Page 16 of Savage Obsession
The wind drops long enough for voices to carry over the howl. Someone hisses a curse and then everything turns into a murmur of words I can’t make out. But it’s too late. The fucking lot of them are all amateurs with death wishes.
The swirling sound of snow swallows the crunch of my boots as I edge along the wall of my cabin. When I get to the edge, wherethe shadows are the thickest I head for the treeline and circle in behind the voices unseen.
Five shapes form in the darkness. Vultures. I recognize the stench of booze and drugs on them. Willow’s father isn’t among them. I know his shape and the huskier man isn’t known for his fighting skills. He rather send in his flunkies to take a beating and that’s fine by me.
One of the clueless fuckers points at my door with his chin. “Prez’s girl is inside. Da Boss wants her breathin’ boys. Says we can do ‘bout anything we want to the Savage piece of shit. Let’s go. My balls are ice cubes and I wanna get this over with. Da girl is mine.”
The hell she is.
I pull in a slow breath and level my weapon at the first shadow who is stupid enough to make a move toward my cabin. My finger dances over the smooth steel of the trigger to my weapon. But I hold steady.
“You lost, boys?”
Five bodies jerk toward the sound of my voice.
Muzzles flare and shouts sound off into the darkness. The closest Vulture doesn’t finish the word he is about to spit out because he chokes on it and my bullet.
He collapses neat as a felled tree.
From there, chaos blooms. The second Vulture pivots and fires wild; hot rounds crack bark next to my ear. I’m already moving, a ghost skimming through the blackened trees. He’s too slow and affected by the winter so every bullet he fires off misses.
The dumbass fumbles with his stance.
I don’t. I pop off two to center mass, and he drops where he stands next to his buddies who look like they are fighting a ghost.
Shock is stamped across all their faces like they’ve never believed a Savage could outdo them.
The third rushes me with a knife because there’s always one who thinks he’s made for the old ways. He slashes, but he’s sloppy in his handwork and it’s no effort at all for me to catch his wrist. I feel the tendons flex and twist. My grip tightens until bone pops.
“You should have stayed home, Vulture.”
His scream warms my dead soul.
I ram his own blade under his ribs, up and in. Heat hits my hand. He sags against me, breath a wet rattle in my ear.
Three souls tonight. Two to go.
I ease the filth looking to take Willow from me into the snow because I’m not cruel, just efficient, and because I don’t want Willow waking to the sound of a man dying outside her window.
I’m not a monster without a conscience.
Numbers Four and Five break left, heading straight for the front door of my cabin.
“Fuck dis,” he shouts and to me that means he’s going to get Willow any way he can. Alive or dead.
I can’t let that happen.
Rage burns through me, clean and electric. No one points their hardware at my home and lives.
I move swiftly across open ground, gun ready. A familiar calm pulls over my thoughts and I get tunnel vision.
My finger smooths over the trigger, and I pop lead into the thigh of Number Four. He screams, pivots, and I put him down with a clean headshot before he can decide if he’s brave enough to shoot me.
The last man freezes, long enough to see the fires of hell in my eyes when I step out from the shadows and put my blade at his throat.
“Jesus Christ, man. Where’d you come from? You’re spooky at fuck.” His voice trembles with the sweet sound of fear. The scent of piss hits my nose and I take a half step back so I don’t get any of the fuckers urine on me.
“Tell your president he needs to send better men if he wants his daughter back.”
