Page 38 of Savage Fire

As If reading Tessa’s thoughts, the other woman spoke. “He isn’t here, Tessa,” Skathi informed her, making Tessa wonder how much the other woman knew of what happened. Had Fang actually sacked up and admitted his fuck up? Probably not. More than likely, Skathi, being the awesome super soldier she was, could see what Tessa was trying hard to hide.

“Where has he been?” she asked, hating herself for her curiosity.

Probably banging his harem and getting waited on, hand a foot.

Tessa could hear Skathi moving around in the background, the murmuring of male voices, the squeak of a door, then the bleep of a car lock. She was coming to get Tessa. To bring her back to the clubhouse. Did she want to go to the clubhouse where everyone would probably look at her with pity, or laugh at her for being an idiot?

“I do not know where he has been. Odin has given each of the men duties outside of their usual. Usually, he will tell me what is going on. This time, however, he is keeping things close to his chest. I have seen Fang twice. That is all.”

Lord, she was going to ask.

“How…how did he seem?” she choked out, hating herself for her weakness.

Skathi sighed. “Honestly…he seemed troubled. Tense. Like there was something going on with him, weighing on him. Something more than what is going on with the club.”

Tessa rolled her eyes. Yeah, that something was probably Hive drama. One of his Bees was probably causing trouble.

“I’ll be there soon, Tessa. Then we’ll get you checked out, comfortable, and you can gorge yourself on the batch of butter cookies I pulled out of the oven not more than an hour ago.”

Fraught with churning, ugly emotions, Tessa was still able to smile.

Seven days. It had been seven days since Tessa had slipped from his bed, ripped out his heart, and cut him from her life. Seven days of pushing himself to exhaustion so he didn’t have time to think, to feel the pain, the emptiness.

Dios,he missed her. Like a limb severed from his body, an organ gouged from his chest. There was a hole inside of him where she once lived, breathed, filled him to the brim with warmth, energy, purpose.

All around him, men were drinking, laughing, shooting the shit and hitting on easy women, and he was curled up at the bar, planning to get wasted at six o’clock. His cell had already buzzed ten times since he’d walked into the bar, and he didn’t even bother looking to see who was calling. He knew it was one of his Bees. They were relentless. He knew he had to sit down and talk with them. Eventually. Hash it out with them. Explain to them what the hell went wrong with Tessa. He had to man the fuck up and admit to them that he’d been wrong. So fucking wrong. That he’d allowed his arrogance and dick to do the thinking for him, when he should have pulled the hell back, truly considered who Tessa was, and what she would want. He could have saved himself the humiliation, and Tessa the pain. He would be without her, having chosen not to pursue her, but was not having her now any better? Hell no, it was worse. So much worse, because now he didn’t even have her friendship.

Staring into the warm brown liquid of the whisky Thor had poured an hour ago—that he still hadn’t tasted, Fang tensed when someone sat on the stool beside his.

“Fang, brother, you gonna drink that or stare into it like it holds all the answers to the universe?” Hawk asked, a smirk in his voice. At least the fucker had something to smirk about. He was happy. He had his woman. They’d had a rocky start with Hawk being a dumbass about Fae and his blindness to her charms, but they were solid now. Disgustingly in love.

“What’re you doing here? Thought you and Fae had some music thing to go to.”

Hawk’s woman, Fae, was a talented and popular singer who had hundreds of thousands of fans—that number growing steadily. Hawk and Fae met when Fae’s unscrupulous manager hired SP for personal protection. Hawk, having already been a fan of Fae’s alter-ego Aoibheal, jumped at the chance to be her bodyguard. Unbeknownst to everyonethough, Fae’s stepsister, Carrie, had taken on Fae’s persona as a way to garner attention, money, and fame. So, while Hawk was guarding Carrie thinking she was Aoibheal, he was falling for Fae, though Fae had already fallen for Hawk—it was a real fucking mess. It all worked out for them, though. The manager, the stepsister, and a stalking murderer FBI agent all got what was coming to them.

“She’s at Junkbox working with her new producer on some new songs she wrote,” Hawk replied, his face slipping from smiling to grimacing, a strange look coming down over his expression. “Odin sent me. Wanted to know why you aren’t answering your phone.”

“Shit!” Grabbing his cell, Fang checked the display. Five missed calls from Odin, eight from his Hive, and one from Grimm. “Shit! Sorry, brother. Had some shit to deal with,” he grunted, lifting his untouched whisky. “What did Prez want?”

Hawk raised a hand, signaling to Thor he wanted his usual. While waiting for the drink, Hawk scrubbed his gaze over Fang’s face.

“You look like shit, brother,” he remarked.

Anxious, exhausted, and just plain done with every-fucking-thing, he growled at Hawk.

“I feel like shit, too, but what’s the got to do with what Odin was calling me about?”

Thor slid a tumbler of amber liquid to Hawk who threw it back without tasting it.

“Tessa was attacked outside her condo tonight,” Hawk said, dropping a bomb right in Fang’s chest.

Surging to his feet so fast he tipped the heavy stool right over.

“What?!” he barked. “What the fucked happened?” Never mind, he’d find out for himself. He turned to head toward the door, damn glad he hadn’t drunk anything. He halted, more questions—urgent ones—bubbling up his suddenly tight throat. “Where is she? Is she okay?”

Hawk stood slowly, putting his arms out as if he were a zoologist trying to calm a screaming gorilla. Or a rabid wolf.

“She’s at the clubhouse. She called Valkyrie after it happened, and she want to pick Tessa up. Liz is checking her over right now, but it looks like a bump on her head and maybe a few bruised ribs. But she’ll live, brother. She’ll heal.”

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