He threw the car back into park and was on the sidewalk before he even registered that his feet were moving.
He didn’t need to ask who did this to Brynleigh because he already knew.
Jelisette de la Point had just signed her death warrant.
Brynleigh’s beautiful black wings dragged on the sidewalk. Bloody, they hung limply behind her.
A long laceration ran from below her left eye down her cheek. Her right eye was black and swollen. Her sweater was ripped, barely covering her skin. Crimson dripped from her split lip.
Fuck staying hidden.
Who did Jelisette think she was?
Ryker’s feet pounded the sidewalk as he ran toward the safe house. Red tinged his vision. Ice daggers were clutched in his palms. His blood roared in his ears.
Bitter anger coated his tongue, and his magic was a throbbing mass within him.
Jelisette would pay for this. He would tear the vampire limb from fucking limb, deal be damned. He’d?—
“Ryker, stop.”
The words were barely a whisper, but it was as though she’d shouted them at him.
He was still wearing the headphones.
Turtles moved faster than Ryker as he turned and met Brynleigh’s black gaze from down the street.
“She hurt you,” he snarled, not recognizing his own voice.
Part of him recognized that he was being irrational. He shouldn’t care if Brynleigh was hurt. Not if she was just an asset. Not since she was his would-be murderer.
But he did.
He cared too gods-damned much.
“Yes.” Brynleigh looked resigned as she lifted a shoulder. “I told you this would happen.”
She retracted her wings, wincing as the dark appendages slipped out of sight.
He growled, the need to kill someone surging through his blood.
She sighed, her sad, obsidian eyes pleading with him. “Please, let’s just go.”
In the end, that look had Ryker marching back to the car. He didn’t want to cause her any more hurt.
By the time he’d returned, Brynleigh had buckled in and removed the earrings.
Her chin rested on her fist, and she stared out the window as blood dripped down her face. She was healing slowly, but it wasn’t fast enough for Ryker.
He’d never felt the need to take a life as strongly as he did at that moment.
“What did she give you?” he asked, jerking the car into drive. He needed to get away from here.
“A phone and credit card,” she whispered.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”