Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(84)

Someone she could love and live with until she and he grew old.

He looked up and smiled at her in that moment and she whirled and caught George’s pistol, pulling it down, away from her lover, her love, her life.

Pulling it toward her own breast.

The shot, when it came, was deafening.

APOLLO SAW LILY turn and wrestle with George Greaves.

Saw the spark and the plume of black smoke.

Saw her stagger back and fall, dead.

Dead.

Strangely, he didn’t hear a thing.

George turned and saw him and raised the pistol, but he’d already used the one shot to kill Lily, his beloved Lily, so Apollo batted it aside. The pistol went spinning into the underbrush as Apollo raised his hand and plowed it into George’s face.

He didn’t hear that, either. Or feel it.

Just as well.

George went down and Apollo followed, beating into that face, because it was the last thing Lily had seen—the face of her killer—and he meant to destroy it.

Blood spattered and George opened his mouth, his teeth scarlet-stained. He might’ve been saying something, might’ve been begging, but since Apollo couldn’t hear, it didn’t matter.

Something crunched beneath his knuckles, and Apollo realized he was grinning, his lips pulled back from his bared teeth, turned into the monster Lily had first thought him.

It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered anymore.

George spat blood and a bit of broken white that might’ve been a tooth and Apollo split his ear.

But the eyes were still there—the eyes that had looked on Lily’s death—and he aimed his fist toward them.

“Apollo.” The voice was Lily’s, but that couldn’t be, because… because…

Her hands, white and soft, wrapped about his bloodied knuckles and gently stopped him.

Sound suddenly rushed back in.

George was breathing with a harsh rasp, Apollo was making a noise like a sob, and Lily…

Dear God, Lily was saying his name.

He looked up and saw her face, blackened on one side with flecks of blood high on one cheek.

He let the front of George’s shirt go and his head thudded against the ground.

Apollo turned on his knees and cupped her sweet face with his unclean hands. “How?” he choked. “I saw you die. I saw you fall dead to the ground.”

“The pistol fired over my shoulder,” she whispered. “Apollo, what have you done to your poor hands?”

“God!” he cried, pulling her face down to his, kissing her nose and cheeks and eyelids, making sure she still lived and breathed. “Dear God, Lily, never do that to me again.”

“I won’t, love.” Tears were making muddy streaks through the gunpowder on her cheek. “Ow, that stings.”

Richard Perry, Baron Ross stepped out from the bushes. “Get away from her.”

“Sod off,” Apollo retorted, possibly because he was too tired to be surprised.

“Get away from her or I’ll shoot her.” Ross, of course, had not one but two pistols.

Reluctantly Apollo stood and took a step away from Lily. “We really must talk, darling, about the sort of riffraff you bring to secret meetings.”

“I didn’t know he was there,” Lily said grumpily.

“Did you really think my good friend George wouldn’t tell me about my son?” Ross said. “Jesus, he said this would be easy—capture you, Kilbourne, and get my son. Look at this mess now. Have you killed George?”

“Sadly, no,” Apollo replied without glancing at the man on the ground. He could hear his cousin’s harsh breathing. “Put the damned gun down.” He was becoming tired of people pointing guns at his Lily.

Ross ignored him, his gaze worryingly focused on Lily. “Where is he? Where is Indio?”

And before Apollo could think of what to do, Lily opened her mouth.

Chapter Twenty

Then the monster rose, his massive shoulders bunched, his hands fisted, his bull’s head lowered, the two curved horns pointed menacingly at Theseus. The lad didn’t hesitate. With a warlike cry he ran at the monster, his sword raised. The monster did not move until the last moment, and then with a brutally swift toss of his head he impaled the youth upon his horns…

—From The Minotaur

“Are you insane?” Lily asked Ross pleasantly. “Do you really think I’d tell you where he is after you beat his mother, my dearest friend, to death?”

“Tell me or I’ll shoot you,” he replied, not very originally, but it still put a thrill of fear into Apollo’s heart.

“Lily,” Apollo said gently.

Lily crossed her arms. “Go ahead, then. I’ll not give my son up to a rat like you.”

“Don’t you mean my son?” he snapped back, stupid and irate.

Apollo lost what little patience he still had. “Damn it, Montgomery, aren’t you ever going to act?”

“Oh, fine,” the duke replied sulkily from behind him and shot Richard in the leg.

Richard fell to the ground, moaning.

Lily blinked. “What—?”

The duke glanced at his pistol and frowned. “Pulls a bit to the right. I was aiming for his groin.” He toed Ross’s pistols away from the writhing man and turned to Apollo. “I’ll have you know this entire business has been a loss to me—a dead loss.”