had become brutal when he didn’t need to be.
Just weeks ago, he had been hired to clean out a group of bandits
plaguing the road to the marketplace. When he’d been surrounded by
them, he’d gone a little crazy. He killed all thirty, and only just held
off killing the females who had been travelling with them. His rages
were getting worse. He wouldn’t be able to cover them for much
longer. If they were forced to try to put him down, many people he
cared about would die.
Cian might fade from existence like a candle being slowly snuffed
out, but Beck feared he would go out in a blaze of blood and death.
Dante was under strict instructions to use vampire technology to kill
him if necessary, but he doubted his cousin would be able to do it.
Meg was the answer to all his problems. He bowed formally to the
woman he intended to wed. At least she wasn’t trying to run, yet. He
would have to deal with that eventually. He’d felt a small piece of her
soul when he’d made her come before. He knew she was a stubborn
girl. She was also a lonely girl. He didn’t need to see into her soul for
that. She was lonely and scared. Beck wondered what she had left
behind on the Earth plane. Had she left behind a husband, or worse,
children? She was of an age to be a mother. His conscience hurt at the
thought of leaving a baby without a mother, but there was nothing he
44
Sophie Oak
could do about it. She would learn that there was no way back to her
plane. Only a Planeswalker could take her, and she wouldn’t like the
cost of the trip.
Beck felt the sand beneath his feet. He’d trained in an arena like
this one back when he’d had loyalists who thought they could get him
on the throne. He knew well how to fight here. The vampires were
struggling, though. It wouldn’t take them long to adjust. Beck didn’t