Page 226 of The Mercy of Dawn

Those same words had come out of his mouth so many times now that Cyril was certain no one was coming for them.

Gunner was rubbing some warmth into her hands when the building above them boomed and shuttered. She could only watch, helpless, as he eased away from her. His hand came to rest on the blades strapped across his chest, and he turned his ear to the door.

The booming echo settled into the sound of footsteps—dozens, or hundreds, maybe—and then came the sounds that made Cyril’s chest ache as she held back a sob.

“Gunner?! Cyril?!” A brief, agonizing pause. “Where the fuck is she?”

It was Mikael.

He came for them, came for her.

Gunner sagged with relief and stuck his head out into the hall, shouting something up the stairs that she was too distraught to make out.

That raucous commotion that traveled above them moved closer and closer, becoming so loud her ears rang until the sound flooded into the hallway outside. She could hear Mika’s voice commanding, directing, issuing orders.

It was then that a glimmer of stark reality clawed into the back of her mind.

Five people were dead in this room.

Three tragic, senseless deaths. Another two by her own hand.

And now Mika was going to see it all. See his men, slaughtered and—

“Mika… H-he can’t—” A vicious cough rattled her lungs and the tang of copper filled her mouth. “Don’t let him…”

It was too late.

Mika’s lean frame, still dressed in the black and blue of his finery, filled the doorway. There was not a trace of color left in his skin.

Cyril sobbed his name.

Chapter 58

The crushing weight of responsibility almost brought Mikael to his knees.

His eyes struggled to process the condition of his men's bodies strung against the back wall of the blood-soaked cellar.

These men weren’t just killed. Someone butchered them. Slaughtered them.

And every bit of it was his fault, all because he was a subservient fucking fool.

And Cyril… Gods.

The sound of her weak sobs hooked every ounce of his attention.

Some deep-seated, primal part of his brain stirred to consciousness. His body hummed with a consuming itch for retribution, to inflict unspeakable acts of violence on whatever, whoever left her like this.

But it was him, wasn’t it?

He did this to her.

Mikael was supposed to protect her, this firecracker of a woman who had shaken his entire existence. But all he did was thrust her right into harm's way. Left her to fend for herself, all because of his princely duties. He’d been a fool to think she wouldn’t do something reckless.

Blood and gore caked every damn inch of her, and the way she looked up at him with eyes so afraid, so broken… It would haunt him until the day he met his end.

No one who entered that cellar, who saw even a glimpse of the horror within it, would leave the same as they came in. But Mikael wasn’t confident Cyril was going to make it out of here at all.

He knew things were dire.