A Ruthless Kind of Love

Fire and Glass

The club throbbed like a living heart.

Music battered against the walls, slow and hypnotic, shaking the floor under Elena's heels. Red, blue, and green neon lights cut through the cloud of smoke and perfume, sending distorted bodies scurrying in colored light. Shrieks, cries, and clinking glasses blended into one ear-blasting chaos.

Elena was not supposed to be there. Her nature warned her so. And yet Damien had left her no choice.

"You're safest where I can watch you," he'd told her before, his fingers tracing the curve of her back, the words as much an order as they were a promise.

So she was there. In his world. Once again.

Damien was where he should be-holding court, bribing palms with hungry men, that cold smile flashing that never reached as far as his eyes. To them, he was not a man. He was a king. And this evening he was hosting, flaunting his power, reminding all his enemies and acquaintances that this city belonged to him.

Elena sat in a corner table, sipping barely a glass of champagne. The bubbles stung her lips, but her nerves stung worse. She was a fragile flower among wolves, and she longed to merge with the rich shadows, but Damien's eyes met hers from time to time, pinning her down.

And then-

The world shattered.

A deafening roar shredded the air apart, consuming the music. Fire lashed the ceiling as glass fell in broken shards.

Elena screamed, thrown out of her chair and onto the gummy floor by the shockwave. A jolt of agony shot through her side. Lights dimmed and died, replaced by wisps of thick smoke and tendrils of orange fire.

Chaos. Unadulterated chaos.

Others shoved her aside, some stumbling, some toppling. Screams turned to shrieks. Bottles were broken, tables were overturned. The pungent odor of singed cloth filled her lungs, and she coughed until her throat was scraped raw.

"Elena!"

His voice pierced the mayhem.

Muscle arms swept her up before she had time to get her feet back under her. Damien's body pinned hers as a chunk of ceiling fell in a section near them, sparks flying like firecrackers. His jacket ripped, soot grime on his hard face, blood trickling from a cut at his temple.

"Get down," he snarled, ducking low as another explosion shook the walls.

She clung to him, convulsing with an hysterical ferocity. She could not breathe. Could not see. The smoke tore at her lungs, her eyes running with tears. She could only cling to his shirt, her hands shaking as she grasped the one thing solid in the midst of the madness.

"It's a bomb!" someone yelled above the wails. "The Morettis!"

The name sounded like a curse.

Damien's jaw clenched, face rigid as if hewn from stone. Flame burned in his eyes, hotter than the flames consuming the room.

"Take her out!" he shouted to his men.

Two of them advanced, guns levelled, cutting through the smoke like an army.

"No!" Elena was shrieking, her voice cracking. "Not without you-"

But Damien was already stepping back, issuing orders in hard command.

His men hastened to obey, rough-handling hurt guests, pushing screaming survivors into niches. Gunmetal glinted in their fists as they fought to keep control in the face of chaos.

As a guard lingered, frozen with fear, Damien moved.

With a cold gesture, he knocked the man against the wall, fist on bone in a crunching splash of blood. The man's scream was drowned in the blaze's howl.

You freeze, you die!" Damien spat his own voice like thunder. "And you drag us all down with you!"

The guard stuttered apologies, his puffed jaw held clutched to his mouth. Damien pushed him aside, already looking for the next weak link in the smoke-filled room.

Elena's heart shifted. She should have been horrified. And she was. But under the fear, something else roiled in her chest. A pull. A hunger she could not allow herself to admit. Because the way Damien stood, bleeding but unbroken, handing out devastation as if it were a puppy submissive-horrified her. She was enthralled.

Another explosion rocked the club, raining the bar in sparks. Shouting reached a frantic level.

Damien spun her around, his arm around her wrist in a vise grip. "Move!"

She stumbled behind him, her knees trembling, glass crunching under bare feet. He steadied her, his own body a brick wall of protection as shards cascaded down on them.

Finally, they burst through a back door out into the night.

Cold wind hit her face, bitter and sweet along with the smothering smoke. Elena leaned back against the brick wall, choking, her lungs burning with every ragged breath.

Behind them, the club was on fire. Fire flared up into the air, covering the night with a hellscape of orange and black. Sirens screamed in the distance, closer with each passing moment.

Damien stood resolute. He stood rigid, his chest heaving, his shirt tattered, his face smeared with soot and blood. His men formed a circle around him, shouting into radios, opening the streets for hazard.

Elena shook with convulsions. Her whole body shook as if her bones were glass. She would have fallen completely if Damien hadn't wrapped himself around her, holding her tight to his chest.

His pulse thundered in her ear, fast and hard. His arms wrapped tightly around her, hotly possessive and fiercely guarding.

"Are you injured?" he snarled, yanking her face toward his.

She moved her head weakly. "N-no."

His hands cradled her face, calloused to the dirt on her cheeks. His eyes flared into hers, furious and something more.

And then his lips came crashing down over hers.

It wasn't tender. It was brutal. Starving. His lips brimming with the rush of blood and smoke, his hunger spilling over her like fire. Elena gagged on him, gasping, drowning. She could still hear the burning city behind them, wailing sirens-but it didn't register. Not when his lips torched her.

When he finally broke, his forehead against hers, his breathing hot and rough.

"They won't let me alone," he snarled, voice low and brutal. "Not till I make them bleed."

Elena's heart hammered in her chest. She should be afraid. She should have let him go. But she couldn't. Because in that moment, among the flames and destruction, she knew she was already his-completely, awfully, fatally his.

The city burned. But hotter than the flames was the truth she

could no longer keep secret.

She was not safe only in his arms.

She was marked.

For eternity.