Ryker chucked the bloody bullet across the room. It clinked, colliding with the wall. He didn’t bother to see where it landed.
He gathered Brynleigh in his arms, her blood coating them both as the wound in her stomach slowly stitched itself together.
They had one, maybe two minutes before the others arrived.
Pressure built behind Ryker’s eyes, and he finally allowed the full weight of what happened to hit him. The shifter came to kill him, and Brynleigh knew.
Sheknew.
He stared at his vampire through a watery curtain, brushing back her hair with a trembling finger. “How could you do this to us?”
He thought he knew her. He thought he loved her. He thought she was his.
Wrong. He’d been fucking wrong.
There was no response. She just lay in his arms, looking far too broken for someone who had caused him so much pain.
With every beat of Ryker’s heart, an ache expanded in his chest. It started small but yawned until it was the size of a canyon.
A tear fell on Brynleigh’s cheek, and Ryker whispered, “How could you break us?”
Thick, unnatural silence covered them.
She didn’t answer him, and he didn’t ask again. He just… held her close.
One last time. One last hug. And then, he would let her go. He had to. She’d betrayed him. He’d already deduced that much from her earlier conversation.
How much worse could things get? Her deception was already a bitter river flowing through his veins.
A minute passed, but it could have been a lifetime. The door swung open. Reinforcements were here.
A buzzing filled Ryker’s mind. He was present, but not. When arms reached down to pull Brynleigh out of Ryker’s embrace, he didn’t fight them. He didn’t even say goodbye.
Ryker watched as the Chancellor’s military police took hisvampire and the murderous shifter into custody. He didn’t attempt to stop them as they assessed the scene, took pictures, and spoke among themselves.
He pulled on a pair of sweatpants, answered their questions—there were so many fucking questions—and promised to come down to the station later.
Eventually, the reinforcements left.
The door closed behind the last officer, and Ryker was alone. Yesterday had been the happiest day of his life, and now…
Crimson covered everything in sight. The floor. The bed. His hands.
Ryker lifted his fingers, staring at them until red was the only thing he could see.
Then he felt it.
Anguish wormed its way into the depth of his being. At first, it was just a crack, distant and barely there.
Then, he drew in a pained breath.
The crack exploded. Like ice breaking in the middle of a frozen lake, it rippled, fissured, and shattered.
Heshattered.
Devastating, world-ending, soul-crushing heartbreak consumed him.
It was like he was made of sand, and his heartbreak was the water crashing into him again and again and again. The waves kept going until he was completely, utterly destroyed.