Page 70 of The Madness Within

“You raped a girl and walked free because your father knows a senator,” I growled, my voice rough and low. “You smiled while she cried in court.”

He gurgled.

“I smiled while I won your case,” I snarled. “But this is the part where justice stops pretending to wear a robe.”

I slammed him into the wall. Hard. Once. Twice. His skull cracked on impact. When he slumped, dazed, bloodied, I dropped him at Ember’s feet.

She didn’t move. Just stared at the mess of him, breathing hard, her eyes wide, not afraid of me. But afraid of what she nowknewwas real.

I finally turned to face her, the scent of blood thick in the air.

“You think this world will be kind if you run,” I said softly, stepping closer. “But it won’t. The people out there, the ones like him, they don’t stop. They hunt. They ruin. And the only thing that keeps them from your door… is me.”

She swallowed hard, her voice a fragile whisper. “I’m not like you.”

“You’re not,” I said gently. “That’s why I’ll never stop protecting you.”

I reached for her hand, not to pull or demand, but to offer. She didn’t flinch. She let me take it.

“You said you’d let me leave,” she murmured, not quite a question.

I nodded. “I will. I meant it.” Then, lower, only for her, “But I’ll follow you. Not to chase. To make sure no one else does.”

Her eyes flickered, glassy and unsure. And I stepped in closer.

“I don’t want to cage you, Ember.” I lifted her hand to my lips, kissing her knuckles softly, reverently. “I want you to choose to stay.”

Her breath shuddered.

Behind us, Lyle groaned, barely conscious.

I didn’t even glance at him.

“You’re safe with me,” I whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. “But safety comes with a cost.”

“What kind of cost?” she breathed.

“Trust,” I murmured. “And a little bit of faith that the monster beside you is better than the ones outside.”

She looked up at me, trembling. Torn.

But she didn’t pull away.

And in that moment, I knew I still had hope.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

??Blood of my Blood

Dorian

She watched me kill him.

Watched as I gripped Lyle Vesterbute by the throat, my claws splitting through skin like wet parchment, his body thrashing as I lifted him high into the air.

Watched as the shadows poured from my veins and wrapped around him like sentient chains, dragging him down to the ground as I whispered the old tongue, the one that summoned damnation.

His screams echoed through the warehouse, shrill and pathetic, but Ember didn’t flinch.

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