Page 89 of Empire of Dark

“I’m also not going to let you keep her.” My voice oozing calm, I set my hand on his shoulder. Both things I knew he despised. “Come now, Brother. We best figure this out before Genora arrives.”

His look flickered toward the heavy curtains draped along the rear of the room in front of the back door.

“You’ve got no business here, little pip.” His glare shot into me. “Best you get back to your castle and your latest distraction. Don’t tell me you left her there alone?”

My fingers tightened into his shoulder at the not-so-thinly-veiled threat. “My distractions are my own business. I manage to keep the stranglehold the Folottos have over the malefics just fine even with my distractions, which is more than you’ve ever done for the family.”

“Only because you?—”

I punched him—the quickest way to shut him up—because I heard a clang.

A vicious metal-on-metal clang that I hoped to hell wasn’t what I thought it was.

I tilted my head.

Swords clashing, clanging.

In a pitch just above the pounding techno music vibrating the walls, metal struck metal, again and again.

Shit.

Chapter Twenty-Three

{ DAMEN }

Without another glance at Eustice, I ran out the front entrance of the elite lounge into the large main area of the three-story-high club, where lights of all colors flashed and spun from all directions onto the crowd—the revelers bobbing up and down with the music, deep into their particular haze of drugs or alcohol.

Looking past the main crowd, I surveyed two levels upward of balconies that surrounded the main stage. No blades flashing. But I could still hear them.

Then it appeared—erupted in full, grotesque fashion with a dismembered head flying through the air directly across from me, a man-bun unfurling from the scalp, flinging out wide as it spun in the air.

Shouts and screams.

Then blades and more blades started flashing, the crowd surging toward the epicenter of the fight, joining in.

My kind always did run toward blood instead of away from it.

That was the thing about Glint. There were no rules on weapons. You came with a blade and if you couldn’t fight your way out, you never should have entered.

A full-on melee.

I barreled through the crowd, the sword that I’d strapped to my side under my jacket out in an instant.

I honestly didn’t know what side the Genora clan was currently on and with most of my men combing the surrounding streets searching for Lenora, I didn’t have enough men to fight both my brother and the Genora men at the same time in a crowded nightclub.

I needed to get Ada out of here.

Except where in the hell was she?

Two random people, a man and a woman to my left, turned and attacked me in unison, one with a dagger, the other a short sword.

Fuck it.

With that, the furious red haze swallowed me and I started swinging. I had to get to the center of the fight because I was pretty certain whatever had just started this had something to do with Ada. I worked my way across the blood-soaked dance floor, ducking and spinning and slicing through anything that got in my way.

I reached the spot where the dance floor opened up to a large area of high-top tables and I just happened to spin to my left as I sent my blade through a torso.

Ada.

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