Page 51 of Bad Demon

He stood to the side of the door so I could unlock it.

I threw up my hands when he still said nothing. “Why are you so pissed anyway? I thought you’d be proud or something. You have a big dick to swing around and show off. Aren’t you, like super stoked?”

I rolled my eyes when he still didn’t answer, and that muscle in his jaw jumped again.

“Don’t say I didn’t try, and that was your last apology.” I pushed the door open and stopped in my tracks. “No,” I choked out.

Relic’s arm was around me a moment later, pulling me back behind him as we entered my store.

Everything had been destroyed. Nothing was left intact.

“My apartment.” I pulled from his arms and took off up the stairs.

“Fern! Fucking stop,” Relic barked.

He bounded up the stairs after me, hooking me around the waist again and lifting me off my feet before I could get through the kicked-in door. But it was too late, I saw the destruction. All my things that I’d painstakingly collected, things that had given me joy after escaping a living hell—had been smashed to pieces. A gasp of agony left me, and Relic put me down, turning me to him.

“Don’t move. Stay right here.”

He strode into my apartment, quickly searched it, and then bounded down the stairs. I wrapped my arms around myself.

They’d made their move. They were coming for me.

Nothing could stop them, not even Relic, because, eventually, he would leave me. Eventually, he’d leave me unprotected, and they’d be there, waiting.

I collapsed to the floor as images flashed through my mind like a horror film and I was the main character, but it wasn’t a movie; it was my life.

One moment, I was sitting on the stairs, and the next, Relic was lifting me, gripping the back of my head and tucking my face against his shoulder.

“It’s okay. They’re gone. You’re safe.”

“I’m fine … I’m okay,” I lied, trying to convince myself as much as Relic, even while I shook uncontrollably against him, sucking in gasp after gasp.

“I got you, baby. Let it out,” he said as he rubbed my back.

But no tears came. I didn’t cry—I never cried. Crying did me no good. It had never done me any good.

“You need to tell me who the fuck did this, Fern,” he growled. “Because I’m going to hunt them down and make them scream.”

A shudder slid through me.

No, they’ll make you scream. They’re the ones who make you scream.

ChapterTwelve

RELIC

“I don’t wantto go with you,” Fern said as I led her across the clubhouse parking lot toward the bar.

I’d brought her back here last night and sent a few of my brothers to gather anything salvageable from her place and bring it to my den. Her store had been secured, but she wasn’t stepping foot back in that place until I knew what the fuck was going on.

She’d spent the day on the couch, my jacket up to her nose, watching TV. I made room for her stuff and found another set of drawers, but she just stayed under that jacket, not fucking speaking, barely moving.

My female had needed comfort, but she wouldn’t let me give it to her the way I needed to, and there was no way I was leaving her on her own again tonight, not while she was like this.

“It’ll be fine.” I carried on toward the bar. “I got you covered, Fern.”

“I should have just stayed in the room.”

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