Page 11 of They Break Beauty

I took him in and the recognition set in right away even in my current discombobulated state.

Mason Hall. The best friend of Colton Sharp. He was the eerily quiet one who projected a fearsome edge.

Just like he was now.

His caramel-brown hair was thick and shaved short on the sides. He was way over six-foot and broad too with linebacker shoulders. His left arm was covered in tattoos all the way down. And his right shoulder down to the top of his elbow was inked with a skull tattoo with wings and the snarl of a lion. He was wearing a black button down short-sleeve shirt that highlighted all that ink, but also had him partially blending into the dark, especially when combined with his navy designer jeans.

“You’re marked,” he rumbled.

The two guys nodded frantically, then hurried off, stumbling in their step from their haste and their injuries.

Mason cursed, then headed back on up the steps murmuring something about rooting out the rest of the filth.

Wow.

I leaned my head back against the wall and tried to concentrate on my breathing, when somebody barged on in from outside and came to a sudden stop just as they were about to pass by me to enter the concert space.

“Lost your way, hottie?” he spoke.

“No. just taking a breather.”

“Too much cheap beer, is it?” he asked, his voice taking on a taunting tone.

And something else.

Something I had an instinct for. Something dangerous and threatening.

That was proven right in the next second when I went to push off the wall and he slammed me back against it with a hand to my chest, the jarring impact making me choke.

“Mason can’t stop us all,” he muttered to himself as he sank his hand into my hair. “Thinks he’s a fucking god.”

I went to turn my head away, but he fisted it, holding me in place.

Adrenaline thrummed through me, but its power and my reaction was muted too much in my current state.

He shoved his knee between my legs making me grunt. “Your friend was our target. Easy prey all fucked-up like that. But her throwing up was a major turnoff. But now you’re here. Dazed and looking like a lost little lamb. And alone in the dark.”

A growl sounded from the shadows.

“She’s not alone,” someone rumbled.

The asshole in my space jolted and swung his head around.

He didn’t get much further than that before a hooded figure launched himself from the shadows, snagged the guy around the throat and ripped him from me.

He was pounding on him then with fists of absolute fury.

He slammed him into the side of the stairs, then wrenched his shoulder, making the guy scream, before knocking him out with a knee to the face.

“Piece of shit,” he ground out as he smashed his boot into the guy’s ribs even as he was already sprawled out unconscious on the lobby floor.

“All right, Wildflower?” he asked, leaving the guy and coming back to me.

A chill rang down my spine as I made the connection.

The Blocked ID who’d texted me the first day back.

“He won’t touch you again. No one will,” he went on, as I stood there trying to make out his identity beneath that low-hanging hood he had up and the dark of the lobby.

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