Page 25 of The Goblin in the Sink Drain
Mercer, who had sidled away to join the sentinels during the chaos, trusting they would back him.
“I know, Peanut, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was just afraid of losing you. You’re my little girl. I only wanted to keep you safe. Please. Come back to the house, and we’ll talk.”
“You’re lucky you’re not dead, wolf.” Fayne staggered into view with Sloane—still in her wolf form—draped across her narrow shoulders in a show of incredible strength. “Touch that girl again, and you will be.”
The dragon—hard to think of it as Rían—used his flexible tail to lift Sloane and settle her across his back.
“I sacrificed everything to raise her.” He pounded a fist over his heart. “She’smine.”
“You don’t own her, just like you never owned her mother. You’re a petty, greedy fool who has cost the rarest of us their lives to quench your obsession with a woman who told youno. She didn’t want you, she never wanted you, and you punished her by killing her and her mate and stealing their child.”
Unable to breathe, to move, tothink, I was rooted in place, suspended in disbelief of her charges.
“Liesel would have grown to love me,” he spat at Fayne, my blood smearing his mouth. “She would?—”
“—have rather died alongside Deitrich, hermate, than ever allow your filthy paws to touch her.” Fayne’s upper lip peeled back over her teeth. “Her soul will know no rest until Ana is free of your clutches.”
Worse than the letters from a mother I never met, worse than believing she had divorced Dad and then left me behind, worse than any of the lies he told me was the truth he had kept hidden.
He killed my mother. She was flesh and blood, not ink and paper. And hekilledher.
“You look just like her,” he said softly, and it took a second to grasp he was talking to me. “Act like her too. She thought she was too good for me. Even after I became an alpha, for her—all of it for her—with lands and people to rival Deitrich, she refused to see I was the better choice.”
“Dad…” Fresh tears leaked from my eyes. “No.”
“Come on, darling.” Fayne used a scrap of leather, a belt she must have stolen off a sentinel, and made a tourniquet for my arm. “It’s time to take you home, where you belong.”
A blast of fire that blistered my skin held Dad back when he attempted to rush us.
“Take what is mine,” he bellowed, voice distorting, “and I will never stop coming for her, or you.”
“Then I will do what I should have done back then.” She lifted me in her arms, climbing Rían’s bent foreleg with ease, and settled me on my stomach across his back before sitting behind me. “I’ll kill you.”
Bands of gentle pressure locked me in place, holding me steady. I saw from her posture that Sloane had also been secured by whatever magic the Walshes wielded with such deft care.
Fayne leaned over me, untethered, and rechecked my tourniquet. “I’m so sorry, Ana.”
Yeah. I was hearing that a lot lately. Too bad it didn’t change anything.
Her warm fingers glided through my hair, soothing me, and my lids slid lower.
The last thing I saw before darkness claimed me was Rían sweeping his tail in an arc that knocked back our attackers, awarding him precious moments to launch his massive body into the sky.
eight
Heat engulfed my hand,warm enough to wake me, and I found myself in an unfamiliar bedroom.
Panic swamped me, my heart thumping hard, and I sucked in frantic gulps of oxygen.
“You’re safe,mo chuisle,” a low voice rumbled next to me. “I’ve got you.”
“Rían,” I gusted out, slumping against my pillows, but horror slammed into me in the next breath.“Sloane.”
“She’s okay.” He stroked his thumb over the back of my hand. “She’s with our healer, Burdock, and his last report mentioned she had woken up for a few minutes. Long enough to get some broth down her.”
“Thank God.” I dropped my face into my hands, wincing as my left arm screamed in pain. “Ouch.”
“You need to rest.” He took the wrist I could now see was bandaged from elbow to fingertips and set it on the mattress beside me. “Try not to move. Burdock has regenerated most of your arm, but it’s going to take a few more sessions before you’re back at one hundred percent. Even then, you lost so much of the muscle in your forearm, you’ll be weaker on that side without physical therapy.” His hand lingered in the air, but he didn’ttouch me again. “He was able to set your dislocated shoulder without issue, so other than residual tenderness, you’re good there.”
