Page 4 of Love's Ace

There was no way to know if they were dangerous.

There was no way to know if they’d killed before.

If they were willing to kill again.

I let my eyes fall shut and tried to draw in a breath through my clenched teeth—this wasn’t the place, and it sure as shit wasn’t the time to do something stupid that would get me thrown in jail. We were in the alley, but I could clearly see the street behind them. It was late, but someone could drive by.

Unless… IfTywas stupid enough to come fully into the darkness where the streetlight didn’t penetrate, then maybe I…

He stepped forward until the shadows fell across his face, and the man who wasdefinitelyhis lover followed in behind him. When he got closer, the fire in my chest raged into a full-on inferno. It was strong before, but this was on an entirely different level. Choking. Aching. Scorching everything in its path.

Not good.

This wasnotgoing to be good.

There wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it when the clawing pain behind my ribs seemed to streak along my nerves and seize hold of my body, so sharp that I thought I was seeing red.

Red.

Red, trailing like a string between the two men.

Red, in a sharp, swirling line thatburnedmy eyes the same way the pain burned my chest. The sudden sear of agony tore another scream from my throat as it all swelled to a head and I turned my bloody hands inward, trying to claw my chest open, trying to let some of the heatout. If I could rip myself open, maybe I could finally breathe—maybe the rain would getundermy traitorous skin.

Or maybe I could just bleed out on the dirty fucking ground and bedonewith all of this.

When Ty lunged forward to stop me, I sprang up with a snarl, my fingers greedy to grab that red line.

Maybe I didn’thaveto bleed out… Maybe there was another way to make it all stop hurting. Because I was suddenlysureof what was hurting me the most—the fucking red line, burning so bright I couldn’t see around it, couldn’t think past it. Couldn’tbreathewith it so close to me.

If I could break it, maybe it would finally stop the hurt.

If I could snap it, maybe I could finally draw in a breath without feeling like my lungs were scalding.

Ihadto break it.

“Ty, getback.” Alex sounded desperate as he yanked him away from me. It just made the red line burn brighter, so intense I was surprised my skin wasn’t blistering.

It suddenly didn’t matter if they went back to the street. I didn’t care who saw. I didn’t care what the consequences were.

I needed to rip that line clean out of their chests.

I needed to make them both stop shining sofucking bright.

“Come here.” It should have come out as a snarl, but my voice was nearly a purr. For all the pain still wrenching deep in my chest, I could feel something more dangerous trying to birth itself from the ashes left in its wake. Thatsomethingspoke in a light, seductive voice… and it made me step forward slowly instead of lunging like a complete madman.

Ifeltlike a complete madman. I just wanted… Fuck, I wanted to tear them apart. I wanted to rip the line between them to shreds, and something inside me knew I would have to kill them to do it—maybe not in the physical sense, but it would kill something inside them.

It would extinguish that lightforever.

And it would sate the burning in my chest for a moment… just a moment… so I could breathe.

I couldn’tbreathe.

“Get the fuck back, Ty. We need to go. We have to—”

So much for staying calm. I dove forward and tackled the taller of the two. My body was just as big as his. I was six feet, and even though I was slender, I had enough sinewy muscle that I took him by surprise and sent him crashing to the ground in a dirty puddle of water collecting by the trash bin.

The red line between the two flared so bright it blinded me, and I felt hands wrapping around my shoulders, jerking as hard as they could. Trying to pull me away.

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