Page 123 of Devilish Ink

“I thought that little lovebird of yours would never leave you alone,” he hissed. “Every time I’d get close to you, there he’d be. Following you, watching you from the shadows, and then eventually worming his way into your life.”

My skin prickled. I reached for my phone as it rang again, Liam so desperate to reach me. He must know by now something was wrong. But it didn’t matter.

He was too far away. Tricked into leaving me.

“Oh, didn’t you know? Your stalker was thwarted by…” he chuckled, “another stalker.”

I sucked in a breath.

“It was fun, for a little while. Our little game of cat and mouse. But there’s only so long a cat can play with its food.”

White light exploded behind my eyes when Balor slammed my face down onto the floor.

I heard him cackling, the echo of my phone ringing.

Then nothing.

LIAM

It was impossible to describe the relief I experienced when I sawCall incoming: Wifeyon my phone.

Thank God.

She was okay. She’d probably just been in the bath when I rang…twelve fucking times. Fuck, I was paranoid.

I waited a ring or two to answer so I could steady my breath. I didn’t want her to hear the remnants of the panic that’d been choking me at her not answering. I didn’t want her to have any idea at all that I’d been worried. Terrified. Sure that something irreversible, irreconcilable, unreturnable had happened.

I was practically laughing as I answered. “Baby, it has never been so good to hear from you.”

The hesitation on the speaker was unexpected, the silence echoing through the car.

When it stretched on for the count of two breaths and then three, it was unavoidable: a black cat across my path, a broken mirror, seven years’ bad luck.

“Ry?” I said, fear slipping back in. “Ry?”

“It’s me.”

The words were right. But the voice was not. Deep, masculine and…usually so full of hatred for me.

“Rian?”

Another pause. Another agonising silence. Another counting of my stuttering breaths: one…two…three…

“Rian?” I repeated more harshly this time. “Where’s Ry?”

Rian gathered himself together with a ragged exhale, and finally said in a hollow voice, “I’m so sorry, Liam.”

I struggled to keep the car on the road, the lines of the road were suddenly not so straight.

“I should have believed you,” he said. “This is all my fault.”

I didn’t want to ask it. I almost didn’t dare.

Oh God, how bad was it? What had Balor done?

“Just tell me she’s alive,” I begged before I lost the nerve.

“Liam, you’ve got to get back here.”

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