Page 17 of Savage Obsession
With that I let the pussy ass Vulture run off into the night. Given the direction he’s heading, he probably won’t make it past the patches we have on guard, but he can try. It should be a fun night for all of them. Good target practice for the patches, at the very least.
Is that cold of me? Hell yes. But fuck him. To tell you the truth, I hope they send every fucking Vulture in their crew. It will give me an excuse to drop them all and bury them out back in a deep, frozen grave. Put that backhoe Reaper bought to good use.
“Run, you bastard. Run straight into the jaws waiting for you.” Too bad he can’t hear my warning. Oh, well.
I sweep the yard in a slow circle, ears pricked for any stutter of breath that isn’t mine. Nothing but the hauling wind and the hissof falling snow on fresh blood fills my senses for the next few seconds.
My heart is steady. My hands are steady. The only part of me that shakes is the part that wants to burst through my own skin and get back to the woman I pulled from the ice.
I strip mags, pocket phones, kick guns under the porch for later. When I’m certain there’s no second wave, I wipe my boots on the mat and step inside.
Willow’s awake and radiant with fury and a flurry of energy. She’s dragged the kitchen stool sideways, the overhead light is on low, and she’s laid my counter out like an altar of weaponry. My field knife, smaller kitchen blades, spare mags, my backup Glock, the shotgun from above the pantry.
I pause, my brows rising in surprise.
Christ. The woman even found the ankle piece I keep hidden under the sink along with the emergency burner phone, too.
I hear the padding of feet on the wooden floor a second before the ice-blue eyes snow angle rounds the corner with the last of my weapons in hand.
She looks up at me, eyes clear, hair tussled from sleep looking like sweet chaos. She’s wrapped in my bed sheet and nothing else.
My heart does something loud and stupid.
“Good girl,” I say, voice rougher than I mean it to be.
“That was some ugliness outside,” she answers, chin tilting toward the door. She’s trying for light, but her hands tremble as she places the last of my guns on the countertop. She stills themby sheer will and keeps talking. “I didn’t want you to come back to nothing loaded in case my father’s men came in waves and you needed more firepower.”
I set my spent Glock down, step into her space, and pull her against my body. Her cheek is warmer to the touch. I can smell wood smoke in her hair and the faint bite of my soap on her skin. I close my eyes and press my mouth to her crown.
“You’re safe. They are all gone.”
She physically relaxes in my arms. ‘Thank God and thank you, venom.”
The fear in his voice leaves my heart nearly dead in my chest.
“I didn’t want you to see that side of me,” I murmur into her hair. I say the ugly truth. Lies won’t get me anywhere and she grew up in the biker life. She would smell a lie the second it fell from my lips.
She leans back far enough to meet my eyes, and there’s nothing soft about her now. Hard steel stares back at me. “It was them or us. I pick us every time.”
I could fall to my knees right now and worship this woman. Instead, I cup her jaw, thumb sweeping away the tiniest of tears. “Do you know how they found us?”
She nods, mouth flattening. “I do. My father’s crew has a repeater rigged on the ridge. My phone must have caught a signal at some point tonight and led them here. In my defense that damn thing didn’t have a signal all night and well, after the crash, my head was fuddled. I should have turned it off, but I was desperate to call for help. Not that there was any signal at the time.”
I nod. “I should have looked for a phone but I was more worried about getting you warm.”
“He’s coming because he can do with you as he pleases,” I say. “That’s what men like him do. They count people like currency.”
“Thinks?” Her brows lift, testing me.
“Thinks,” I confirm, sliding my palm down, pressing it low to the soft plane of her belly, a claim I feel in my bones. “Because you’re not his anymore. I took you, Willow. In every way a man can.” I settle my hand over her abdomen. “My seed’s in you. Odds are, you’re already carrying what’s ours.” My voice drops and what I say next is nothing short of a vow.
“You’re mine. I’m yours. Better or worse, snow angel.”
A thousand things cross her expression. First shock and then heat. I love watching as something that looks dangerously close to hope replaces the heat. And then she smiles and launches herself into my chest. I catch her, laugh once, low and quiet, because in a life like mine, laughing feels like sin.
“Then you need to know something,” she says into the crook of my neck. She tips back, and the light is sharp on her cheekbones. “He’s not coming to save me like you might think. He’s coming to off me and take my phone. There's nothing pretty and flowery between me and my father. He’s an evil man with ill intentions toward everything he touches.”
I tense. “Your phone?”
