Page 62 of Merciless Vow
I did not watch the fight.
My eyes found Addie. She was in the far corner of the park, her arms around the human's shoulders. Nell was utterly still; the kind of stillness that follows shock when the body has runout of responses and simply waits. I got the sense Addie hadn't even watched me fight. All of her attention was on her damn friend.
I crossed to my runaway wife. Behind me, I heard the sounds of the fight; the snarl and impact of it, the grunt of effort, the sounds of a young wolf discovering for the first time that fury, when it has enough reason, is stronger than size. I let Magnus handle the witnessing.
I stopped in front of Addie. She looked up at me. The silk scarf at her throat had slipped — the mark was visible, still dark, still vivid against her skin. Her arm was still around Nell. Her chin was up. Defiant and without apology.
"Time to go home," I said and began the process of extricating her from her friend. But Addie would not let the human go. I flashed my golden gaze at Nell, letting her get a close up at my unhappy wolf.
Nell fainted.
Addie glared at me.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
ADDIE
Magnus stepped into a pair of dark pants and crouched down over me. I hadn't let Vidar touch Nell, but for some reason I trusted Magnus to lift her limp weight from my arms with a gentleness that had no business existing in those hands. I let her go because my legs were still working and hers weren't, and Magnus was large enough to carry her without effort. I watched Gunnar put his hand on Elias's back and walk him away from what was left of our father. I did not look at what was left of our father as Vidar led me away.
Vidar didn't say anything. He put his hand at the small of my back and walked me out of the park. I let him because I didn't have anything left in me that wanted to argue about direction.
We were silent in the car. Silent in the elevator to the penthouse. Silent as he closed the front door behind us. The lockengaged, and I stood in the center of the living room and looked out at the skyline and breathed.
Vidar came to stand beside me. Not behind me. Not blocking me. Beside me.
A plane moved across the gray sky. I counted to ten. Then I turned to face him.
"Nell," I said.
"Yes?"
"Anchorage."
"Yes."
He wasn't going to make me perform the full accusation. I'll give him that; he knew what he'd done, and he wasn't going to pretend he didn't. He stood there in the remains of what had been a very good suit and looked at me with those gold eyes steady and gave me the acknowledgment without waiting for me to extract it.
"The closer she is to you, the closer she is to this world. The more she knows, the more danger she's in. Getting her out of the city?—"
"Was protection," I interrupted. "For you. Not for her. Not for me."
He was quiet.
"You want my loyalty. You have been very clear about that since the first day I walked into your office. Loyalty is the Blackwood currency; I understand that. But Vidar, you have been systematically removing every person I am loyal to."
His jaw tightened. His lips parted, but I was not done.
"My father took everything from me and replaced it with nothing. You're doing the same thing but with better furniture and putting Nell in Alaska instead of nowhere."
"That's not what I'm doing."
"Then tell me what you're doing. Because from where I'm standing, I have my brother inside your estate undersupervision, my best friend being shipped three thousand miles away, my career gutted and rebuilt under your name. I have spent this entire marriage proving myself to you. Proving I'm not my father. Proving I'm not a liability. Proving my brain is worth something to your empire. And I'm done. I'm done proving myself. I don't have anything left to prove. The question I'm waiting for you to answer is whether you can do the same."
"You left."
The words were quiet. Not an accusation exactly; something more exposed than that. Raw at the edges in a way I hadn't heard from him before.
"You slipped your detail. You went to meet your brother and that woman, and you didn't tell me."
