Page 86 of Betrothed in Fury
They drag her toward the door, and as one opens it, she takes the opportunity to kick the other in the crotch. When he bows over, she snatches the stun gun from the guard at the door. In a quick maneuver, she hooks an arm around the one she kneed and throws her entire weight into ramming his head into the doorframe. And when the other guard attempts to intervene, she uses his gun against him.
“Mom!” I call out, rushing to stop her as she seizes the stunned guard by his shirt collar and begins bashing his head into the wall, a move that’s all too familiar, reminding me of how resourceful I had to be when Jaime and Krychek abducted me.
I pull her off the blood-soaked man, and she redirects her attack, lurching at me, pulling me to the floor. I land on my back, with her pinning my arms down.
“You can’t marry Killian!” she screams. Blood trickles from her muzzle onto my face. “He’s doing this to get back at me. This is what he really wanted. You can’t let him win, Logan. You can’t do that to me. That would kill me. I couldn’t bear to know Old Terror won.”
I start to push her off me, but she forces me back to the floor, and I’m fourteen again, suffocating as she tries to end me once again. I feel unable to react to the real world, lost in the flashback, when the door bursts open and guards rush in, swarming her. She scratches at me, but they manage to drag her off, one of the guards using a stun gun to subdue her.
As I struggle to recover from the attack, I find Killian at my side.
“Log, are you all right?”
I can barely think straight.
He studies my face, moving his fingers through warm moisture, the fresh smell of rust lingering in the air, and I realize it’s Mom’s blood that drizzled onto me.
“It’s okay,” he assures me. “I’m here now.”
A wave of relief pulses through me as he helps me sit up.
The guards are pulling Mom out of the room when she pops back to life, directing her ire at Killian. “Old Terror, you bastard! You fucking bastard! I’ll kill you for this!”
In her fury, she seems to be conflating Killian with his father.
His eyes are on her before he turns them on me, looking as confused by the display as I have been by the whole conversation.
“He can’t have my babies!” Mom’s voice echoes as the guards carry her down the hall, and I feel like I’m back on the bathroom floor, gasping for air.
30
KILLIAN
Of all thethings I was expecting during our Recourse visit, this wasn’t it. I had to practically fight the guards to push into the room where Clara was on top of Logan.
When I saw the blood on him, I thought I might have to end her right then. Lucky for her, it was clear by the lack of injuries on him and the unconscious, bloodied man on the floor that it wasn’t Logan who’d been harmed.
While Clara was hauled off to be sedated, a guard escorted us into a patient room in the hospital, where we’re to wait until the guards get Clara settled.
Logan sits on the patient table, his face unusually pale, his breathing shallow.
“I knew this was a terrible idea,” I mutter. Since I pulled him from the visiting area, he’s been in a fog, but this seems to catch his attention.
“What else did you know?” he asks, and it sounds like an accusation.
“What?”
He doesn’t appear appreciative of my efforts to protect him. He looks furious as he hops down from the table and rushes me, gripping my collar and shoving me back against the door.
“Logan…it’s me,” I say, certain this must be a breakdown from his encounter. Nothing’s changed between us since he went into that room with his mother.
“Did you know about our dads?”
Our dads?
“Know what?” I press.
He studies my expression before taking another breath. Searching around the room, he eases his grip on my collar. “She could have made it all up.”
