Page 105 of Caging Darling

“Is that why you’re doing this?” asks Vulcan, glancing between me and Astor. “Because you developed an affinity for your pet and now you don’t like that your employer is forcing you to let her go?”

Astor’s jaw ticks.

“Don’t worry. I’m familiar with your vice, as it is my own,” says Vulcan.

“I very much doubt that,” says Astor, but Vulcan seems altogether unfazed. “The money,” he says, holding his hand out.

Astor takes it from his jacket pocket and hands it to him.

“And the location,” says Vulcan.

“When we’re walking free of your manor, you’ll have it. I assure you,” says Astor.

“Clever,” says Vulcan. “I’ll see you come morning then.”

Astor actually raises a brow, blinking once, but rapidly enough to give away his confusion.

Vulcan’s smile cuts through my soul, and he’s not even looking at me. “You didn’t think I was going to hand her back over without taking a bite first, now did you?” He takes me by the arm, spinning me around to face the vanishing door while at the same time summoning another muse with a flick of his wrist. “Venus, take the newest muse to my chambers, won’t you, love? I’ll be with you shortly,” he adds with a whisper in my ear.

Panic suffuses my veins. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. The Nomad’s location was supposed to be enough, and it is.

But we’d underestimated Vulcan’s desire for me. His need to flex his power over Astor for daring to challenge him.

I turn over my shoulder for just one glimpse of Astor. I’m not thinking as I do it, and the look I toss at him—I’m not sure if it conveysI’ll be okay for a night, orPlease. Please, not again.

Whatever it looks like, it seems to pierce Astor straight through the ribs. His countenance is stricken, his chest looking as if it’s about to cave in with the force with which he exhales.

I can’t bear to look at him. Can’t bear to feel his pain on top of mine. Not when I need more than anything to remember that he’s the one who betrayed me. Cast me aside. So I let Venus take me by the arm, and with the room slowing around me, I turn toward the vanishing door.

Not again, not again, not again.

The men in the parlor. Vulcan in the cab of the carriage. Peter.

Peter. Peter. Peter.

So many times.

The black corner in the back of my mind is waiting for me, arms open.

“Wendy.”

It’s the captain’s voice, and it has me abandoning all pretense. I whip around to face him, arm still interlocked with Venus’s at the elbow.

He so rarely calls me by my given name.

“Nothing bad,” he says again, and it’s with the most sincere smile I’ve ever seen. Faint. Barely at the edges of his mouth.

It’s the type of reassuring I imagine a father is supposed to be, and in that flash of an instant, the vision assaults me. Astor comforting a trembling child with just the flick of the sides ofhis mouth. The promise he rarely makes because he knows he’ll keep it.

Astor lunges for Vulcan’s shoulder first.

His blade, drawn and gleaming from his scabbard, comes down just above the man’s clavicle, cleaving sinew from bone. Blood gushes from Vulcan’s shoulder, spilling over his silk jacket and dribbling down his coat onto the ornate rug.

There’s a look of shock on Vulcan’s face. Like even with all the enemies he’s made, all the women he’s abused, he’s never been struck before. Not once in his life.

Venus screams, yanking me across the room with her, trying to get to the vanishing door. I twist, still being dragged by the muse, and watch the horror unfold.

Astor removes his blade with a sickening squelch, then goes for Vulcan’s neck. This time, Vulcan’s guard is ready. Metal clangs with its twin as swords collide, saving Vulcan from the fatal blow, though I’m unsure his original wound isn’t.

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