madoc grit his teeth in an effort to resist. He stood frozen in place. An itchy buzz filled his head, but it was a mere nuisance compared to the fury driving him now. His blood burned in his veins, pounding in his temples as the power within him seethed and boiled, looking for a means of escape.
It took several rapid beats of his heart before Madoc finally regained control of his body enough to speak. “So you can hurt her again? Not a fucking chance. No one will ever hurt her again.”
Madoc grabbed Tynan’s head in his hands and twisted until he heard bones break. Tynan’s body went limp and crumpled to the ground. The silvery light in his eyes winked out as he stared sightlessly at the ceiling.
Nika’s voice seemed loud in the deathly quiet of the room. “You killed him.”
Madoc turned to her. Blood stained the collar of her shirt. Her hand was pressed against the wound, but a slow trickle still leaked out. The look of horror on her face burned into Madoc’s brain, making his head pound. He’d never be able to get that image out of his mind.
She looked from Madoc to Tynan’s body and back again.
Madoc reached for her. She backed away. “I can’t believe you killed him.”
Neither could Madoc—at least, that one remaining sliver of the real him that was left. The rest of him roared in victory, thirsty for more blood and ready for the next fight. Bring on the world. He’d tear it in two with his bare hands if that was what it took to keep Nika safe.
He needed to stop her bleeding. He reached for her, but she shrank away, staring at him like she’d seen a monster.
Madoc let his hand fall and retreated toward the door. She’d just seen him kill a man who was supposed to be his ally—a man who was helping her find out the truth about her sister.
Tynan wasn’t going to be helping anyone ever again. Madoc had taken his life, and there wasn’t even enough of a soul left in him to feel sorry for what he’d done.
He had to get out of here. He had to get away from Nika before he hurt her, too.
Madoc raced out of the suite, bumping into Logan hard enough to knock the man into a wall. He didn’t stop. He started to run and kept running to the armory, where he found a clean blade that had never before been used in battle. He buckled it around his hips, got in his truck, and left Dabyr knowing he’d never again go back.
The sun was down and there were plenty of Synestryn within a few hours’ drive. All he had to do was find a group big enough to take him down.
Iain awoke from his semiconscious meditative state as soon as full dark had fallen. He did not allow himself the luxury of easing back into his pain the way he used to when he was younger. Better to dive in headfirst and get it over with.
Agony ripped through his body, making him grit his teeth to keep from crying out against it. After so many years of his carrying this burden around with him, it still startled him every night just how much pain one man could stand without dying.
Slowly, his breathing and pulse slowed and the sweat that had broken out across his naked body began to evaporate. As soon as he was settled back within the familiar confines of his endless torment, he rose from where he knelt, picked up his sword, and slid it back into its sheath.
The Gerai house where he’d chosen to spend the day was dark and quiet and near the cave he intended to clean out tonight. It took him only a few minutes to shower, dress, and grab a couple of apples from a bowl in the kitchen on his way out the door.
Out here in rural northern Missouri, it smelled like winter—cold and dead. His guess was that a storm was coming in soon, which meant it was time to get moving. He didn’t want to be on the roads if things turned bad. He wanted to be in that cave, slaying the Synestryn and the evil they had created.
Children. The Synestryn had begun creating offspring that had the faces of human children.
Bile rose up in Iain’s throat as the memories of last night’s hunt came back to him, unbidden. He didn’t know what to call the beast he’d slain, but it sure as hell hadn’t been human. No human child had six arms that ended in wicked claws dripping with poison. Based on the dead human woman he’d found with a distended belly, it was possible that some part of that abomination had been human, but not enough that he was going to let it claw his face off.
It might hurt to live—to keep going every day—but that didn’t mean he was going to die easily, as some of his brethren had done. He was not a quitter. He refused to end his life like some kind of coward. It didn’t matter whether his soul was dead. As long as he kept breathing, he’d keep fighting.
He’d promised he would.
His hand strayed to the locket worked into the hilt of his sword and the lock of flaming red hair that lay within it.
Serena.
She’d been gone a long time, but his promise to her still held power over him. It still gave him a reason to live, which was much more than many of his brothers had.
They’d never been able to have the life together they’d been meant to have, but he was grateful for the promise he’d made.