Chapter 7

Damien's breath caught.

He was about to grab one of his men when a text message came through.

"If you want her alive, get here in thirty minutes."

An address: the Obsidian Pit. Ashbury's largest underground fight casino.

When Damien arrived, people were already waiting at the door.

The old man at the front glanced at his watch and gave a thin smile.

"Mr. Blackwood. Right on time. Thirty minutes exactly."

Damien's face was flat. "Where is Vivienne. Let her go. This has nothing to do with her."

The old man said nothing. He gestured for someone to bring forward an elegant wooden box.

"A welcome gift from my master."

Damien's sense of smell for blood was razor sharp.

His eyebrow jumped. The second the box opened, the smell of meat and iron came rolling out.

Inside was a severed hand.

"You people have a death wish."

Damien's roar rolled across the entryway. His men pulled their weapons. The air went taut.

The old man didn't flinch. He only spread his hand toward the door.

"The woman did something she shouldn't have. This is a small lesson."

"If you still want her alive, Mr. Blackwood, I suggest you go in."

Damien's chest heaved. Finally, he gestured for his men to holster, and he walked into the casino.

The floor had been cleared ahead of time.

Damien's eyes were sharp. He picked Vivienne out almost at once, hanging above the center platform.

"Mmph!"

The moment she saw him her hollow face lit up with hope.

Her mouth was gagged. All she could do was cry.

"My master says the price of this woman is simple. Survive the pit."

With that, a dozen huge fighting dogs exploded out of a side chute.

"Boss, the Sterling heir's dogs are pure killers, they're bred on the smell of blood—don't go in!"

Damien's eyes went flat and vicious. He ignored his men, yanked his collar loose, and stepped up onto the fighting platform.

Damien was deadly in a fight, but he had nothing on him but his fists.

The dogs had been trained for exactly this. They were addicted to the smell of blood.

His shirt came apart fast.

A bolt of pain hit his chest.

Damien gasped and looked down. The skin over his heart—where Adeline had branded him ten years ago—had been ripped raw and bloody.

He roared, and snapped the neck of the nearest dog with his bare hands.

An hour later the platform was littered with carcasses, but Damien wasn't in much better shape. Claw marks covered him. What was left of his shirt hung off him in ribbons.

He scanned the room, about to speak.

Then his face went sheet white. He dropped to one knee and coughed up a mouthful of blood.

"They poisoned you. Cowards—"

One of his men caught him under the arms.

The poison was already working its way through him.

The pain went all the way to the bone. His legs gave out and he went down on the floor.

His head swam. His vision blurred.

For a moment his memory felt like it had dropped away ten years.

A silhouette moved at the edge of the platform.

On instinct, Damien dragged himself toward it and caught the hem of a skirt in his fist.

He said the name that was burned into him.

"Adeline..."

"Miss Harrington..."

I lowered my gaze and looked down at the man at my feet, expressionless.

Listening to that low animal whimper, I raised my heel and drove it down onto his hand.

Damien jerked with the pain and slowly lifted his head.

That one look brought him back to himself.

"Adeline?"

I stared down at him, not easing up in the slightest.

As the heel went through the back of his hand, I crouched in front of him and took his face in my fingers.

"Damien. I told you. If I lived, I would come back and take your dog's life."

"Damien!"

On the other side of the platform, Vivienne was being lowered.

She dragged herself toward him on a broken leg.

"Adeline. This is between you and me. Let Vivienne go. She has nothing to do with any of it."

Pain moved through Damien's eyes.

I laughed so hard I almost cried. "Nothing to do with it?"

"Let me show you exactly how innocent she is."