Page 33 of Silent Fire

With one vicious kick, the front door crashed inward, wood splintering under Diablo’s massive weight.

“Happy?” Tomas asked.

Diablo let out a dark laugh, gesturing for Tomas to enter. “Only when my pajarito blushes.”

Tomas felt the same way about his little flower’s smile. The reminder of how Brian had tried to snuff out such a beautiful soul caused Tomas’s fury to drill through him once more. Both beasts were straining at their cages as Tomas stepped inside, the Salvador enforcers flanking him.

Brian was quickly digging through a drawer on the end table, then whirled around, eyes going wide. The pistol in his hand swung up instinctively, but Tomas was already moving. Not this time. He crossed the distance in a blur, knocking the gun aside with a brutal backhand. Bones crunched beneath the force of the blow, but Tomas felt no satisfaction.

Not yet. Not until Brian lay dead at his feet.

Looming over the sniveling worm, Tomas inhaled the scent of Brian’s panic—sour sweat and bitter adrenaline. The man’s lips worked soundlessly, brown gaze darting between the three intruders. He was as tall as Tomas, thickly built, which would’ve made any strike he’d given Noel three times as painful.

“Wh-what do you want?” Brian finally gasped out with a shrill voice. “Money? I’ll give you anything, just don’t—”

“Don’t what?” Tomas tilted his head, letting the full force of his rage bleed into his expression. “Don’t abuse someone weaker? Don’t avenge the suffering you put my mate through?”

Brian flinched, shrinking back. “Your m-mate? What the fuck are you talking about, you sick freaks?”

“Noel.” Tomas dropped the word like a gavel of shifter justice. “The beautiful man whose life you tried to destroy.” He leaned closer, baring elongated canines. “You put a bullet in mi elegido.”

“And shot you in the back,” Diablo said from where he was leaning his shoulder into the wall, hands crossed in front of him. His gaze swung to Brian. “Disfrutaré viendo como la vida sangra de tus ojos.”

“Noel?” Brian rose from his crouched position, his laughter quiet but stretched with smug amusement. “That little bitch? He got exactly what was coming to him. That ungrateful whore belongs to me.”

Before he could process the movement, Tomas’s fist slammed into Brian’s face with a sickening crunch of cartilage. Blood sprayed in a wide arc as the bastard crumpled, wailing in agony.

“Every time I close my eyes, I see what you did. You think I’ll let that go?” Tomas snarled.

“I’m sorry.” Brian pinched his nose, trying to stem the bleeding.

Seeing the blood coating Brian’s mouth gave Tomas flashes of yanking Noel off the bed when Tomas realized he’d been shot. He’d paced the waiting room for hours, feeling like he was dying as Noel underwent surgery to repair the damage caused by Brian’s bullet.

Tomas’s breaths were uneven, hands twitching. “I don’t want an apology,” he said in a low voice. “I want to hear your last fucking breath.” He reached down and yanked Brian to his feet then pinned him with a forearm across his throat.

Leaning in, Tomas let his lycanthrope take control of his features until his face was no longer human. With a vicious snarl, he sank his claws in and tore out Brian’s black heart.

No one would ever threaten his little flower again. Noel was safe, untouchable, because Tomas would gladly wade through an ocean of viscera to keep him that way.

Dropping the useless organ to the floor, he turned and strode from the house without a backward glance.

In the distance, a dog barked. Sprinklers hissed to life in a mockery of the violence he’d just wrought. But Tomas felt no remorse, only a bone-deep sense of satisfaction.

His mate was finally free of his tormentor’s shadow.

No more running. No more fear.

Now, they could begin building the life they were meant to share.

THE END

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