Page 38 of Running on Empty

That’s why I’d been forced to act, slipping out of the house and then messing with the brakes of her mother’s car. I probably hadn’t needed to, the two of them lurching out of the fucking pub drunk as skunks anyway, the blood alcohol readings post-mortem stopping any further investigation.

“Jax and Ash will protect you, always,” I assured her. I needed her to be sure so that if this information did what I thought it might, she’d know she had other options. “But me? I’ll kill anyone who hurts you, no questions asked, and that’s why now that you’re safe, I’m going after every single one of those fucks. When you walked in on me sharpening my knives at the house? I was about to walk out the door and take Jack Spencer out, leaving the rest to scatter, for me to hunt down.”

Heforced me to smile even as I smelled the acrid stink of her fear.

“I’ll have every one of them on their knees, begging for their lives, wishing like fuck they never touched my omega, before this is done. You won’t have to worry about any of them ever again.”

I expected her to run, to go scuttling off down the hall, to throw herself into Jax’s arms or to hide behind Ash. That’s what my parents had told me would happen once they’d worked out what I’d done. It’s what Ash told me over and over.Psycho, murderer, feral wolf. I’d heard it all, each insult an attempt on their part to get me to reinhimin.

But I never could.

Hedidn’t listen very well to my parents, my brothers, my teachers or anyone else.

Only her.

Hewatched her closely. We’d told her what we would do as a statement, but if she called us off, we’d obey, if resentfully. Because everyone had tried to take control of him when it became apparent I couldn’t. The love I had for my family gave them some sway some of the time, Mum especially, but not when it came to direct threats to my mate. But for Stevie?

We’d do exactly what she wanted, every time.

She moved the knife then, dragging the tip down my neck and across my chest, and that stinging red trail she left behind? It was better than foreplay. Well, I assumed it was. No one had ever touched me before, not sexually, and no one but her ever would. I arched up underneath her touch, unable to stop myself from wanting more. She noted that with heavily lidded eyes, a cat-like smile spreading across her face.

“You’ll make them beg, for me, you mean. If I can’t bring them down, you will, and then you’ll force them to beg me for their lives,” she said in a lilting tone.

I grabbed her hand, forcing the knife to press down harder, and it felt like it scored across my sternum, ready to slice through and straight into my heart.

The same way she did every time she looked at me.

“However you want it, beautiful,” I vowed. “Any time, any way you like. I am your knife.” I pushed the blade lower, forcing it to slide down the channel between my ab muscles. “And right now I’d really like you to use this one on me.”

Chapter23

“Mum…?”

My question felt like it bounced off the walls, getting louder and louder inside my head and as it did, the knife slid lower. I dragged it across his chest, leaving angry red lines in its wake, but no actual blood. I forced myself to meet Ronan’s eyes. They were bright green now, staring at me with the unblinking stare of a predator.

But he didn’t want to attack me.

“Mum…?” Was I doomed to repeat that one word over and over? “You…?”

I couldn’t even frame the question in my mind, let alone in my head.

“You want the truth. Just ask,” he said.

“You’re…?” I shook my head, feeling like I was tossing off a dense spell, one Ronan had cast over me. “She died in a car accident.”

“There’s every chance she would’ve anyway,” he said, reaching up to touch the knife, but not me. He pressed it down, the tip forcing the skin to dimple. “Both of them were completely drunk.”

“You saw them?”

My eyes narrowed as he watched me closely.

“I did. I slid under their car while they were in there drinking, when you were at home crying—”

I couldn’t even remember what for, but it sounded about right. She made me cry so damn often. Anything anyone had to say about me outside of the home, at school, it just rolled off me, but Mum? No one knows where all a child’s soft spots are like a mother.

“You were crying all the time and he—”

He was Phil. I hadn’t shed one tear when it became clear he’d died as well. His eyes followed me around the house way too much. I shook my head slightly, making clear I knew what he was about to say.

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