Luna didn’t see Kit again after Zachariah came, though the man didn’t stay very long. He had disappeared as quickly as the other man had, making Luna wonder where he had gone.

When had she begun to miss him?

Luna didn’t fully understand that this was the emotion she was feeling, not at first. She attributed it to melancholy, her desire to start training.

But, she soon realized that wasn’t the case because Aidra soon requested that she start exercising with The Wild Bunch. At first, that had been enough to deter her interest for a bit, but not long enough that she was no longer thinking about Kit.

It wasn’t until she found herself glancing out the windows every few hours, thinking that Kit would pop up at any moment.

She missed him.

Missed seeing him every morning for breakfast.

Missed finding him down in the gym or the pool as he worked out.

And worse, he hadn’t been gone very long, not even a week.

Pathetic.

There were more important things to be worrying about—mainly the training that still hadn’t started—rather than where he was.

Already, her mind had seized on different ideas about what the training would consist of, but thoughts wouldn’t live up to the real thing, she knew.

But until Kit was ready …

As had become her custom, she was tucked away in the library when Kit finally returned, finding her in her usual spot.

There was something different about him—maybe it was the way he walked, with a sort of confidence that couldn’t be ignored. He didn’t stop until he was close enough to lean against the chair she sat in.

There was a touch of a smile on his lips as he asked, “Would you like a gift?”

Sometimes, Kit said things that caught her off guard, but she was generally able to find an answer. This time, he’d stumped her. “Sorry?”

“A gift—would you like one? I can’t imagine you’ve had many over the last three years. If you’d like, you can consider it an early birthday present.”

“Thanks, but why are you giving me a gift?”

He had a gentle expression as he said, “I could say it has something to do with your training, but that wouldn’t be entirely true, would it? My motives are completely selfish.”

Luna almost laughed. “Kit, you’re not making any sense.”

“Then let me show you.”

He offered her his hand, palm side up.

Kit didn’t force her to take it, nor did he ask her to, merely stood there and waited as though he knew the inevitable.

After the briefest of hesitations where she wondered just what kind of gift he had for her, she took his hand.

Luna stayed a couple of steps behind him even as she kept hold of his hand, following him out of the library and down two flights of stairs until they were walking alongside the pool toward a hidden archway that she hadn’t noticed until now.

The temperature had seemed to drop during their journey down, but she didn’t complain, nor did she question what was happening.

There were a set of doors at the end of the hallway, heavy metal ones with a handle like that of a bank vault. There was even a magnetic keypad to the right of it that Kit had to lay his hand on before gears shifted, and the door started opening itself.

It wasn’t until the gap grew bigger, the muscles in his arm straining as he pushed the heavy metal open that she could hear the muffled screams coming from inside.

Not just from one, she realized the further she stepped into the room, but seven.

Seven men.

And their faces … she didn’t think she could ever forget their faces.

Now, their expressions were more subdued, sweat dotting their brows as terror reflected in their gazes.

Oh no, she could never forget those faces.

The way they used to smile and jeer, their excitement freely visible when Lawrence gave them permission to abuse her in any way they saw fit.

How eager they had been at the proposition of taking someone against their will.

Now, that excitement and joy and enthusiasm was gone, replaced with fear the likes of which she had never experienced firsthand.

And all that fear was because of Kit.

She could tell from the way they cowered when he entered the room, whimpers muffled behind cloth gags tied around their mouths.

Luna tried to muster up sympathy for them, but she felt none.

Their wrists and ankles were zip-tied, the hardened plastic digging so hard into their flesh that she could see chafed and bleeding skin as they struggled on the floor in an attempt to get free.

Though she came to a stop in the middle of the room, Kit still moved on around her, first closing the door until the metal lock clicked into place, then eased across the room with all the grace of a predator.

Of course, he wouldn’t be bothered by the sight of the helpless men—he’d put them there—but there was something rather transfixing about the way he moved about as though the stench of their terror wasn’t permeating the air.

Kit was in his element.

His hands dropped to the hem of his shirt, fingers dragging up the material until he was pulling it over his head and tossing it aside, the muscles in his back flexing with the movement.

In the low light of the room, she could now see the dark ink of the tattoo that covered the entirety of his back.

Wings.

They were massive, so big that some of the feathers extended over his shoulders, and down the backs of his arms stopping just above his elbows. They were incredibly detailed, almost lifelike, from the shading to the way the feathers laid as if in movement. But what made them different from anything she had ever seen was the detail of the smoke, as though those wings were on fire.

They were magnificent.

A phoenix.

It wasn’t just a name for him—it was who he was.

“They’ll all die tonight,” Kit said as he jerked the slide back on the gun in his hand, “but how they die is entirely up to you.”

Luna didn’t know what to say, or even what to think as she glanced behind her at The Wild Bunch who stood idle against the back wall, wondering if this was a regular thing for them.

Bizarrely, Fang offered a thumbs-up.

“The choice is yours.”

Even as she turned back, staring down at men that had done the worst things to her, her mouth wouldn’t work.

“Don’t feel sympathy for those that don’t deserve it,” Kit said. “They didn’t.”

No, they hadn’t.

“Arnold,” she said with a point of her finger at one of the first men that Lawrence had invited into her suffering.

The man shook his head hard, tears spilling from his eyes as he begged behind his gag, his chest heaving with the force of his sobs, but he was put out of his misery soon enough as Kit pulled the trigger, the force of the bullet making the man’s head jerk back before he crumpled to the ground.

