Kraving Dravka by Zoey Draven
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What are you doing here, Gabriel?” Valerie asked, trying to keep her voice calm.
“What,” he snapped, continuing his approach, “is my mother doing at a fucking brothel?”
So he knew what this place was and where it was located. She wondered if Madame Allegria had let that information slip during their pillow talk.
“You’re drunk,” Valerie said, recognizing the tone she used as the one she usually used with visiting clients. Polite, calm, yet sterile. “Let me call you a car and—”
A gasp left her when Gabriel grabbed her arm, tugging her forward.
He must’ve been at Restaurant Row, which was the street just behind them, because she could smell the liquor on his breath, sour and pungent.
His grip on her was rough and though her heart began to race, realizing that they were alone in a darkened alley and he was very angry and very drunk, her tone never changed as she said, “Let me go, Gabriel. You’re hurting me.”
If anything, his grip tightened as Valerie struggled against him.
All her breath left her when he shoved her up against the alleyway wall, his eyes flashing in the darkness.
“What was my mother doing here?” he roared in her face, shaking her, her back pressing painfully into the wall.
“Gabriel, calm down,” she said, though her tone sounded a little higher in pitch than it had before. “She just came to see me. To talk…about the w-wedding.”
“Do you think I’m a fool?” he hissed, his brows furrowing, growing more and more angry by the second. “I’ll have her head for this.”
Whose? His mother’s? Or did he mean Madame Allegria’s?
The thought of Gabriel, as rich and powerful as his family was, going up against her aunt made her want to laugh. Perhaps it was because this situation was growing more and more worrisome.
“Tell me what you’re doing here,” Valerie said, trying to calm him down, even as she tried to edge out from underneath his grip. Her back was digging into the brick façade of the opposite building.
Thanks to the scar tissue there, however, she didn’t feel much. Just an uncomfortable pressure. If anything, the shoulder where her tracker was hurt the most. He’d slammed her into the wall hard. She swore the tracker pushed deeper into her shoulder.
“Is my mother fucking a Krave?” Gabriel asked her, keeping his voice terrifyingly low. Then, suddenly, his mood seemed to change. His eyes moved over her face. He pressed his body closer. His voice dropped until it was like a purr. “You can tell me. I’m to be your husband after all, my pretty little bride. We will have no secrets.”
A little shard of icy fear seemed to stab down her throat.
She tried to swallow, the sound audible between them.
“Tell me!” he snapped, a lock of his dark hair falling over his eyes as his sour breath drifted across her cheek. For someone so handsome, he hid his cruelty well. Just like her aunt.
Maybe they are perfect for each other, she couldn’t help but think.
“I told you,” she said, hating the way her voice trembled. “She just came to talk about the wedding. About—about the flowers! Which ones I preferred and—”
Valerie saw the exact moment when he grew frustrated with her and his patience ended. She saw it snap in his eyes and his hand darted out, quicker than expected, just as she heard a loud boom, something splintering across the ground.
Valerie had been hit enough times by Madame Allegria that she wasn’t surprised by the sharp flash of pain, the blooming heat across her face. Except Gabriel hadn’t slapped her. It was his fist that had connected with her temple and bright white spots seemed to dance in her vision afterwards, her hands coming up to ward off any further blows.
That was when she heard it.
A strange, trilling growl that seemed to echo through the alleyway.
Belatedly, she realized the loud boom she’d heard had been the door to the brothel. Part of it, as heavy as it was, was lying on the pathway. Splintered. Broken. Half of it was off its hinges.
And standing on the threshold was Dravka.
An enraged Dravka, with fury in his gaze.
Valerie barely had time to cry out before he lunged for Gabriel.
