I wondered if they would feel the same if they knew what William had attempted before and after Lucas shot him.
“Hunting,” Lucas finally said, and even though I couldn’t tear my eyes from the women or William, I was surprised to hear the cool tenor of his voice, and the humor in that single word. “I guess that’s accurate. How did the surgery go? Sorry I didn’t care to stop by and check on you.”
“And why would you?” William asked as his smile broadened into something that made my blood run cold.
“Exactly.”
I didn’t know how William and Lucas were talking to each other so calmly. I didn’t know how Lucas hadn’t attacked him yet, or why I wasn’t screaming at him for trying to have me taken away or killed.
But then I remembered what Lucas had said, and I knew what William was doing.
He’d made his intentions known, and now he was going to torture us slowly until he decided he was ready to make good on his threat against me.
William was playing a game . . . and Lucas was stalling as he tried to find a way to beat him at it.
“It is quite funny though,” William mused, “the things you want as soon as you can’t have them. I cannot remember the last time I just went for a drive, but that’s all I want to do lately. Sadly, I cannot.” His calculating gaze went from me to Lucas, and he cocked his head to the side. “Do you ever have the urge to go for a cruise, Lucas?”
Lucas was studying William intently, his eyes just as calculating, but his face looked oddly bored. He lifted his shoulders slightly. “Not lately. It’s nice to have someone drive you around. I’m sure you’ll get over your urges soon enough.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” He shrugged, just as Lucas had. “I have been having these dreams of being back in the UK, cruising over the River Trent.” He trailed off, seeming to get lost in those dreams—but I noticed how still Lucas became. “And then I wake up and realize that I am here, and I won’t be driving again. It’s quite devastating, let me tell you. Almost feels like a betrayal.”
Despite the tension radiating from Lucas, he forced a smirk. “You’re so dramatic lately, William.”
“William. Lucas,” someone called from behind us, but I was only able to glance over my shoulder at the stranger before my gaze snapped back to the man in front of me.
I was too focused on Lucas’s reactions, and the way William was now pinning me with a victorious stare, to do more than that.
Lucas twisted to greet the man who had come but remained facing both William and me as he did. I knew I needed to turn, but I was afraid to have my back to the man in the wheelchair. I took a shaky step away, and shuddered when William’s hand snaked out to grip my wrist.
Lucas’s voice abruptly halted, but William smoothly said, “I’m sorry, Briar dear, I cannot hear you. Can you lean closer?”
I glanced at Lucas, noting the panic he wasn’t able to keep from his eyes even though his face remained impassive.
Men weren’t allowed to touch another’s woman, but a woman also couldn’t be the one to stop the man if he happened to—her man had to. But this wasn’t just any man, this was Lucas’s mentor, and William had just tied our hands in making it seem as though I was in the middle of a conversation with him.
Lucas dipped his head in the slightest of nods, but his arms slowly uncrossed from where they’d been against his chest, and he held them at his sides.
I shakily leaned closer to William, and he said in a low tone, “Look at him, First.”
I didn’t.
“Fine, don’t. I’ve already seen enough in the times that you have.” He laughed darkly, softly and continued on a whisper so neither his women nor Lucas would hear him. “You thought he cared for you, and in turn you fell in love with him—but you only fell for what he wanted you to. Anything he may have told you or promised you were lies to keep you here and happy, to help you progress. And progress you have. To be where you are in six months is remarkable, most take double the time. But let me assure you that it has only been a ruse. Every word and every touch has been to ensure that you would end up here. All of this was one giant lesson, and Lucas taught you well.”
Months ago, I might have believed what William was saying, but not now. I knew Lucas too well to let William try to make me second-guess everything now. It was what he wanted, but it wasn’t going to work.
“Is that why he shot you?” I asked through clenched teeth, forcing myself to hold his cold, blue-eyed stare.
One of his eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t look surprised I knew it had been Lucas, only surprised I would say anything to him at all. “Sometimes we have to make sacrifices in order to better this world.”
“And I’m one of those sacrifices?”
William sent me a look that was so fatherly it shocked me. “Another ruse, my darling. Do you think you would still be alive if it hadn’t been?”
“Do you think you’ll still be alive if you try again?”
That fatherly expression immediately slipped from his face, and something so evil flashed through his eyes before everything went blank. That unnerving calm he and Lucas seemed to have mastered was all that was left when he promised, “You won’t be around to find out.”
“Time to go, Briar,” Lucas murmured. His panic was clear because William grinned wickedly.
“No, Lucas, I think you should stay with me,” William said coldly, and my stomach sank when he waved off his women.
After a few confused glances at each other, they turned and walked away as a group.
“There are some people I need to introduce you to,” William continued.
“I’ve done fine without you so far, and I’ll continue to. Briar, let’s go.”
I stood and tore my hand from William’s grasp and tried to force the chill from my body when he said, “I told you to stay.”
I turned toward Lucas, taking a step in his direction, but froze when I took in what was happening. “Lucas . . .” I breathed, horrified.