She watched his descent in surprise. Seconds was all it had taken to end his life—until he was nothing more than a shell.

As she had felt once …

The moment was made even sweeter as their looks of fear were turned on her because they realized that she held power over them now—even if her weapon was the man before her.

Luna pointed to another, and another.

It didn’t matter that they tried to shuffle away, to escape a death that was inevitable, but Kit’s aim never faltered.

By the time there was only one left, Luna was ready to raise her hand once more, but paused when she saw just who kneeled before her. There were just some faces one couldn’t forget, and Benjamin’s was one of them.

Oh, how eager he had been the first time Lawrence invited him into that special room of pain.

I’m not a monster, he had said with a gentle smile, as though his attempt at faux sincerity would move her.

You’ll enjoy it, he promised when he’d patted the spot beside him.

I’ll take care of you, he whispered as he grabbed hold of her chain and forced her into a position of his liking.

But it wasn’t enough that he had wanted to use her, but he had gleefully called Lawrence over and very soon, his gentleness had turned to agonizing pain, and his ‘I’ll take care of you,’ meant beating the shit out of her until she couldn’t move.

Unlike the others, he wasn’t begging for his life, nor were his eyes wet with tears. If anything, he looked angry.

Furious even.

Kit didn’t stop her as she went to the man, glad that he was restrained so she could pull the cloth from his mouth.

It was barely out of his mouth before he was spewing, “Stupid fucking whore.”

Luna flinched at the venom in his voice, but she didn’t back down—she didn’t curl into herself as she once would have.

But even as she stood her ground, those words still hurt—a reminder that no matter where she went or how much time passed, that word would always follow her around.

It hadn’t been that long since she was locked in the Kendall Estate, forced to do another’s bidding—weeks, in fact. Both he and Lawrence had loved using that title with her.

Whore.

As though that was all she was, and all she would ever be.

The word kept echoing over and over in her head, freezing her in place until she felt a hand slip beneath the fall of her hair, cupping her nape. She shouldn’t have known Kit’s touch, not this soon, but as quickly as she jumped in surprise at the sudden feel of his hand on her, she was settling again.

“Look at me,” he said next to her ear, not releasing his hold even as she slowly turned, aware that Benjamin was still spitting insults.

Gray eyes that seemed more blue in the dim lighting were trained on her, forcing her to focus on only him as he uttered one word.

“Breathe,” he said, as though it were that simple—as though his fingers weren’t curled around her throat.

As though because he commanded it, she was supposed to do it.

That notion baffled her, but Luna did draw in a deep breath, doing as he’d asked—the blood rushing in her ears finally receding.

“What do you want, Luna?”

She shook her head hard. “I don’t—”

“I don’t know isn’t good enough for me. I won’t assume what you’re thinking—I don’t want to. Now, tell me what you want.”

“He doesn’t deserve to die quickly,” she said, only loud enough for Kit to hear. “He should have to suffer the way I suffered.”

Kit’s eyes darted over her face a moment before he looked over his shoulder and barked an order that sent The Wild Bunch into movement. They slipped past them, grabbing hold of Benjamin and dragged him across the floor to a steel table bolted to the floor.

Forcing him down onto it, they restrained his wrists, then his ankles, and another one over his neck. Then, they took knives and cut the man’s clothes away until he was completely naked.

All the while, he hurled insults.

After he had been strapped in place, The Wild Bunch exited the dungeon, leaving the three of them alone.

Once they were alone, Kit looked back at her. “There’s a balance—give and take, if you will—in this world of ours. When something is taken from you, it’s only right that you receive something in return.”

“An eye for an eye,” she said, earning a small smile in return.

“I can’t give you what he took, but I can give you something else. I can give you his life.”

When he dropped his hand, she almost felt cold without him.

Stepping away from her, he plucked a stool from a nearby corner, setting it a few feet from the table and gave it a pat.

Luna walked over and sank onto it.

“Have you ever heard of lingchi?” he asked as he pulled a blade from a rack of them, spinning the blade around in his hands. “It translates to ‘death by a thousand cuts.’ He’ll suffer for the next seven hours,” Kit said, turning his gaze down onto his captive, trailing the tip of his knife across the man’s shoulder. “If that appeases you?”

Her idea of suffering had been merely to shoot him somewhere other than his head so he could bleed out. Kit’s method of suffering …

“That’s … yes.”

“Right then. Don’t worry,” Kit said, this time to Benjamin who had grown deathly silent as he stared up at Kit in horror. “I’ll start with your penis and work my way out.”

The first cut drew a sharp cry from Benjamin’s mouth, the second one just as loud. Luna didn’t think she had ever heard screams quite like those—gut-wrenching sounds that made her stomach feel like it was dropping.

But she never moved, nor did she look away as Kit applied each cut with expert precision. He was a killer, she reminded herself, a master at his trade, and she saw the full extent of that.

She didn’t know how much time passed as she sat there watching him work before she noticed a peculiar thing about him.

He wasn’t sweating.

His hands weren’t shaking.

Nor were his pupils blown out the way Lawrence’s had whenever he was violent.

Kit seemed entirely unaffected.

Even as the blood began dripping from the table onto the floor, nearly covering his arms up to his elbows, he didn’t seem bothered at all.

Luna should have been horrified at the violence before her, but as she watched Kit work, she might have fallen a little in love.