Page 3 of Irish Reign

Aiofe fights us. She bites. She scratches. She keens like a wolf, head back, mouth open.

Birte doesn’t move. Birte will never move again.

But shadows flicker inside the gaping front door. For a moment, I think it’s just a trick of the fire. But then I see broad shoulders and long legs. A bare chest and jet-black trousers. Dark hair and the planes of a face I know almost as well as my own.

Braiden.

He staggers across the driveway, drawn like a cursed sailor to Aiofe’s siren song. He doesn’t glance at Birte, doesn’t seem to notice any of the destruction around him.

“She’s dead!” Aiofe shouts. “Aunt Birte’s dead!”

Braiden pulls her to his chest. Sobbing and shaking, she lets him hold her. He spreads one hand across the back of her head, muttering something in Irish.

His hands and face are covered in soot. His bare skin is scattered with bright red burns. The scar on his forearm, reminder of the school shooting he survived when he was half Aiofe’s age, looks dark and angry.

“Samantha?” he calls, peering into the night and I close the distance between us.

“Thank God you made it out,” I say, more whisper than actual speech.

His other arm brings me into the circle, and I feel his hand on the nape of my neck. The annulment is crushed between us, but I don’t care. I could stand here until the end of time; I never want to move.

I realize I’m still wearing my collar, the emerald necklace he gave me when I accepted him as my Dom. His fingers brush the locked clasp, and I’m so grateful he’s alive that my knees threaten to buckle.

The first firetruck appears on the winding drive. Fairfax moves to greet it, prepared to help in any way.

With Aiofe still between us, I make myself ask Braiden one question, even though I already know the answer. “Grace?”

He shakes his head, a single terse move.

Grace Poole won’t steal his liquor ever again. She won’t be drunk before noon. She won’t leave the door to the third floor open, letting Birte slip free.

I lean my head against his shoulder. “You tried,” I say.

The firefighters are shouting orders behind us. They’ve discovered Birte. Someone crouches beside her, taking her nonexistent pulse. Teams of men drag hoses into place, but there won’t be much of Thornfield for them to save.

Braiden tightens his grip on my neck, pulling me even closer. His lips find my ear. Ifeelhim speak, more than hear him. “Help me, Samantha,” he says. “I can’t see a thing. I’m blind.”

2

BRAIDEN

“This’ll help with the pain,” Doc Kelleher says, pouring a vat of sulfuric acid into my eyes, first the left, then the right.

I manage not to kick him in the bollocks, but the twin daggers of agony shove me into my thickest Irish accent. “Jaysus, man! What are ya doin’ t’ me?”

“Blink a few times.”

I’m blinking like he’s just blown the entire Sahara Desert into my face. Thank Mary, Jesus, and all the saints that Doc insisted on treating me in the private bedroom of the Rittenhouse’s Presidential Suite. The last thing my men need is to see their Captain crying like a little girl. If any of our enemies gets wind of how badly injured I am…

But Kelleher’s right, as always. The worst of the searing pain I’ve felt for the past twelve hours is eased by the drops he’sjust given me. Now it only feels like I’ve scrubbed my eyes with bleach.

“You can take these every four hours,” he says, folding a bottle of eye drops into my hand. My vision is so cloudy I can’t make out our fingers between us. “I’m leaving another bottle on the night stand. Those go in every morning and every evening for a week. With corneal flash burns, you’re at high risk for infection.”

“Twice a day. Right.”

“Plenty of patients take oxy for the pain. Want me to leave some?”

“I’m good.” I’ve got access to all the opiates a man could ever need. But I won’t be taking them, not when the Fishtown Boys need me at my best.

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