Page 76 of Soulless Saint

The metaphors not really metaphors at all as the tabloids would suggest.

“Can I get two rye and gingers?”

The voice cut through all thought as Becca Hart shouted her order to the bartender not five yards from where I stood, twisting around to cheer and shout with the others as Corvus James—aka The Bone Man— took the mic from its stand at the head of the stage.

“Lodi!” he shouted, his rich voice carrying to all corners of the arena. “You beautiful bastards, how the fuck are you?”

Screams erupted from the throng.

“Can’t hear you,” Ava Jade egged on the crowd, putting a painted hand to her ear for dramatic effect.

The volume went even louder and Becca rose up on her tiptoes, cupping her delicate hands around her mouth to call out to her best friend on stage. The pride lighting up her eyes struck something buried deep inside and my breathing turned heavy and shallow as I continued to watch her.

Her lips spread wide into the truest form of a smile as Primal Ethos finished riling up the crowd and a familiar beat pulsed through the air as they began the first song.

Switchblade Smile.

My favorite one.

The bartender yelled something at Becca and she turned to throw some money down on the bar before lifting her drink to her lips for a sip through the tiny straw. Her brow wrinkled, and I immediately stood upright, searching the people around her, checking for any unsavories. If anyone put something in her drink they were fucking dead.

Not just dead. I’d fucking smash them into the earth until they were nothing but human pulp.

But an instant later, she plucked the too tiny straw from her drink and threw it down on the bar like it offended her, and I knew the only thing that had her making that face was that she couldn’t mainline her booze fast enough.

She scooped the second cup up from the bar, lifting both of them high overhead as she wove her way back through the crowds of people now all pushing to the front. I tracked her movements, something in my gut pulling me forward like the force of a human sized fucking magnet.

Just because no one drugged her drink at the bar didn’t mean someone wouldn’t on the dance floor. And wearing that fucking dress she was wearing I didn’t doubt every brickheaded asshat in attendance wanted in her pants.

I cursed to myself before leaving my perch at the bar, the crowd parting for me as I stalked down the stairs, trying not to lose sight of her. I’d stay close to both her and my brother. Out of sight. On the sidelines. Close enough to make sure they were both out of harm’s way since neither seemed capable of doing it themselves.

I almost lost her as I found my way to the center of the floor and had to bowl through another twenty people before I found her, their bodies knocking into mine. Shoulders brushing arms. Bumping into my back. Suffocating in their nearness.

But there she was, her and her two roommates lifting their heads to sing along with the lyrics to Switchblade Smile. If they knew they were recounting the story of when Rook fucking Clayton carved a literal joker smile into an asshole who’s only offence was giving his Ghost dirty looks.

Turned out the bastard had some roofies in his pocket, so the others didn’t give him too much hassle after the deed was done.

I widened my stance, pushing my elbow out to keep everyone around me at a breathable distance as I tried to find my brother’s face in the clusterfuck of people.

No dice, though.

Shit.

I pushed myself higher, thinking I could see him near the railing at the very front. He lifted his arm, and I could just make out the blur of ink over the front of his forearm. The Saint symbol worked into the wooden handle of a Viking ax giving him away.

When I narrowed my focus back to Becca, satisfied he was within view of the stage and security, my blood lit in my veins like it was gasoline.

Her gaze locked on mine, the match striking flame.

Becca was the picture of stillness in an ever-changing world, as immobile as a statue as her friends bounced on their feet, bodies swaying with the beat as they sang their hearts out.

Her lips parted as she took me in, something like pain in her eyes making me want to rip the universe to shreds just to make it go.

In a move I didn’t see coming, Becca moved toward me, squeezing through the bodies between us, all of them oblivious to her, their attention squarely ahead as Primal Ethos finished the song to deafening applause.

Another song kicked up where Switchblade Smile left off, this one starting with a hollow beat that I could feel like a reverberation from my head down to my feet. The thud thud, thud thud of the intro to Fuckface like the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears as Becca stopped right in front of me.

She looked up at me, a wicked defiance knotting the pale skin between her eyes, twisting her mouth. But in her eyes there was only that haunting touch of pain that I would do anything to erase.

---