Several emotions cycled across her face as she absorbed the information. Confusion, surprise, indignation, fear, before finally settling on rage.
“You selfish little bastard.” She struck out, her magic lashing across his face inches below his left eye.
His head jerked down and to the right from the force, and he gritted his teeth against the burn. Rather than rise to the bait, he lifted his gaze and smiled coldly.
“Really, mother,” he mocked, dragging his knuckle across the gash to wipe away the blood that beaded there. “Language.”
“This is your fault,” she screeched. “Tell him.” She jabbed her finger toward Henri. “You did this. You caused this. Everything is ruined because—”
A sharp crack rent the air, and her head snapped sideways, flinging her hair around her face and silencing her permanently.
“Ah, that’s better.” Henri gave her neck one final squeeze, then tossed her to the floor like a discarded toy. “So many words, yet so little said.”
Valerie crumpled to the tiles on her side, her ballgown fanned around her legs, her eyes wide and unseeing.
Sammy reeled backward, his pulse throbbing in his throat as conflicting emotions warred inside him.
It had been a long time since he’d felt any love for his mother, and a quiet, unacknowledged part of him whispered that she deserved her fate. She had hurt so many people, and even if indirectly, she was the reason Aerin and the others had been on that stage.
Maybe, he reasoned, she had brought this on herself.
He turned, intending to create some distance, but he made it only two steps before he doubled over and vomited across the stone tiles.
“Now,” Henri murmured, his voice cold and contemplative. “What to do withyou.”
Chapter nineteen
Blades slashed through the air. Blood splattered the walls. Bodies crashed together in a frenzy of claws, teeth, and fur, and yet, Dominic was no closer to reaching his mate.
His breath came in ragged bursts as he ducked beneath a wild swipe, muscles burning as he twisted away from snapping jaws. A hulking guard barreled toward him. He sidestepped at the last instant, driving his elbow into the male’s ribs, feeling bone give way with a sickening crunch.
Sweat burned his eyes as the floor pitched beneath him, but he didn’t pause.
Another figure lunged from the shadows, claws glinting, and Dominic spun, catching its arm and yanking it forward, sending it crashing into the nearest wall.
The corridor lurched sideways, walls groaning as the mansion rearranged itself yet again. He caught himself on one hand, shoved upright, and ran, reaching the end of the hallway, only to end up in another on the opposite side of the house.
He slammed through a heavy oak door…into a greenhouse choked with damp heat and the scent of overturned soil. Glasscrunched beneath his boots. Moonlight spilled through the shattered ceiling.
And footsteps thundered behind him.
Dominic spun just as the first guard reached him. He raked his claws across the man’s chest and sent him flying into a trellis of tangled vines. Another lunged from the doorway. Dominic ducked, drove a shoulder into its sternum, then barreled past him into the next room.
Which was no room at all.
The greenhouse vanished behind him, replaced by a narrow passage made of bare stone. No windows. No exits. Just hostile magic that crawled over the walls in faint black veins.
“Fuck,” he snarled, frustration gnawing at him.
The mansion was a living trap. Every time he found a route forward, it twisted into something else. Doors sealed shut. Hallways doubled back. Staircases led nowhere. The harder he pushed, the harder it resisted.
Closing his eyes, he gathered his magic and jumped, aiming for the solarium. Instead, the house spat him out right back where he’d started in the corridor lined with the souvenirs of conquest.
He braced a hand against the wall, chest heaving, senses straining. Now that he had broken through the last of the wards, his connection with Sammy had been reestablished. He could hear him. Feel him. Hell, he could even sense his presence somewhere inside the mansion.
But he couldn’t reach him through the thick, taunting magic that hummed through every brick and beam like laughter.
Suddenly, the wall beside him bulged, and he sprang back as three figures stepped right out of the solid stone.