Page 18 of Savage Obsession
Her shoulder sag with the weight I wish I could take from her.
“Yeah, it has everything he wants,” she says. “All the?—”
A heavy fist pounds the door twice. The room jolts with it.
I pivot, haul Willow just behind my hip with one hand, and rack the shotgun with the other.
“Stay low and behind me.” I take aim at the front door, already mentally mapping our exit strategy out the back door. I’ve never known the bad guys to knock, and I never figured the Vultures for having manners.
Willow tucks close to my back without argument, but her hand snakes out for a gun.
That’s my girl.
“Come in nice and slow.”
Reaper swings the door open slowly. “Stand down, Venom. It’s just us.”
The Savage Reign President strides in dragging something with him.
“I see you found my little gift.”
Reaper drags in a heaving half-frozen Vulture, bleeding from the cheek where what looks like a branch kissed him on his sprint through Savage land.
Reaper tosses him to the floorboards like trash that they missed on pickup day. Snow spins off his shoulders and collects on the floor as he pushes to his knees.
His eyes cut to mine, then past me, clocking Willow and then the room. He turns to look out the front door to find shadows moving between the trees.
My brothers. I can tell from the size of the silhouettes and their gate. We are a special breed of men who carry an aura of power and death with us. It clings to every inch of us and the enemy cansee it. Especially when we bring the energy of death. And tonight it tethers our souls together like a band of brothers.
“Found this walking around,” Reaper says dryly, jerking a thumb at the whimpering runner. “Someone left the back gate open.”
The runner looks up, lips blue, realizes where he is and who he’s with, and makes a sound like a rabbit under a coyote’s paw.
I thumb the safety on the shotgun, set it aside, and give Reaper a nod.
“That was me. I thought it locked correctly, but I admit I wasn’t really focusing on it the latch caught or not.”
“It happens.” Reaper's scowl turns into a grin that makes me think he enjoyed chasing the Vulture through the woods.
“It seems you had a bit of fun tonight. How many bodies are outside?”
“Four. It would have been five, but I needed this one to take a message back to his president. I had hoped he would make it.”
Reaper’s smile turns predatory as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Sounds like I’m about to hear a damn good story.”
6
WILLOW
The door slams open and winter rushes in on a growl of wind and one very pissed off Savage. I know of Reaper and the reputation his name carries. He doesn’t ask a lot of questions from his enemies. He just eliminates them and I am very much the enemy here.
Instinct has me stepping behind Venom, fingers fisting in the back of his shirt, my heart rioting against my ribs.
“It’s okay, snow angel,” he rumbles, steady as stone. “Reaper’s not here to hurt you.”
“But I’m the enemy,” I whisper, hating how small those words sound when everything inside me is fighting to be brave.
A deeper voice answers from across the room, gravel and command. “No,” Reaper says.
