Page 27 of Stealing Cinder

Edgar drags himself upright on the banister. He spits a mouthful of blood onto the floor and braces his weight against the railing. His ruined face twists into a sinister scowl.

"You can keep your money." His voice scrapes through the foyer, wet and mangled. "But you won't leave here with my stepdaughter." His swollen lips pull back over blood-stained teeth. "Her blood is mine."

I tighten my arm around Cinder and face Edgar Silvani, my vision an ocean of red.

CHAPTER 8

SAMUEL

Her blood is mine.

The words eat through the last thread of restraint holding my violence in check. I stare at Edgar and a calm settles over me, cold and absolute. Familiar. I've worn this calm before, right before I do the worst things I'm capable of.

Maybe war is not such a bad idea.

I release Cinder from my side with a gentle push toward the curved staircase. My hand finds Edgar's throat for the second time tonight and I compress his windpipe until the tendons in his neck cord under my fingers. He gurgles. His hands claw at my wrist, nails biting into skin, and his face cycles through shades of crimson I've only seen on men who are about to stop breathing.

The foyer shrinks to nothing. The chandelier overhead, the gold-framed mirrors, the glittering hallway stretching behind Edgar…all of it fades to static. My pulse thuds slow and even while Edgar's hammers so fast I can count the beats through his carotid against my thumb.

Muffled voices push at my senses. Oliver is calling my name from somewhere behind me. Bastian's voice joins in, but the words don’t break through the haze of death consuming me. The only sound I'm tracking is the wet rasp of air scraping past the compression of my grip on Edgar's crushed airway.

Small hands wrap around my forearm. Fingers dig into the muscle and pull.

"Samuel."

Cinder's voice cuts through the haze of rage clouding my vision.

I turn my head. She's at my side with both hands locked on my arm, her pale eyes steady on me. Her expression holds nothing but patience. Her brow is smooth, her lips pressed flat, and the stillness in her face is so out of place in this blood-soaked foyer it sends a cold finger down my spine. Blonde hair hangs wild around her face, the swell of her belly pressing against my hip.

"You don't get to kill the man when I had his name at the top of my list first."

My grip falters. The cold calculation behind those pale eyes says she's had Edgar's death planned long before tonight. And the fury hardening her jaw isn't aimed at him. It's aimed at me, for trying to take it from her.

I search her face for one second. Two.

And then chaos erupts.

The entry doors behind Edgar blow inward and the brass handles punch two craters in the plaster wall. Cold air from the front grounds rushes into the foyer, carrying the smell of wet gravel and exhaust from the idling cars outside.

A bodyguard fills the frame. Six and a half feet of furious muscle, heaving shoulders, and veins cording up the sides of his neck. Both fists wrap white-knuckled around the handle of a fire ax, one of those emergency axes bolted behind glass panels in service hallways.

Yeah. Scary shit. This fucker has the juice behind the ax to take heads off with a single swing.

The steel head catches the chandelier light and throws a bright flash across the foyer. He raises the ax above his head, his boot soles grinding against the broken wood of the threshold, and charges with a roar that vibrates through the floor under my feet.

My hand rips free of Edgar's throat. Edgar drops to the floor, gasping and clutching his neck.

“Get back!” I roar and move Cinder behind me as the ax swings down in a vicious arc aimed at splitting my skull.

I pivot left. The blade misses my shoulder by two inches and buries itself in the banister with a deep, splintering crack.

The bodyguard yanks, but the wood grips the ax head. His grip slips on the handle. I drive my elbow into his exposed ribs and the cartilage buckles under the impact. He doubles forward, and I wrench the ax free from the banister in one pull, spinning the handle in my palm until the weight settles.

Behind me, Edgar scrambles to his feet. Blood still drips from his ruined nose and his dislocated jaw hangs at a wrong angle, but his eyes lock onto Cinder with the focus of a predator tracking wounded prey. He lunges for her.

“Wrong move, motherfucker!”

Every chain I've ever put on the darkest parts of me snaps.