The calm and panic were both gone, but had been replaced by a silent rage that was terrifying to be in the presence of. But those eyes—those dark eyes I loved so much—were saying so many things he couldn’t in that moment.
He loved me.
He was going to protect me.
He was sorry.
I dropped my gaze to where the gun was aimed at Lucas, then followed it up to the man holding it. The same man who had just greeted William and Lucas like long-lost friends.
“As I said . . . stay.” William laughed softly then clapped his hands twice.
I didn’t understand why people weren’t reacting. I didn’t understand why people weren’t trying to figure out why this man had a gun aimed at my devil. But then I realized that what seemed so big to me was nothing more than a tight circle of people talking to everyone else at this crowded, crowded celebration.
I felt the presence behind me before I felt the actual man. He had to have been as tall as Lucas and just as wide.
“Briar,” Lucas began softly, but whatever else he’d been about to say died in his throat.
I stiffened when something sharp pressed against my inner arm, and Lucas started, like he was about to lunge across the small space toward me.
“William,” he snarled, but William only laughed.
“I suggest you both stay quite still.”
Without moving my head, I looked down at the needle pressed to the crook of my elbow, and the clear liquid that filled it. I had a feeling it wouldn’t just knock me out for a few hours. When I looked back up at Lucas and saw the soul-deep pain in his eyes, I knew I was right.
“I had planned to do this differently,” William said cheerfully. “Poetically even. Something that people spoke of for years to come. That way you would never forget her, and this celebration would haunt you every year, Lucas. But then I received disturbing news a few days ago, and well, those plans no longer mattered to me.” William’s head tilted to the side as he studied Lucas. “Tell me, Lucas, what
is your name?”
Fear gripped me, squeezing me tighter and tighter until it felt like I couldn’t breathe anymore.
David had said they would find out the truth about my devil, and we’d been naïve to think they couldn’t in the time we had left.
Lucas’s chest was rising and falling roughly, unevenly, and his hands were clenching into fists. But he didn’t move, and his eyes didn’t leave me even as he spoke to William. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answers to.”
“But it’s so fun,” William said with another clap. “Really, boy, tell us. Humor me. You owe me that, at least. I just want to hear it come from you before I force you to watch as I tear your heart from your chest.” His words were even more sinister in that lighthearted tone.
“Briar . . .” Lucas whispered, and William sighed heavily.
“Sometime tonight.”
Lucas swallowed roughly, his head shaking slowly as he searched my face—like he was trying to memorize it. His gaze dropped to my stomach for a few seconds, longing and anguish flashing through his eyes before they met mine again. “Forever,” he breathed, and I nodded, because I couldn’t make my voice work.
My throat was tightening and tears were blurring my vision.
With one last ragged breath in, he held it for a moment, and then released it with a name. “Trent Cruz.”
I only had one second to let that name wash over me.
I only had one second to realize what William had been saying earlier—how he’d been taunting my devil with his real name.
I only had one second, and then the hall erupted into chaos.
Chapter 47
Day 182 with Briar
Lucas
William thought she didn’t know. He thought Briar would look at me with the betrayal he had felt when he’d found out about my true identity. And I knew he was counting on that look—counting on the hurt to register on Briar’s face once I confirmed my name—before the man standing behind her stabbed her with that needle and injected her with whatever poison was waiting inside.
I’d wanted to keep my name from her until this was all over, until this world had been brought down and I could finally give her me. But William wasn’t going to wait forever, and I was running out of time before he snapped and did something rash.
I looked from her flat stomach to the tears building in my blackbird’s eyes, then said on a breath, “Forever.”
She nodded quickly. The resignation and devastation on her face threatened to destroy me. But I wouldn’t go down without a fight—I never had before, and I wouldn’t now. Not when her life was being held in the hands of another. Not when I was so sure she was keeping something from me—had planned on keeping it from me until we were through with this night so I wouldn’t hide her away like I’d wanted to.
I swallowed past the thickness in my throat and chanced one last glimpse down at the gun aimed at me before I was looking at her again.
Finger off the trigger. Loose hold.
In the space of one second, I already knew exactly what I would do, and I was ready.
I took in a deep, ragged breath, and held it as I studied those green eyes for what I hoped wasn’t the last time.
I love you, Briar. I’m going to get us out of this, I vowed, then released the breath I’d been holding, and let the name I’d kept secret for the last four years fall from my lips. “Trent Cruz.”
I vaguely registered the sound of screaming coming from behind me—from the front of the hall where the celebration was being held—but didn’t turn to look as I grabbed for the gun aimed at my stomach.
The man holding it had glanced up at the screams but jerked and fought against me when I tried to wrench the gun from him.
I forced his arms up so the gun was aimed above Briar’s head and struggled to reach the trigger.
Briar cried out a split second before I fired at the man holding her, but my arms suddenly felt like dead weights, and my heart dropped when his head snapped back and he sagged to the ground. Because instead of falling with him, the needle was still there, sticking out of Briar’s arm. Her face was pale and emotionless, and she swayed as she stared blankly ahead.
