Page 147 of Piece You Saved

Saige sounds like she’s frowning. “But you’re shifters. Why would you have needed Aden’s help?”

“Kade had a talent.” Dariel releases a heavy sigh. “Of finding exactly the wrong types of people to piss off. These men were killers. Ten of them surprised and overpowered us. After they threw hoods over our heads, they dragged us to an abandoned factory. They had us on our knees with a gun to the back of Kade’s head when a skinny street kid appears out of nowhere, launches a rock, and nearly takes out a guy’s eye.”

“Which was exactly the distraction we needed,” Kade continues. “We shifted and tore the rest of them apart.”

Saige peels her face from Kade’s chest and turns to look at me. “So you saw what they were?”

I nod.

“What did you do?” she asks.

I snort a laugh. “What do you think I did? I ran like hell… Right into a wall and knocked myself out cold.”

She doesn’t laugh. “And then?”

My amusement fades. “They took me in, gave me a place to stay, and food to eat. They ensured I survived. Dariel killed my monster, but I already told you that in the attic.”

She nods, and her gaze moves to Dariel and settles there. She hadn’t believed me when I’d told her it was Dariel and not Kade who went out one night and returned with blood on his sleeves.

His expression had been icy as he stepped in the front door and found me sitting on the couch watching football with Kade.

“It’s done,” he’d said.

I hadn’t known what he meant until I remembered the cold fury in his eyes when I revealed more than I’d intended about what had chased me into a life on the streets.

I remember feeling numb as we ate ramen that night and drank sodas. The next day, Dariel told me he was taking me to learn to defend myself against any other monsters in my future.

“Dariel started taking me to the shooting range, and later, he bought me my first gun,” I continue. “A Glock 19.”

“We saved up enough to buy a warehouse that we turned into the Cerberus, and it gave us a future,” Dariel says. “A regular thought the three owners of a place called the Cerberus should have a nickname.”

“And that, angel, is how we came to be the Hounds,” Kade adds. “The rest is history.”

“What do the Hounds do now?” Saige asks quietly.

“Easy,” Kade responds. “We clean up the Cerberus, re-open, and get back to normal life. With you. The end.”

She nods as if she agrees. But she’s not smiling.

I glance over at Dariel. His phone is ringing, but he refuses to say who’s calling him.

And then there’s his wolf, something he isn’t talking about with any of us.

If things are going to go back to normal, it won’t be any time soon.

I turn to Kade. He’s watching Saige, with a line creasing his brow. So he notices things aren’t right with her. About time too. She doesn’t look sad, but she doesn’t look particularly happy either. Deep in thought. Or lost in it.

As if he feels my attention, he lifts his head, and his eyes meet mine.

I look at Saige and raise an eyebrow.

He scowls.

I raise my eyebrow higher.

He squeezes Saige tighter to him and silently mouths.Fine.

I nod.

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