Page 148 of Dagger

I craved the feeling I got when I sunk a knife into flesh and watched the life drain from enemy eyes,

I craved the satisfaction that roared through me whenever I protected my mate and our young.

I craved the need to draw blood.

I craved vengeance.

I craved death.

Like a robot, I marched down the stairs, my head swiveling from left to right, my eyes scanning for targets. A door flew open, and a young guy ran toward the entrance, gun in hand.

His head whipped up, his eyes widening with fear the second he noticed me.

My weapon was already raised. I squeezed the trigger and watched, fascinated, as a hole appeared between his eyes, and he fell to the floor.

My heart burst with elation, and a joyful grin spread across my face as my craving for destruction was sated momentarily before the yearning rose through me again.

Another Sinner ran into the hallway and began to yell for help, and I aimed my weapon, my grin widening because something funny hit me.

For once in his life, Atlas was right.

This was the best day ever.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Bowie

We’d already cleared two of the outhouses with relative ease. Me and Atlas had always made a good team, Enforcer and Sergeant at Arms, working as one, breaking skulls and taking names, just like old times.

The officers lived in the apartments, so taking them out made me all warm and fuzzy inside, and that was me all over these days—warm and fuzzy.

When I thought back to the man I was just three years before, I cringed.

That man was dead inside, scared to get hurt, and terrified of connecting with anybody. Except everybody needs human connection, and I found mine by railing through half the women south of Rock Springs.

Until Layla and Sunny came along and straightened my ass out.

The day I killed Layla’s abuser, I vowed it wouldn’t end there. There was more to her torment than just Robert Henderson Junior. The men who gave him the drugs, the same ones he tried to sell my wife to the day he kidnapped her, were also on my shit list.

The Burning Sinners.

I couldn’t help shaking my head at the irony of their club name, especially since I knew what Kit and Blade had in store for them.

Fuckers were about to get toasty.

In the meantime, I wanted to work out some pent-up aggression. I’d been feeling stressed lately, what with planning war against a bunch of child trafficking perverts; I needed either a massage or a fight. My Doe had one of my sons strapped to a tit more often than not, so straddling my hips and rubbing my back wouldn’t work logistically.

Hence the breaking of skulls.

Adrenaline pounded in my ears, and my blood rushed through my veins. My skin hummed, and my fingers squeezed into fists at the prospect of more carnage. We still had two more buildings to clear, and going by the movement I caught through the windows, these particular Sinners knew their day was about to get well and truly fucked.

I was at Atlas’s six when the gunfire rang out.

A bullet whizzed so close to my temple that I heard the whistle as clear as day, so by the time Atlas bellowed for us to get down, I was already diving for the ground. I lifted my weapon to the window and aimed before firing off two shots.

Silence fell, followed by a solitary piercing scream.

“Fuck,” Atlas muttered from my side. “There’re women in there.” He rose into a crouch. “We’ll have to clear the place without firing our weapons.”

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