He was quite certain vengeance would finally feel good.
“Remain calm. Remember what I told you. She needs tenderness right now,” X said, popping in and looking slightly weaker than before, his skin not quite as bright.
“Help her,” he demanded.
“I tried, but I cannot help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. No one can.”
Finally Jecis and Matas stomped around a corner, entering his line of sight. Both men were scowling. Jecis cradled Vika in his arms. Vika, who looked like a broken doll.
Solo’s knees almost gave out. Pale hair cascaded around her in tangled hunks. One arm hung limply. The other was smashed against Jecis’s chest. Her face was smashed against his chest, as well, hiding any damage there.
The fury at last detonated, and he uttered a roar that rivaled Jecis’s. Both men tripped over their own feet.
“Calm.” X said. “You must stay calm.”
The males were coming closer and closer to Solo’s cage, so close their evil brushed against his skin. His heart hammered as though trying to drill a nail into one of his ribs. He’d never been one to enjoy his job, to take delight in snuffing out life, but he would have enjoyed and delighted this time.
“Calm.”
It should have been easy for him. In his line of work, he’d seen the effects of domestic abuse a thousand times before, and had thought himself too hardened to ever care. He’d always told himself the people who stayed in that type of situation deserved what they got. Now, having seen the bruises on Vika, learning she was deaf, knowing she had been raised in such an insular world, suspecting she had no idea there was something better out there . . .
But even if she had known, she would not have left the circus. He remembered what she’d said. You would also sentence the other captives to death.
She wanted them freed. She wanted them safe. Even at a terrible cost to herself.
Suddenly a puzzle piece slid into place, and a clear picture of her character began to form. She cared for her charges with all of her heart. Not just to assuage a guilty conscience, but because she placed others before herself. She stayed here, accepting her father’s abuse, Matas’s abuse, even the otherworlders’ abuse, to save those under her supervision. And yes, there were probably other reasons, maybe even a thousand more, but the otherworlders were a big one, he was sure.
Even more miraculous, she understood why the otherworlders acted as they did and didn’t hold a grudge. How could she, and still be willing to break the rules to distribute cookies and chocolates?
What kind of person could do that?
An answer immediately formed. The kind his mother would have loved.
A pang erupted in the center of his chest, deep and burning, probably leaving a scar. One he welcomed.
“What did you do to her?” he shouted with an emotion he’d never before used. An emotion he couldn’t even name. It was too hot for mere fury and too cold for something as controlled as calculation, springing from a place deep inside him, where instinct proved to be the dominant force.
Jecis stopped a few feet away, huffing and puffing with his own rage. “You. What have you done to my daughter, beast? How have you bewitched her?”
“Give her to me,” Solo demanded.
“Don’t you dare.” Matas, who was clutching his bleeding side, opened his mouth to say something. Shadows rose from him, high and higher, reaching toward Jecis . . . but the misty skull hiding under Jecis’s skin turned—without Jecis moving an inch—and snapped its teeth. The shadows retreated and Matas closed his mouth.
“She deserves better than the likes of you two,” Solo snarled.
Matas leapt forward, grabbed the bars, and shook the cage. “Keep talking, I dare you. I’ll do even worse to you, you—”
Moving faster than either man could track, Solo closed the distance, wrapped his fingers around both of the man’s wrists and squeezed. In seconds, the bones were crushed.
Matas howled, sending black birds scattering from their perches on top of the motor home. “Stop!”
“When I’m done,” Solo growled, and he definitely wasn’t done. He twisted one of Matas’s arms, forcing the man to spin around or lose the limb, and slammed the lower part against the bars, breaking those bones as well.
This time, Matas screamed.
Solo still wasn’t done. He jerked and slammed the upper part of the arm against the bars, breaking the bones there, too. Matas released another scream, this one high-pitched.
The entire tussle lasted less than three seconds.
Solo could have reached out and raked his claws across the man’s jugular. He definitely would have, if he hadn’t feared Vika would be penalized for his actions.
Tears leaked down Matas’s cheeks, and his knees buckled. But the man didn’t fall—he couldn’t. Solo kept hold of his arm, applying pressure to each of the new wounds.
“P-please,” Matas begged.
Had he made Vika beg before he’d hit her?
Solo lifted the male’s arm a few inches higher.
As if she sensed the tension, a moan rose from her. It was the first noise she’d made, and one that proved she lived, that she was still in pain.
“Give the girl to me,” Solo repeated. “I would never hurt her.”
“Please . . . please,” Matas said.
Teeth bared with masculine aggression, Jecis said, “Oh, I’ll give her to you all right. She thinks she wants you, and a little alone time with you should change her mind, teach her better, and make her appreciate what she has.”
Without hesitation, Solo placed both hands in the air, palms out. Matas collapsed into a groaning heap, cradling his arms to his chest and attempting to slither away.
“Vika,” Solo said. “Give her to me. Now.”
“No,” Matas managed to shout past his sobs. “She’s mine! You said—”
“Silence!” Jecis boomed. “I have made my decision, and it will stand. Twice she has chosen the animal over you, and so I will give her what she thinks she wants. And you,” he said to Solo. “I’m placing my very heart in your hands. You will guard it.”
Vika was not the male’s heart. A man guarded the treasures of his heart, fawned over them, placed their welfare above his own. Jecis had done none of those things.
“He’s a beast,” Matas cried. “He’ll maul her. Look at what he did to me!”
Ignoring him, Jecis said to Solo, “If she dies, you die. If you injure her in any way, I will injure you a thousand times worse. You are only to scare her. To make her hate you.”