Page 50 of Shattered Stars
It wasn’t the night everybody was expecting but I bet it will go down in folk legend anyway, everybody talking about it for weeks to come. Only I won’t be here for those conversations. My gaze falls to my lap. I close my eyes,
I can hear the whistle of her breath behind me, loud above everyone else’s. I can smell her sweet scent. Shit, I can feel the heat and the magic radiating from her little body.
The beast scrabbles inside me, scraping and snapping, desperate to break free. Desperate to claim her.
I focus all my attention on resisting him again, grinding my teeth, screwing up my eyes tight.
“Sir?” I open my eyes, the world swoops in and out of focus. “We’re here.”
“Th-thanks,” I stutter, aware the others are already climbing out of the car.
I do the same, finding my legs unstable, feeling my bones start to crunch.
“Not now,” I growl to myself, picking up my feet and sprinting as hard as I can through the academy, ignoring all the cheers and shouts as I pass the other students. In my room, I slam the door behind me and fall to my knees. My body jerks and jolts as I fight it, as I fight him with everything I have. I reach my bedside and grasp for the bottle of my mother’s pills. I snap off the lid, half the pills tumbling to the floor as my arm shakes. Somehow I manage to tip the remaining ones down my throat. I don’t know how many. I don’t care.
He keeps fighting me and I slide to the ground, my body twitching and flinching until finally, finally it all dies away and I’m left there panting, staring down at the floor.
I am just as much of a danger to her as that psychopath, Renzo Barone. Fuck, maybe even more so.
I’ve made the right decision. I’m sure of that now. I have to go.
16
Renzo
I standin the crowd of deranged people, bumbling about like lemmings. Tripping and bumping into one another. Pushing and pulling at each other.
I yawn and scratch my head, scanning the crowd for my little rabbit. Where did the little thing scurry away to now?
I felt her the moment I walked into the ring – nearly fucking stopped me in my tracks. What is my little rabbit doing in a place like this? Didn’t she learn her lesson last time? This place isn’t safe for the likes of her. I may be the one tasked with hunting her down, but there’s a price on her head and there are plenty of other fuckers who’d swoop in and do the job for me if it meant landing all that damn money.
But then I’d been sucked into the ring to face the wolf. His name is fucking laughable. It’s even more fucking laughable how blind people can be. Wolf by name, wolf by nature. Can’t they see it?
They didn’t tell me it would be him I was fighting. I just got the call and a chance to visit the city – an excuse to be here,nearer to her – was fucking irresistible. Plus who doesn’t love a fight? Not me. It’s always been my most fun thing to do. Always has been. Ever since I could stand on my own two feet and swing my fists. It’s how the Wolves of Night found me – fighting in the back alleys, making money to survive. And I still love it, even now – even if the fuckers here stop me from killing my opponent half the time. I mean, what’s the fucking point in that?
Where is she? I caught a flickering sight of her standing there in the crowd, a haze of magic spinning around her. Her eyes had been all wide and scared. But what the hell was frightening her? Me? The thing in my gut spins. I like that I terrify her. It makes me hard. I also don’t like it. I want to talk to her again. I want to touch her. And the little rabbit will bolt away if she’s scared.
Then again maybe it wasn’t me she was scared of. Maybe she realized just how fucking stupid it was to come here tonight.
I huff out air. Blue lights spin through the Warehouse and cops yell instructions out in the distance. They’ll be here any minute. Bet they’d love to get their hands on me. I crack my knuckles. The fight ended too soon tonight, before it even started. But maybe there’s still time to have some fun.
I shake my head. No! No time for fun, Renzo. The girl. There was at least one man here tonight, watching the fight, who would kill her if he caught her. One of Lowsky’s footmen.
I spin the rings on my fingers. Perhaps there’s fun to be had after all. Of course, Lowsky will be pissed – he doesn’t like it when I kill one of his toys – but I could make it look like an accident. He’d never have to know it was me.
I crash through the remaining stragglers, out into the cold night, the mist curling off the water like a suffocating blanket. I squint through the dark, the lamp light low.
Has he already snatched her? Does he already have my little rabbit by the throat? I don’t think so. I think I’d know. I think I’d feel it in my gut.
People are running in all directions. Engines roar, and behind me the sirens keep on wailing. I walk swiftly, hands in my pockets, fingering that knife, whistling to myself. People step away, give me a wide berth and all the time I’m looking, searching.
I spot him. He’s big, jacked up. He thinks it makes him invincible. He thinks no one will ever touch him – especially the fucking cops. But his size makes him slow. I catch him with ease. It’s almost disappointing. Two seconds and I’m on him. I tap him on the shoulder, he turns, recognition flicks across his face, then horror. He knows. He knows what I’m going to do. They always do. How is that? Is it something in my eyes? He starts to lift his hand, but then – snap – he’s dead.
Fuck, I love that sound. Love how easily a spinal cord fractures like that. Like snapping a fucking bread stick in two.
I’d’ve liked to slice her knife through his neck. But that’d hardly look accidental. The man was dumb but not dumb enough to slam a knife into his neck. A neck that’s now broken.
“He can’t hurt you now,” I say into the mist. I wish she was here. I wish she could have seen. I wish she knew how hard I’m working to keep her safe.
