Page 61 of Thane's Demon
I slammed my boot down on his chest, pinning him in place. The concrete beneath him would soon crack, one hit to his chest, and I would punch through his heart straight to the ground. My demon begged me to do it. To end him that way. I leaned down slowly, letting him feel the full weight of the monster he had decided to follow.
“Where did you get this?”I asked, voice a deadly whisper that held more danger than any bellow of fury.
“H… he… gave it,” he choked out, eyes bulging. “Xue. Xue gave it to me.”
The world inside me snapped and my fears had doubled because Xue knew where she lived. He had her watched and marked.
And I had sent her fucking home!
Straight into the hands of the man who wanted leverage against me. A sound escaped me, low and deadly, barely human. The man beneath me froze as if the very air had turned to ice.
“You should not have come near her.”This was the last thing he would hear in this world before I finally… ended him.
It was fast. Efficient. Brutal. The kind of violence the shadows swallowed without a trace. His body slumped to the ground, lifeless and silent, and I stood over him, chest heaving, rage boiling through every nerve.
My demon paced in satisfaction.
‘One threat down.
More to kill.
Find them.
Protect her.’
But all I could see was that photograph.
Alora.
My girl.
Coming out of her home and captured by someone who had been watching her long before tonight. I looked toward the main street where she had disappeared, panic and fury tightening inside me with suffocating force.
I had sent her into danger.
I had taken her out of my sight.
And Xue knew exactly where she slept.
“Fuck!” I cursed the word, one raw and jagged.“Alora…”
This was worse than I imagined. Much worse.
Because I needed to get to her.
I needed to get her…
Fucking Now!
25
PERSONAL HELL
The moment the man’s body crumpled at my feet, I was already moving, leaving the corpse cooling on the concrete behind me without a second glance. The world narrowed into a single, razor-sharp point of focus as I sprinted through the alley. Every sense tunneling toward the direction she had gone. The photograph burned against my palm, its edges bending beneath the force of my grip. The image of her stepping out of her apartment imprinted on me like the Devil’s brand. That one still moment, that candid vulnerability, that proof that someone had been watching her long before tonight, fused into something violent inside me.
I didn’t even have time to question why or how. It just cut through my chest like a blade and filled the hollow space with a terror I refused to acknowledge and a fury that almost blinded me.
I moved as fast as I could, contemplating taking to the rooftops so that I didn’t have the busy city to contend with. But then I also knew that if I did that, I would have a greater chance of missing her in my blind and frantic panic. Because shecouldn’t have gotten that far, surely? Unless she had gotten into a cab or used another form of public transport.
