Page 37 of Running on Empty

“I can drill you in ways to fight someone with a knife. I can teach you all the different ways you can use one to take those fuckers who hurt you down, but…” I stepped into the blade, the point too blunt to break the skin, but she didn’t know that. She gasped then, eyes flicking down, expecting to see blood and then she was… I couldn’t tell. Relieved? Disappointed there was none? “But all the training in the world doesn’t mean you can.”

I jerked myself away.Hedidn’t like that, wanting to skewer ourselves slowly on that little knife, force her to bury it deep.

But he didn’t run the show. I did.

The walk over to my bed felt like it took a million years, the distance a million miles, but I flopped down on the bed like I didn’t have a care in the world, even as my heart racketed around in my chest. My wolf paced, paced, not trusting me to get this right, ready to push forward and take over, to stride forward on his paws and bite down, claiming Stevie once and for all. Instead I patted the place beside me, inviting her closer.

And she came.

That’s what shut up the other two of them that lived inside my skull,himand my wolf. My beautiful girl stepped closer, arms loose and a knife in her hand. Just the way I wanted her. And when she climbed on the bed, all of her wolf’s grace in her movements alongside with her own, the buzz inside my mind stilled, going quiet for once to watch her kneel by my side.

“Their eyes go wide, full of disbelief,” I told her, “as you shove your knife up and between their ribs and into their heart.” I reached out to jerk her blade forward but she tugged back to make sure I didn’t, and that made me smile. “It’s messy, desperate and their death isn’t immediate. You’ll see them die, if this is the way you decide to do it.”

She blinked then, a small frown forming.

“But to do that, you have to overcome that very sensible urge not to hurt someone,” I continued.

“I want to hurt them.”

“Do you?” I wasn’t so sure of that and I could tell neither was she. Anger and fear warred with indecision inside my mate and I needed her to work out which would win. “Well, let's see.” My hand closed over the knife hilt and dragged it closer, but that exact urge I’d described kicked in, making her strain against my grip.

“Not you—” she started to say.

“Why not me?” I stared into her eyes. “Why not me, omega?” Stevie’s throat worked, the need to answer clear, but none came. “I hurt you more than those fuckers did and I loved you as I did it.”

And that was what made her jerk the knife from my grip, laying the blade against my throat, and I’d never been this hard before. Stevie was fucking glorious. All that anger she kept stuffed down was allowed to roar up, to take control and when she spoke her wolf spoke with her.

“Why?”

“Because we needed to keep you safe.”

That was the party line that Ash pushed, but her expression made clear just how dissatisfied she was with that.

Me too, beautiful. Me too.

“Why?” she asked again, her voice little more than a growl. This was a wolf with her quarry cornered, the killing instinct upon her. She might slash my throat or drive that knife into my heart and I wouldn’t stop her. “Tell me the truth, Ronan.”

The knife pushed against my carotid artery, the blade doing little other than dimpling the skin, but that blunt bite? I liked it so very much. It made me think of how she would bite me on my neck some time, sink her fucking fangs into me and claim me as hers.

But before that could happen, I needed to tell her the truth.

“What did you have to protect me from before the Spencers?” she snapped. “What threat did I face before them?”

I didn’t answer, not to taunt her or to draw out this moment. I needed her to put two and two together. I watched her frown, her eyes flicking back and forth, not seeing me or this room, but something else altogether.

Someone else, rather.

“Mum…?”

I’d kept Stevie safe, protected in all other ways. Guys knew better than to mess with what was mine, and even those that dared date her knew better than to push her harder than she wanted. Anyone who hurt my girl met my wrath, and who hurt her more than her own fucking mother?

Mum had placated me for a while. She said that Stevie’s grandmother was fighting to get custody of her, that she’d take Stevie away, let her grow up, find herself and then find us when she was ready. I’d bought into that idea right up until the point her grandmother died.

And with it went her hope and mine.

Stevie’s mother’s abuse had escalated when my mate revealed as an omega. The woman imagined that the lowlifes she brought home were starting to look at her daughter in a whole new way.

And she wasn’t entirely wrong.

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