Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
“Sister,” the man says. She smiles at him but keeps her eyes locked on me, just like she had earlier. His looks match hers except they’re masculine. Harder. The false veneer of soft sweetness is too thin to hide the cruelty beneath.
Ana giggles nervously. She always used to do that. “We’d better get back. I don’t think Caius likes me gone too long.” I don’t look at her. No one does.
“I wondered where you’d gone off to,” he says, coming to stand beside Camilla. He smiles down at her. “Mother would have had me sending a search party soon.”
Camilla slips her hand into his and they turn matching eyes to me. The force of it, of them, has me taking an unconscious step back right into a stool I didn’t know was there. I gasp, falling backward, until the man lunges forward to catch me.
“Careful, Madelena,” he says, voice low, his hands big and hard on my arms as he steadies me. How does he know my name? How did she?
“Let me go,” I say, trying to wriggle free. He only squeezes harder, and the way he tilts his head just a little and grins is almost inhuman.
“Santos didn’t tell her about us, brother,” Camilla says, stepping closer. The two of them have me trapped, and I’m not sure it’s their physical proximity or just their presence that makes it feel like they’re standing too close. “You’d think he would have, considering. I’m a little hurt, to be honest.”
“Don’t be hurt. You know Santos isn’t very open about that part of his life. Understandably.” The man looks me over, his gaze searching my face, my mouth, hovering over the exposed swell of my breasts above the necklines of the dress. “I’m Liam, by the way.”
“Madelena, but you knew that.”
“I did. We all do. Madelena De Léon. Augustine now.” He looks me over again, that smile vanishing. “Promised to Santos at the tender age of fifteen.”
I gasp, surprised when he takes my hand and turns it over. It’s the one with the scar. He traces it. I shudder, unable to pull free as he meets my eyes.
“Blood oath,” he says, sending an icy chill down my spine. How does he know this? “Brutality comes naturally to the Augustines, doesn’t it?”
My mouth goes dry, or maybe it was already dry and I’m just noticing as I stare up into his eyes. They may be that pretty blue, but there’s nothing pretty in the way he’s looking at me. It’s not quite hate I see in them, though, and although I’m struggling to put words to the emotion, the animosity they convey is unmistakable.
He leans close to me, and I swear he inhales like he’s taking in my scent. It’s the most unsettling thing. “You take good care with that husband of yours, little Madelena De Léon,” he whispers. “He’s been known to crush bigger creatures than you.”
“Get your fucking hands off my wife!”
I startle at the roar of the command, my breath a tremble, and a wash of relief flooding my system. Ana actually yelps and jumps backward as Santos’s big hand closes over Liam’s shoulder. Caius is behind his brother, with Val behind him, and soldiers stand at the entrance of both doors. Two are ours.
Ours. When did they become ours, not his?
But those questions don’t matter now. Not when those soldiers reach into their jackets to draw their weapons.
21
Madelena
“I said, get your motherfucking hands off my wife!” Santos physically pulls Liam off.
“Not to nit-pick, but you didn’t use motherfucking. Had I known you’d be so upset—” Liam says with a casual, relaxed grin until Santos cuts him off by fisting a handful of his shirt and jerking him toward himself. He has a predator’s confidence, Liam, and they’re well matched although Santos’s anger is somehow more. He has a bigger stake in this.
Standing nose to nose, Liam looks every bit as amused as Santos does furious. This only irritates Santos, who shoves Liam hard against the wall, forcing his breath out of his lungs. But Liam still stupidly manages a chuckle.
“You ever so much as lay a finger on my wife again, and I will rip your arms from your body. Do you fucking hear me?” Santos asks in a tone so low, so menacing, that I believe him.
“That wasn’t your specialty, if I recall, although I don’t doubt you’d do it.”
Santos jerks him forward then slams him against the wall again, this time making Liam’s head bounce off it.
“What the hell is going on in here?”
We all turn to the man who has just entered—at least, everyone except Santos and Liam, the latter of whom is no longer amused but ugly. Vengeful. Hateful.
“We were just introducing ourselves to Santos’s new wife,” Camilla says in that soft, almost child-like way she has. She’s all big blue eyes and innocence. Not. “I mean, if we’re going to be neighbors, we should be neighborly. It’s what Daddy always taught us.”