Page 48 of Savage Hunter

All the fighting, anger and thirst for Wolfe’s head on a platter vanishes.

I forget to breathe, my heart no longer hurting because it’s frozen solid in my chest.

“There’s no one here to hear you scream, bitch. I can have a little fun with ya before I have to take ya back. Your mother says you’ve been a bad girl and you’ll have to pay for your crimes. Or some shit like that. I wasn’t listenin’.”

A hand squeezes the flesh of my ass through my shorts before moving to my hip and flipping me around. Gleaming dark eyes bore into mine. The shadow man is very much real and I feel every painful grab he makes for the buttons of my shorts. My mind goes blank.

I no longer care about the gun or the bullet with my name on it. I would rather die than go back to my mother or let this man touch me.

I kick, thrash and try to connect my fist or elbow with any part of the asshole wrapping his fingers around my throat. His weight is triple mine but Rage always told me size never mattered. It’s the will of the person that feeds their strength.

I’m proving three hundred pounds to a one-twenty makes a vast difference. Hands larger than my face grip my arms. He forces them to my sides and pins them there with his thighs. I buck, push with my heels and try to dislodge him, but nothing works.

“Get the hell off me! Get off!” My voice rises to the point of hysteria.

My attacker leans in and I, for once, don’t hesitate. I use the only other weapon I have. One swift upward movement and I bust my forehead against the bridge of his nose.

Stars shoot through my eyes, but I shrug off the pain and take a sickening pleasure by smelling the blood coming from his nose.

“I wish I could see you bleeding,” I seethe, meaning every word. Hate pours through me and I let it drench my words for him to absorb. Hate for him, for Wolfe and my mother. I don’t recognize the person saying the words coming from my mouth, but it doesn’t make them any less true. They’ve made me into someone I loathe. Hurting people ruins a part of me, but if it comes down to me or them, it will always be them.

Wet lips are at my ear and the putrid stench of cigarettes on his breath makes the bile in the back of my throat wash over my tongue. He’s got a leather coat on at the tail end of summer so he’s sweating, too.

I jerk my head away but his large saucer-sized hand is hard to escape when you only have two inches in either direction to move.

“You little whore!” He presses the gun into the flesh of my lips. “Open!”

I jerk this way and that, dislodging the gun from my mouth. He’ll have to fight for it if he wants to stick that thing between my lips.

“Here, you want blood. Take it.” Brutus smears blood from his nose wound across my cheek and lips. My stomach revolts. His fingers get too close to my mouth and I latch onto one of the fat digits. I don’t stop until I hear screams. Lots of them. Blood drips over my tongue but I force myself to ignore the need to vomit and don’t let go until he’s off me or he knocks me out cold.

“You fucking whore!” he shakes violently and I dig in deeper.

He roars, loosens his hold on me enough I can pry one arm from my side. Unaware, he grabs my face and pinches the sides together with his other hand, nearly smothering me. “Let the fuck go!”

His hold becomes so tight I have no choice but to release his finger.

“Good bitch. All these months I’ve been thinking about how I would kill you for what your fuck buddy did to my face. Now I just want to see you suffer.”

With my heart in my throat and my stomach by my feet I didn't recognize the deep, smoke roughened voice at first.

“Brutus.” I squeak out. Not a question. Now I know for sure Wolfe is on my mother’s payroll.

“Miss me?” I can hear the smirk in his tone.

“I knew it was too good to be true that you were all dead.” My words come out as crushed vowels and syllables but I won't go silently into the night for this trash.

Sometimes I have to wonder what the hell I did in a past life to deserve the blunt end of Karma’s wrath.

The wet pad of his tongue scrapes up the side of my face, leaving a wet trail behind. Using my nails as weapons, I sink them into anything in reach and scrape downward.

He roars and the hand on my throat loosen enough I can finally take in gasping breaths. Brutus drops the gun and uses both hands to drag me back between his legs. He kneels over me and I can feel the hard-on through the rough material of his pants.

“You want rough. You got it. You took blood, now I get to take some from you. It’s only fair.” He put his face in mine right as the clouds shift. Blood pebbles across four scratch marks starting above his eye and all the way down his face. The other side is caved in and his nose looks like it never had time to heal from taking a two by four in a direct hit.

Wolfe did that to him?

I raise my knee and knock Brutus off balance. He falls forward, catches himself and then I pay for trying to fight back.

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