Page 68 of Claimed By Rage

I’m not afraid of my father like I used to be.

But some feelings are burned into the flesh.

And grudges are born from scars like ours.

Chapter 20

Rage

When I wasfive years old, I saw my father kill a man. There was no finesse about it. The guy walked up to my father with a baseball bat slung over his shoulder, and despite the busy street and dozen witnesses, my father tore the bat from his hands and beat him with it. Brutally. There was brain matter on the pavement, blood spray on my clothes, and a feral gleam in my father’s eye. I used to wonder what was going through my father’s mind, but now that I’m an adult, sometimes I canfeelit. That same pulse of frenetic energy courses through my veins whenever I beat information out of someone or remind them what happens when you miss paying your dues two months in a row. The world tilts. My heart sings. For that brief moment, nothing else matters but the feel of flesh beneath my knuckles.

But the difference between me and my father is that he would lash out at us, too. His children. His wife. Anyone who dared give him a funny look. He wasn’t in control of it—the impulse took him over in a frenzy until he was too exhausted to continue.

When Celia first wraps her hands around my throat, I can feel the buzz of it in my fingertips. That wild energy sparking, seeking an outlet. I know that it’s some kind of fight or flight response, something about the body’s need to preserve itself andkeep on fighting, to make sure we don’t keel over just because we’re too weak to fend off an attacker.

Celia isn’t attacking me, though. It might look like it to anyone else, but she’s not happy about it. Her hands shake. There’s a tremor in her voice. Yeah, she’s furious at me for being involved in the Baranova wedding bullshit, but that doesn’t make her a killer. Even when I forced her to her knees in front of a hundred people at the club, she might have hated me for it, but she wouldn’t kill me. The difference involves two things:

Control.

Preservation.

I understand both. I’m in control of when I release my pent up energy in a fight. I know when to pull back before snapping someone’s collarbone or breaking their ribs. It’s a gut instinct, sure, but there are indicators for when it’s time. Signs that the other person’s body gives off to let me knowthis is it,they’re too close to the edge, and I need to pull back.

Preservation is part of survival. We all have the ability to stay alive—it’s why adrenaline is such a bitch when it hits. Your body is fighting to stay alive, giving you one final push of energy so that you can either fight for your life or get the fuck out of Dodge.

When Celia wraps those beautiful, talented hands around my neck, she still has control. Strangling me isn’t about letting out her anger—it’s about preserving her own life, saving herself from a perceived threat.

Me.

I’ve known that I’m a threat to others.

But to Celia? I guess I’m herPublic Enemy Number One.Maybe it’s because I told her that I wanted to hurt her. Or the thought of being tied to me, literally, legally, or otherwise, is too fucking astounding for her to accept—no,for her to admit that she might not hate it as much as she thinks she should.

I saw the look in her eyes when I promised her a baby. That’s not the look someone makes out ofhate.There was a bright fucking star of hope shining in her gorgeous eyes, and I know that she believed me.

She has no reasonnotto.

So she strangles me not because she hates me, or because she wants to kill me, but because she’s scared that I might actually give her what she wants—and her mind hasn’t caught up to the fact that being with me is agoodthing.

Preservation first.

Then control.

Because she could have killed me. Easily. With her hands. With the gun tucked into my waistband. With the half dozen weapons I keep stored around my car—hell, there’s an even smaller pistol stuck under the front fender that’d fit in the palm of her hand like a glove. She had options.

And she chose to spare me.

Just like I chose to spare her.

Falling unconscious feels a lot like drowning. No one talks about it, but being unable to breathe can make the world go fuzzy. Your lungs burn. Your heart races. That bitch, Adrenaline, kicks into high gear. It would have been easy to break Celia’s hold over me, toss her ass into the car, and tie her up for being a brat.

Shepromisedthat she was mine.

We don’t break our fucking promises.

I need to get her a goddamn collar so that every time she swallows my fat load down her throat, she remembers who she belongs to.

This shit won’t happen again.

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