Page 165 of Scars Run Deep

Before he could recover, I bolted off the chair. My left hand was still bound to it, but I used it as an asset—a weapon—swinging it around and smashing it into him, the metal connecting with a nasty thud. He stumbled and I spun, doing it again. This time he fell to one knee.

I shoved the chair down on top of him, caging him beneath, and putting a shit-ton of pressure on it with my full body weight.

“You got it?” I called over my shoulder to Aurora.

I heard some rattling around and then she was there at my side, free off the cuffs.

My father’s attack on me with the baton had bought her the time she’d needed to use the tie clip I’d passed her to free herself.

“The drug? Are you able-bodied?” I asked.

“I’ll manage. How did you—”

“I’ve seen it before.”

My father laughed. “Seen it before? Give it to her straight, son, you’ve experienced it before. Many times in my dungeon, yes? Do you remember those days as fondly as I do?”

I gritted my teeth at the bloodlust wanting to run with that like nothing else.

I ground the chair down on him. “You piece of shit!”

Aurora was there then, her fingers brushing mine as she worked to free me from the remaining cuff.

The slight touch nagged at my beast, like it was trying to tame it.

No. That would be the worst thing right now.

We’d never get out of here if I allowed that to happen.

To make that harder than it already was, Carson let out a sharp whistle, a distinctive melody to it that I recognized as his signal for immediate help.

“Incoming,” I warned Aurora.

I’d barely gotten the word out when the door flew open and four robes barreled in.

Seeing their uber big boss incapacitated on the ground had them pulling up in a bit of shock.

It was only for a few seconds, but it enabled Aurora the time she needed to free me from the cuff, then snatch up the shock baton, and shove into the throat of the closest one. She batted away another coming at her, then leapt up into a spinning kick that smashed across the face of another and had him falling back.

It wasn’t enough, though, and I also saw her waver on her feet.

I stared down at my father.

The monster in me called to the monster in him.

I couldn’t let this go.

I couldn’t let him survive this.

I shifted my weight and angled the chair, making it bear down on his throat.

And then I shoved. Hard.

He flailed beneath and fought to wrench it free, to stop me from ending his miserable life.

A cry of pain from Aurora bit into my haze of rage and blood-red.

I pushed it away only to hear another.

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