“Bri—”
The man I’d been wrestling for the gun slammed me into the ground, sending the gun sliding away from us toward the girl I’d failed, just as Briar fell to the floor.
I’d promised to protect her. To keep her safe. To get her out of there alive . . .
I’d fucking failed.
I pushed up from the floor and lunged for her, her name ripping from my chest and ending in a roar as something pierced my shoulder and was roughly ripped back out. I turned toward the man who’d just tackled me and caught his wrist as he brought his hand back down in a sweeping arc, the knife in his hand covered in my blood.
Keeping his wrist tight in my grasp, I yanked his arm toward me—straightening it—then slammed the open palm of my free hand into his locked elbow, forcing it to blow out in the opposite direction, and savoring the sound of his scream as the knife clattered to the floor between us.
Throwing him down onto his back, I gripped his tie in my hand and brought his head a couple inches off the floor so it would snap back against the hard surface as I drove my fist into his face again and again.
I could only feel rage and my suffocating agony as I hit him. He needed to feel a fraction of the pain I was in. I hadn’t been able to make the other man suffer for taking my blackbird from me, and I needed someone to.
My fist halted mid-air when a gun pressed to the top of my head. I exhaled a strained, “Fuck.”
“I will admit that even with what I knew of you, I did not see this one coming,” William said through clenched teeth, and it was then that I focused on the screams that were being drowned out by deep, commanding yells for everyone to get on the floor.
The raid had begun.
William’s finger moved toward the trigger, and I locked my eyes with his.
I tightened my grip on the tie of the man I’d beaten into unconsciousness as I prepared for what was coming and curled my lip into a sneer. “I’ll be waiting for you in hell.”
Two shots sounded, and I flinched as I stupidly, involuntarily, braced myself to die.
But then a second passed, and then another, and I forced my eyes open to see William sitting slack in his wheelchair, with blood rapidly pooling onto his white button-down shirt.
I turned my head to the side and saw the most beautiful angel on her knees with a gun still aimed at William.
“Briar,” I said numbly, and her head whipped around to face me.
Wide-eyed and terrified, her chest moving roughly from her too-fast breaths.
“Briar,” I repeated, trying to get my mind to realize she was alive.
“Do I—do I do it again?” she asked shakily, and she started sobbing the second I pulled her into my arms. “Do I have to—?”
“It’s okay,” I crooned as I pressed a rough kiss to her forehead and then her lips. “Shh, Blackbird. It’s okay.”
She dropped her arms and let the gun slip from her fingers, and then she was gripping me with one of her arms as tightly as I was gripping her. Her other hand slipped to her stomach protectively, and the same thoughts and fears from earlier built inside me, but before I could ask, her entire body began shaking so hard. She was going to go into shock.
“You said—you said to do it again. To be sure. You said—”
I cupped her face in one of my hands, pressed my forehead to hers, and tried to speak as gently as possible when all I wanted to do was beg her to forgive me for not being fast enough, to beg her to assure me she was really here in my arms. “He’s gone, Blackbird. He’s gone; it’s okay. You’re okay,” I whispered, then brushed my lips against hers. “You’re okay.”
“Everybody on the ground,” a deep voice boomed from above me, and Briar recoiled from the sound, but I didn’t release her and I didn’t move.
I looked up at the man in the bull
etproof vest, and demanded, “Take us to David Criley.”
“I said ever—”
“Take us to David Criley,” I ground out, and when it looked like he would argue, I said low enough that my voice wouldn’t carry, “You’re only here because I made this possible. She’s going into shock. Tell Criley that Trent Cruz is demanding to leave. Now.”
He stared at me with confusion and apprehension, but something registered when I said my name, and he hurried to speak into the mic clipped to him. After a few moments of silence, he jerked his head toward the front of the hall, and I stood with Briar in my arms to follow him—not once looking back at William, or the two men we’d left bleeding on the floor.
As soon as we were outside, my handler came jogging over to us, already talking about whatever was happening inside the hall, but I wasn’t listening, and I didn’t wait for him as I took off for an ambulance at the end of a long line of police and SWAT vehicles.
David caught up to us, his tone warning me that he wasn’t happy. “What happened?”
“He was stabbed,” Briar said immediately.
“I’m fine,” I growled as I caught the EMT’s attention and waited until they were surrounding us. “She needs to be checked out. She’s been blacking out and close to fainting all night. Someone put a needle in her arm about five minutes ago, I don’t know what it was filled with.”
I stepped up into the back of the ambulance and reluctantly placed Briar onto the gurney.
“Lucas, please!” she said frantically and sat up, reaching for me when I stepped back.
I pressed my mouth roughly to hers, leaving it there when I said, “Let them make sure you’re okay. I’m not going anywhere; I’ll be right here.”
Once she released me, I stepped out of the ambulance and watched her. Again, one of her hands fell protectively to her stomach, and I felt anxious and fucking terrified as I waited for something that I wasn’t even positive was happening.
“You were stabbed?” David asked once the EMTs were looking her over.
“Right shoulder. I’ll get it checked later.”