Euan was so fucking tired of waiting for virtue to prevail.
He stood alone in the place where they had lost their humanity. Snatched, stolen from their care, their fucking arms, she had taken it with her. Kira was everything that made a man human. To lose her was to destroy that part of the soul. In her absence, he became the beast he needed to be to get her back. Euan was no longer man, he was animal. A primal creature that would see the end to this. Nick would save their fairy, but Euan would bring down the destruction of humankind, and he would savour its demise.
He was going to slaughter every last one of them. He would remove their hearts with his hands so he could see them beat. He was going to gnaw on their bones, chew on anything that was left of their carcasses. He was death, he would bring the destruction of a thousand burned out suns to their door. He would rain a terror so violent, so terrible, so destructive that it would make the plague look like it had been borne by the hands of a gentle child.
Euan James McKay would become a God.
And he would be a vengeful one.
His ass in the dirt, he now did what he had to in order to proceed.
He bit his lip as he undid the laces to his boots, only allowed a grunt to escape when he peeled his socks away from the bandages. But his eye was focused when he saw the damage. Blood, pink and bright soaked the dressings. Sodden with his own life fluid, they told him what he had suspected as he had held Nick in his arms and made a bargain that would see them lose each other, but potentially save the one that held their hearts.
His feet were destroyed.
To change the bandages was both essential and pointless. He had a long way to travel, to march over terrain that was unforgiving, relentless and destructive. He had to find what was left of a battalion of men, of weapons, of hope. He had to discover their hiding place, a destination designed for stealth and concealment, hidden in a mountain range.
He had to do it all with haste.
The insurmountable odds were against him.
He didn’t give a single fuck.
He was a lone wolf, an alpha that had suffered the wounds of battle. He was scarred, wounded. He still bled. But the violence that was in his heart eclipsed it all. There was no light left. They had taken his Kira, they had forced him to separate from his Nick. They did not know the wrath that was now about to destroy them and all they held dear.
He made quick work of rebinding his feet, layering it up twice. He didn’t focus for any length at the damage, but he did notice there was no infection, just the destruction of the healing skin. He chewed on outdated painkillers and antibiotics as he laced his boots and was on his feet again within moments, and did what he had to do.
He marched, with a ‘fuck you’ to fate.
Chapter 16
Kira
The truck lurched and spluttered. The engine whined and the exhaust backfired. Kira flinched each time the snap of sound clapped around them. Her muscles were tight, joints locked, jaw hard.
Her cheeks were wet.
Her big protector had been so close, within reach of the vehicle when the driver had finally found the right gear and launched away. She’d held his agonised gaze through the grimy back window as his large figure had grown smaller and smaller with each breath, each heartbeat. He’d reached for her, his palm outstretched, his long fingers splayed in a desperate attempt to grasp her, to stretch his body as the distance between them increased. His fear was in every line of his face. The downturn of his mouth, the creased brow, the deep furrows in his cheeks. The eyepatch hid that eye, but when he bellowed her name, she felt the acute burn of two irises instead of just the one.
His cry resonated in her soul. Its echo built a fortress, created a stone foundation and erected walls fortified with iron. She knew with every single beat of her heart that both Nick and Euan would search for her until their dying breath. She just had to stay alive, and maybe, use her own brain to escape, and find them first.
But in Euan’s face she saw his fear, his terror for her. It made it real. This situation was no dream, no movie where the girl was just the right type of clever to trick her captives. This was truth. She was alone, vulnerable in a world built on depravity and degradation. Where the victims suffered the loss, and the villains owned the triumph.
A horrible swirl of dread began to pervade her stomach. It was an anxiety that seized her muscles, crowded her head with the very real horror of her situation. She imagined things, terrible things, and then realised that her imagination probably didn’t equal what she was about to experience in truth.
It evaporated when the man who had captured her grabbed her wrist and pulled her from where she had leaned over the back seat to witness Euan and Nick disappear.
A sickness of alarm had taken hold, and Kira had no control of her fight or flight instinct.
When he yanked her close, she attacked.
Her rage was significant. She used her hands, her boots, her nails and her teeth. He swore, she kicked. He snatched, she bit. Her cries were guttural, her anger was akin to oxygen in her blood. But in the end, he was able to overpower her with nothing more than brute strength.
The man who drove ignored the scuffle, his intentions solely on getting them away.
They both panted, Kira’s face wet with unnoticed tears. Her captor’s cheeks dribbled crimson from lacerations on his face from her nails.
He seized her hands before she
