Knowing he had to act fast, Zane delivered his own deluge of blows, kicks, and slashes. Müller successfully blocked some of them, but others hit their target. Zane panted heavily, pumping his body full with much needed oxygen. His brain told him to end it, to pull his silver blade and slice him open as Müller had done with his victims, but his heart protested. It wasn’t satisfied yet. He needed to pound into Müller longer, to hurt him, to connect his claws with his flesh, to injure him with his bare hands.

Only like this, Zane felt his need for revenge slowly but steadily trickling away. Only as he felt his claws connect with Müller’s skin and the blood from his wounds run over his hands, was the beast in him happy. He was finally paying him back. Zane soaked up that knowledge, just as he inhaled the stench of Müller’s blood and the smell of his sweat. The more he pounded into him, the more adrenaline he felt shooting through him.

A high spread in his body despite the injuries Müller inflicted on him. And he wanted to make it last until he was truly ready to send his enemy to hell where he belonged.

Zane cornered his opponent, trapping him against the wall, the bookcase to his left preventing him from sliding past him. From his right, Müller grabbed a wall lamp with its frilly lampshade and yanked it from its connection, ripping the electrical cord from the wall. He raised his arm to hit Zane with it, but Zane sidestepped him, and the lamp crashed through the open door, landing in the bedroom next door instead. From the corner of his eye, he saw it crashing against the grill in front of the fireplace.

A startled scream from Portia made him take his eyes off his opponent. It was his mistake. Müller’s hand had reached for a heavy iron bookend and now slammed it in the direction of Zane’s head. By snapping to the side, he avoided a direct blow to the head, but the bookend hit his collarbone instead. He heard the sound of bones breaking, and felt the corresponding pain radiate through his body.

Shit! It was time to stop fooling around and end this.

Zane reached his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and jerked out the first thing his fingers gripped. The wooden stake felt smooth in his palm. It would have to do. He would have rather used his silver knife to provide a more painful death for Müller, but there was no time to change his weapon now with Müller attacking him even more ferociously than before.

He wasn’t the only one who wanted to take the fight to the next level. Müller had obviously also decided to kick things up a notch. As Müller jumped toward the desk, he snatched the chair in the next instant, smashing it against the wall with such force that it splintered.

Zane went after him but couldn’t prevent Müller from taking one of the chair’s broken feet and gripping it like a stake. As he clashed with his opponent, Zane’s free hand snapped around Müller’s neck and squeezed. Müller’s hand holding the stake shot forward, but Zane blocked it with his elbow and continued squeezing.

“This is for all those you tortured,” Zane hissed and raised his arm holding the stake. He swung.

“Help me! Zane! Fire!”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Portia’s scream rocketed through Zane’s bones. In the same instant he smelled it, the smoke his brain had blocked out to deal with Müller. He blinked.

Without completing his swing, Zane dropped his arm and released Müller in the same breath. His eyes snapped to the door of the bedroom were Portia was captured. Flames engulfed the area in front of the fireplace. The armchair in front of it was already in flames that now shot up to the ceiling, the smoke they created billowing below.

Thinking only one thought, Zane charged into the room, the flames licking at him as he rushed passed the fireplace.

Portia jerked on her restraints, her eyes filled with panic. Her face was bathed in sweat, her feet scrambling to move closer to the head of the bed and farther away from the fire.

“Portia!” he screamed. “Oh, God!”

He reached her and jerked on the silver handcuffs, ignoring the searing pain on his flesh. But the steel beam behind the bed to which the cuffs were fastened didn’t budge.

Touching the button on his earpiece he tried to connect with his colleague. “Thomas, where are those wire cutters?”

Only static came through the line. Shit!

“Help me,” Portia pleaded.

They both knew she would die if the fire engulfed her. It wasn’t the smoke inhalation that would kill her, not like it would kill a human, but the fire itself that would burn her flesh from her bones while she was still alive.

Pushing the ugly thoughts from his mind, he tried to calm her. “I’ll get you free. I promise.”