Page 57 of Savage Hunter

“I’m looking for Euphoria.” He holds up a few black baggies of the deadly drug and shakes them. “Looks like the kids got into the candy. But let’s back up a second.”

“Oh?” I raise my chin at the challenge his tone takes on.

“Oh, is right.” Wolfe stands and closes in on me and I’m right back to being pinned to the wall.

“You are and forever will be Harmonia. My beauty. Don’t ask me to call you by a name that is not yours. I know the real you and that is who you are to me.”

I look between his eyes as the storm picks up in intensity. “And you are what to me?”

His thick arms wind around me, and he rests his chin on top of my head. When he speaks his words topple the last shield I erected around my heart a long time ago. “Only you can answer that. But whatever you decide, know I love you.”

He loves me. I can’t swallow the tears fast enough to keep them from sliding down my cheeks. I’ve wanted to hear those words for so long.

That is the old me though. Who I am now is someone I know no one wants. The voice inside my head screams for me to run. He doesn’t know what I am now. He doesn’t know how filthy I’ve become.

He lifts my eyes to his with a gentle touch beneath my chin.

“Look at me.”

I can’t seem to lift my eyes off his chin.

“Harmonia.”

The power in his tone forces me to obey. The weight on my chest lightens when our gazes clash. Dark brown meets light blue.

“There’s my beauty.”

He’s not here to take me back to my mother. That much is obvious. What I can’t seem to understand is why, after everything, am I in his arms again? Fate? No. I don’t believe in some power having control over who ends up together.

The question is, what do I believe in?

Right now, I believe in the power he holds over me and his ability to protect. That’s all I need.

“We should go,” I whisper and pull my chin from his hold. I break our connection and step out of his arms. Difficult given the size of him compared to me.

“These men,” I start with a change of subject that doesn’t involve my emotions or deep craving to have his hands on me. “If they are not here, because of you, then how did they get in here?”

He seems to pick up on my need to move on. “The better question is, who is the other girl? I can only think of one.”

I nod. “Persephone.”

Hair on the back of my neck rises and I feel the blood drain from my face at the sound of a gun going off. I’m facing the field of wildflowers so I see the muzzle flash go off at the same time Wolfe is ushering me out the front of Dragon’s house. Like it or not, he’ll have ghosts moving in before he and his family get a chance.

“Did you see that?” Chills erupt all over my body. That was a death blow. I don’t need to see the body to feel Death making his rounds on the Savage land tonight.

“Stay low, stay behind me.” He takes my hand and wraps his fingers around my smaller one. What usually takes a ten-minute walk to the compound turns into a sixty-second sprint along the tree line. Raindrops splatter on the leaves above, sending the smell of wet earth into the air. It reminds me of rot and ruin.

Keeping me at his back, Wolfe guides us into the field toward a man clutching his side and the stench of blood.

“Is that Rage? What the heck is going on?”

“And Persephone. She looks wounded. You missed a lot of the briefing when you left the infirmary early. I’ll fill you in later.”

“I missed a shit ton of information.”

Ares comes out of the darkness, his gun raised. He takes one look at the dead man at Rage’s feet and says to a harshly breathing Persephone, “Glad to see the better person won.”

“Thanks to Rage.”

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