Page 129 of Captive Souls

I blinked at the line delivered so flawlessly that it sent cold terror clutching my throat like a vice. But I’d just killed someone. I was in love with an arguably scarier killer. I wasn’t so easily afraid those days.

"Dude, someone needs to write a movie about you or something,” I wiped some blood from my cheek. “You’re like John Wick, but you killed yourown puppy.”

Lukyan looked at me like I had grown another head, not my question with an answer as he turned down the hall, not looking back to see if I followed.

Which I did.

I was not blindly deluding myself into the wholefemme fatalething. It was mostly dumb luck that had me accomplishing my goal, that and a whole lot of feminine rage. But that would only get me so far. And I wasn’t so much of a feminist that I wouldn’t hand the reins over to a very capable, ruthless hitman willing to do the rest of the work.

So through the horrifying maze of bodies in his wake, I followed him.

We made it out of Stone’s place alive.

Not alone either.

I’d been surprised and delighted to meet up with Elizabeth in the foyer. She was holding a gun and had bodies of her own at her feet. Clad sensibly in black, no summery sundress to be found, her hair pulled off her face, making her look sharper, more severe. A predator. That was afemme fatale.

Feminine rage honed, sharpened and fashioned into a weapon.

Lukyan didn’t hesitate to abandon me, walking over to his wife, capturing her in his arms and murmuring something in her ear She replied too low for me to hear.

They were a sight, the two of them, armed and beautiful, entwined in the foyer of a grand mansion surrounded by bodies…

They brought a new meaning to the term ‘power couple.’

Melancholy slammed painfully into me at the sight of them, yearning for Knox while also understanding this was not my new identity, clad in designer clothing, covered in blood. I would never be his equal.

If he even still wanted me.

With a desert in my throat and an emptiness in my heart, I’d followed Lukyan and Elizabeth to the waiting SUV. Elizabeth surveyed me with a pride that felt sacred. She didn’t say anything, but I somehow felt we’d been connected for life.

Not exactly girlfriends or even kindred spirits, but women who loved men on the fringes of society.

I didn’t even ask where we were going. I’d guessed back to the city, hopefully to Knox. But we pulled off onto a long driveway toward a small, nondescript house.

A ‘safe house’ Lukyan had explained. And then they’d told me Knox was on his way, and we were to wait there for him. Elizabeth had presented me with a small bag—a change of clothes and toiletries—then Lukyan showed me to the back of the small house to a bedroom with an adjoining shower.

His sheer energy was overwhelming as he lingered in the room, taking over it with his presence. I’d expected him to leave as soon as possible, since he did not seem overly fond of me.

“You’ve still got a choice,” he said instead of going anywhere. As always, his voice was low. Harsh.

I glanced up at him after eyeing myself in the mirror for a long time. I barely recognized myself.

“You’ve done things, seen things that are everyday events for people like me, Knox,” his gaze skirted to the hallway. “My wife. But you are not stuck on this path. Not yet at least. You can still go back.”

I stared at him, shocked at what he was saying. It felt like mercy, like he was offering empathy. A kind word from a killer. An opportunity to go back to a life that felt as if it were on another planet.

“It will be a variation of this.” He motioned to my blood-soaked body. “Not every day. Not all the time. But you won’t escape it. He cannot escape it. His world. You still have the chance.”

Did I want to go back to my life before Knox? After seeing the horrors that human beings were capable of? The very real world operating beneath the surface? There was none of the romance popular culture injected into it. It was dangerous and vile and terrifying.

“Why are you saying this?” I asked Lukyan.

His eyes once again went to the hallway. “Because I often wish someone had said it to my wife.”

I stared back at him, the tortured villain, pain clear in his words if not in his face. The sheer magnitude of love he felt for his voice was overwhelming.

“If they had, she wouldn’t have taken it. Not for the world,” I told him.

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