Before she lost another step toward George, Domnall stepped in front of Karta and slammed his fist into George’s face.
Brutal, savage. A punch so vicious it cracked bones and sliced skin.
Crushing the man—he didn’t care. The bastard had dared to touch his wife.
George flew backward with a squeal, his shoulder hitting the doorframe and sending him flailing. He landed on the dead birds, blood from his nose splattering across the wall, the floor.
Domnall followed him, ready to finish the ass, when Karta’s hand clamped onto his upper arm.
“Dom. No. Just let him go. He’s not worth it.” Her whisper, soft and pleading, broke through the fiery rage filling his veins.
It wasn’t enough.
With a high swing, he brought his fist down.
He stopped it.
An inch from the sniveling bastard’s head. He stopped.
She was right. George wasn’t worth it. And Karta was worth stopping for.
His fist opened and he grabbed the fold of George’s collar. Stepping over him, he dragged the man to the front foyer. He opened the door and picked George fully up, throwing him down the stone steps leading up to the abbey.
George tumbled, splaying into the bank of snow that lined the cleared pathway, his face straight into the cold ice of it.
“You’re walking away because of my wife, Lord Leviton. She’s the only reason you’re alive, so you will give her the respect she is due.” The words seethed though his clenched teeth. “If I hear of the slightest rumor that you or your brothers ever speak on her name again, I will come for you. If you ever set foot in these lands again, I will come for you.”
Domnall moved out onto the top step, leaning out over Leviton, the wrath of a thousand demons raging in his words. “And when I come, I will have no control and Karta will not stop me. You only get one warning, you cowardly sorry dung of a man. You have one hour to vacate these lands.”
Without a word, George scrambled to his feet, his arms punching through the collapsing snow again and again until he found enough ground to push up from. Onto his feet, he slipped on the icy bricks of the walkway, barely maintaining balance. His hands clasped against his bloody nose and he skidded his way through the snow toward the stables, blood droplets trailing in the white drifts behind him.
Watching the pathetic bastard retreat, Domnall felt the few strains of control he’d managed starting to snap.
The man touched Karta. Touched hiswife.
His fingers itched against his palm. Hell, he was going to follow the ass and finish him.
A hand, still cool, wrapped along the side of his neck from behind.
“Dom.” Karta’s voice was soft, cracking. “Step back. Close the door. Rory is already on his way out the side door to the stables. He’ll see George gone.”
Domnall couldn’t move. Couldn’t move until George disappeared around the corner of the abbey.
Her fingers curled along the bare skin of his neck. “Step back, Dom.”
The fury still palpitating in his veins, he turned around to her, afraid of what he would find. Afraid she would now see him as the monster everyone always suspected him to be.
His look landed on her face, on her brown eyes.
Awe. Pride. Lust
All of it, entwined with love in her eyes.
She was home. Home with him.
All he ever wanted. And he wasn’t about to leave her side for anything.
{ Chapter 15 }