Page 67 of Blood Red Rage

Bryn clung to him just as fiercely. "I'm okay," she kept telling him, but it was clear that Viking was struggling to control himself. His face was buried against her neck, I could feel his fear, his fury surrounding him. I knew he was struggling to keep the Berserker at bay, to keep from frightening his mate.

Viking, the one that always teased us about how weak we were, about how pussy whipped we were is now the one that is completely obsessed with his mate. We are all possessive, obsessive fuckers that will obliterate anyone that comes close to our mates or children, but Bryn is the weakness that he can’t control, one that triggers his berserker.

Lucien had Sorcha. Volken had Runa. Four Dragic brothers, four men feared by half the criminal world. Men who had killed, commanded, built an empire in blood and loyalty, and every one of us had been reduced to the same thing. A man holding the woman he loved and thanking whatever gods might still listen that she was breathing.

Draugr appeared in the doorway behind us. Still alone, watching. For once, there was no sarcasm in his expression. He simply stood guard while his brothers put themselves back together. For now he was the strong one, he was the only level-headed one in our midst.

Our enemies had made a mistake, they thought our mates were weaknesses, but they weren't. They were the reason we controlled ourselves, the reason we built walls instead of burning cities. The reason monsters like us remembered there were things in this world worth protecting. They were the only reason that we hadn’t yet gone out and burnt everything down, the only reason mayhem wasn’t happening.

I tightened my arms around Layla and our child, and somewhere beneath the relief, beneath the fear, something cold settled into place. Someone had fired into my home, at my mate, near my child.

They wanted a war with the Dragic family. They had one now, as the older of the brothers I have been holding back, have been stopping the others from demolishing and obliterating every fucking threat we have, but now from the darkness they have reached out and tried to hurt us, tried to kill my mate.

May whatever God they prey to protect them, because from today there will be no more holding back.

Chapter 13

A week had passed since someone fired a bullet through the window of our home. Seven days, seven fucking days, and we still didn't have the bastard responsible. We had names, and we already had a lot of fucking bodies but not the motherfucker that shot at us.

We had warehouses full of confiscated weapons, phones, ledgers, bank accounts and enough terrified informants to populate a small fucking country. But we didn't have the one thing I wanted, the person at the top, the one giving the orders, the one who had decided that attacking Dragic women was a survivable decision.

It wasn't, they just didn't know it yet. Our mates, our family is our bottom line, they attack them and all bets are off the table. The family had scattered across the city in the days following the shooting. Roman took the east, Volken took the docks and the weapons routes, Lucien buried himself in the clubs, casinos and underground networks where secrets were traded more freely than money. Draugr disappeared into the shadows like he had been born there, following whispers no one else could hear.

And me? I hunted, every fucking lead, every name, every piece of information that even smelled remotely connected to the attack on the mansion, because I'd seen Bryn afterward. I'd seen her flinch when something slammed outside. I'd watched her glance toward windows and how she tensed, she tried to hide it. My stubborn little mate thought I didn't notice but I noticed everything. Every time she rubbed the scar on her arm, every time her eyes tracked Luka when he entered a room too quickly, every time she reached for me in her sleep.

She was recovering, she was laughing again, fighting with me again. She was even threatening to throw things at my head when I became too possessive. But someone had changed her, someone had put fear where there hadn't been fear before, and I would never forgive that.

Which was why I was standing on a railway platform at nearly midnight, watching a fat little bastard in an expensive coat, waiting for him to realize his train wasn't going to save him.

"That's him," Marek said beside me.

I already knew. Anton Vanti. An arms dealer we worked with, a slimy bastard that thought he could play two sides, a smuggler, a traitor. For years, he'd supplied weapons to half the supernatural underworld while maintaining the appearance of neutrality.

Recently, he'd become ambitious and ambition made men stupid. I grunt when Anton spotted us, his face drained. Then he ran which has me smile.

"Fuck."

Marek sighed beside me. "Why do they always run?"

"Because they're stupid."

Anton shoved through the crowd, humans shouted as he knocked into them. A suitcase toppled, someone cursed. A woman screamed when Anton shouldered her aside. He reached the train doors; I can see his shoulders relax when they closed. His palms slammed against the glass. "No!"

I walked toward him, slowly as there was no reason to hurry. The next train wasn't coming for twelve minutes; he had nowhere to go.

Anton turned and our eyes met, I watched the exact moment he understood. He reached inside his coat. Next to me Marek warned "Don't," but Anton pulled the gun anyway.

Fucking idiot, before he could raise it, Luka which had come hunting with me today appeared from nowhere. One second Anton stood alone and the next the changeling had his wrist twisted behind his back, the gun skittering behind them.

Anton screamed, humans turned, looked but then quickly looked away. Luka's gift rippled subtly around us, redirecting attention, encouraging human minds to decide that whatever they thought they'd seen wasn't worth remembering.

I stopped in front of the train doors until they opened, looking directly into Anton’s frightened eyes.

"Evening."

"Dragic." He whispers, his voice shook.

I smiled. "You've been difficult to find."