Page 38 of Fastlander Phoenix

“Can I feed you now? Before the meat sauce in my lasagna goes bad?”

He inhaled sharply and looked at the gaping hole in his ceiling. Half of the ceiling fan was just…gone. “Sure. Tonight is already weird. Sure, we can eat lasagna in my burned house.”

She pursed her lips against a smile, because this really wasn’t funny. Maybe she was in shock or something. She should not be smiling right now. “I met Damon Daye.”

His eyes snapped to her. “What did he say?”

“That I am better than they expected.”

His brows drew down in confusion.

“I don’t know,” she answered before he could even ask what that meant. She had no idea. “Hey, you aren’t burning me,” she pointed out. She was still tracing shapes into his palm, and now even the green fire was gone.

“Congratulations,” he muttered. “You’re surviving me for tonight.”

“You’ll keep me safe,” she said in a chipper tone as she headed for the door.

“Leaving?”

“You wish. No, the food is in the truck.” She turned and grinned. “Eat my lasagna and feed me compliments already. I’m a simple woman with simple needs. You stood me up and set me on green fire. I will throw a tantrum if you don’t eat what I cooked.”

His chuckle followed her out of the house as she jogged down the stairs and to her car.

She pulled the bag of food out of the passenger’s seat, but a man’s voice froze her as she turned for the house again.

It was the dark-haired man Gunner had called Bash. “You did good.”

He stood there with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He had dark hair and forest-green eyes that glowed in the dark. He wore a small frown. “I told Damon he couldn’t be saved, and that he would hurt us.”

“Wreck?”

He nodded. “I got my mate. I don’t want a bomb near her.”

“You think Wreck is a bomb?” she asked softly.

“I don’t know anymore. Maybe you make him not a bomb.”

He spoke in a strange way, but his words touched her. He began to walk away, and she didn’t know why, but she blurted out, “Your mate is lucky.”

Bash turned and straightened his spine. “She says that too.”

“Is she here? Is she staying in these woods?”

He nodded.

“Why are people staying in tents here? Did something happen to your homes?”

“No. War is coming for the Fastlanders. We are here to help. Goodnight, Green Girl.” Bash turned and disappeared into the shadows of the woods, leaving Timber to mull over his words.

“He’s right,” Wreck said from the porch. He had pulled on a pair of black sweatpants, and his hair was wet like he’d done a quick rinse-off. “War is coming for the Fastlanders. You should know everything before you choose to spend more time here.”

“It’s a lot,” she admitted, clutching the bag of food to her belly like a shield.

“I know. I’ll tell you about it over food.”

And he did. As they ate the meal she’d prepared with plastic forks on the floor of his living room, with a flame he’d ignited in the fireplace, the light flickering orange highlightsover his somber face, Wreck explained how the Holland Pride was coming for them. He talked of a seer in the mountains named Lucia, and her visions of the war. He talked about the night he’d saved Timber from her car, and how Lucia had warned him not to go or there would be glass and blood, and not to go on the bridge. He told her of how he’d tried to leave Laramie every day since her car wreck to go and destroy the Holland Pride before they could get to the Fastlanders, but every day something happened to keep him here.

He talked about fate and destiny, and how he was beginning to believe in it.

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