Page 48 of Greed: The Savage
Quaking, the baroness nodded vigorously.
His half-crazed eyes slid across the room.
Addien followed his stare.
She and the baroness anticipated his next move. “Malric, no,” Addien barked.
Even when Addien was rushing to put herself between the marquess and the battered viscount, the baroness backed away. “You are mad, Thornwick.”
Addien flung herself in front of Dunworthy’s battered body.
“Get out of my way, Addien,” he growled; his eyes were sightless, unseeing.
This vision of him twisted and contorted into a thing of the streets, a monster, was one Addien felt a kindred connection to. The sight of Malric this way also restored her equilibrium and that of the room.
He is this way because of me.
This wasn’t who he was.
This is who he’d become for her.
No, because of me.
He hadn’t returned to tup the baroness, but to avenge Addien, but she didn’t want him like this.
“Malric!” she called sharply; Addien gripped his arm hard.
Both corners of his eyes twitched, and the muscles of his jaw rippled and spasmed.
She recognized the fight he fought within himself. She knew it all too well. It was one only carried by a creature that prowled and found itself prepared for war to the death.
She said his name again, this time more insistently. “Malric.”
His sight, motionless, locked on Addien’s face. He blinked those silky, long dark lashes that absolutely no gentleman of his hard beauty had a right to.
While the baroness noisily wept in the background, a now lucid Malric ran a glacial gaze over the scene of his ruthless work.
His gaze lingered a moment more upon Dunworthy.
Addien rested her fingertips on his sleeve and gave him a brief squeeze. “Let it go, Malric,” she said softly.
Malric, her stalwart avenger, gave a curt nod.
As natural as a heartbeat, she slipped her fingers into his blood-smeared palm. With an enraged Lady Darrow’s threats to their futures following, Addien and Malric left.
Chapter 13
Battering his fist against Dynevor’s carriage ceiling, Thornwick gave Hinkley a curt command to drive and the blistering pace he expected him to set.
Hinkley took the cue, launching them into quick motion.
Thornwick didn’t look at her.
No—he did not look at Addien. Because the moment he did, he’d be ordering the damned carriage to turn straight back to the baroness’s residence so he could finish the job on her swine of a brother.
And yet—stunningly—an urge stronger than bloodlust, stronger even than the thirst for Lord Dunworthy’s blood and hide, won out.
He looked at her squarely. The redness had faded from her cheek, but the mark remained, a stark reminder of what she’d endured while he’d been wasting his time with the baroness.
