Mark of Damon by Eva Chase Page 0,37

my hand onto my lap. My fingers twitched of their own accord with a flash of heat, but I managed to will it down. No. Not here. Not now.

If it got bad enough, I could ask Rose to stop the car. We could hash the situation out on the side of the road, even if I’d rather we had the privacy of the estate instead. But at the very least, I’d like to get a little more distance from the damned Assembly before—

An urge wrenched through me so hard my head snapped toward the window. We’d left the downtown core behind, the shops and office buildings giving way to posh houses on manicured lawns. A sudden, furious certainty filled me from head to toe.

Somewhere over there, not far at all, was the jackass who’d made all this happen. Who’d called the demons forth. Who’d bound them to his will. Who’d ensnared Rose in the whole mess.

Whose missteps had cut off the freedom the fiends had nearly won. Who’d mocked my helplessness and put the idea that I couldn’t control this menace into my head.

The streams of rage burst through me so quickly and brutally I couldn’t separate which were mine and which seemed to have emerged from the vicious presence tied to my scar. All I knew was Mr. Hallowell was close, and he didn’t deserve one speck of the miserable life he was still leading—and I could see that he didn’t get a single speck more.

Rose eased to a halt at a stop sign, and my hand was on the door before I’d even processed what I was doing. I shoved the door open and flung myself out onto the sidewalk.

Two startled voices rang out behind me. “Damon!” I barely heard them over the roar of my pulse in my ears. My legs hurtled me forward, drawn around the corner and across the street and onward like a homing missile locked on its target.

My breath came ragged. My arm blazed with pain. The houses passed by in a blur, the sight of them barely penetrating the whirl of emotions inside me.

Cut down that driveway. Hop that fence with a surge of power that propelled me right over it. Veer right. Faster. Faster. There.

A fresh surge of rage flooded me when my gaze caught on the house I understood was Mr. Hallowell’s. I felt him, with a sickening intimacy, walking through the first floor living room, totally oblivious to the forces he’d failed to fully reckon with, the damage he’d done a thousand times over—

My footsteps thudded across the asphalt and up the front walk. I grasped the doorknob, and the deadbolt unlocked with a flicker of heat from my mark. The door flew open without any further impetus from me. I charged into the hallway.

“What on—” Mr. Hallowell stepped into a nearby doorway and froze. The stiffening of his posture and the widening of his eyes told me he now knew what was coming for him.

It wasn’t just me. The fury that stirred in the depths of my being came from a long way away and yet much too close for comfort, with an alien chill that echoed back to those horrifying moments in the cave on the cliffside. I felt the baring of deadly teeth and a bloody longing that brought a metallic flavor into the back of my mouth.

Rip him apart. Tear him limb from limb. Ravage him and let the blood spill like paint… like fuel…

My arm had already whipped up toward him, that violent desire twining through my muscles and veins on the verge of exploding out. Mr. Hallowell stumbled backward, but it wasn’t fast enough. I’d eviscerate him into hundreds of shreds of flesh splattered across his fucking polished floor—

NO!

I threw myself sideways at the last second. My elbow slammed into the wall, and the blast of magic shattered as it left my hand. It burst through the hall, shards of it scraping little gouges into the floorboards, the wallpaper, the side table—and, one, across Mr. Hallowell’s arm with a spurt of blood that showed so clearly how much carnage I could have caused if the full blast had hit him.

With a ragged sound, he clapped his hand over the wound to suppress the bleeding. I staggered, reeling, the pulsing in my head sharpening into a migraine ache. The demonic energy pulsed through me again, but I managed to cling on to one thought.

The worst villains were the ones that had dragged me here.