Page 68 of Savage Hunter

Slits of blue laser my chest. The burning glide of her gaze over the skulls ringing my neck, the ravens spread across my back and the bleeding roses down my arms makes her falter.

It’s my in and I take it.

“The night I took your virginity is the night I swore to God I would give my life for yours. You don’t know that. You also don’t know I gave my soul to the devil for the chance to drink the blood of the people who took you from me.”

“Jesus, Wolfe.”

“I told you one of my truths, now tell me one of yours, Harmonia.”

“It’s Avery now. Only Avery.” She pauses, crosses her arms defensively around her middle. “And aren’t you my enemy, Wolfe?”

Pain pulls at her beautiful features and she sucks in the corner of her lips between her teeth. To keep it from trembling, it seems. But I see. Nothing escapes me.

I push to my feet and cross the room to her in slow strides. She backs up but she can’t get far with the bed at the back of her knees and a wall to the left.

“I’m trying to rebuild my life and you’ve stormed back in bringing my past with you. Now everything is up in smoke. Literally.”

I close a palm around the back of her neck and caress her pulse point.

“It’s up to you how you want to see me. I see the woman I love. And don’t put that fire and the rocket launchers on me. I didn’t bring shit to the compound. I was a hired gun yesterday. Now I’m sitting in a hotel room with two options–ride off with you strapped to me on the back–”

Fury passes over her expression and it settles in the tip of her pointer finger. She jabs it into my chest, punctuating her ire. “Or stay and fight,” she cuts me off.

“Or stay and fight.” I repeat watching her draw in air and let it out with a rush of irritation. I take her finger and touch my lips to the tip. True to the grit I know she has in her, the little she-devil with the cute little lip ring doesn’t back down. She digs in for a fight, unwilling to be ordered around like some mindless robot. I like that about her. Always have.

“Stop trying to seduce me and listen, damn it.”

I take her chin in hand. “There’s my warrior girl.”

Fiery energy calms and the storm building between us shifts from her resisting to accepting what is about to happen. It is in the way her blue eyes turn from crystal blue to heart-shattering sapphires. The wildness in her calms and the submissive I know her to be surfaces.

Holy shit.

“I huh… I…stop touching me. Now!”

I lower my hands from her. “Easy, baby. It’s just me.”

I don’t think either of us expected her to respond to my praise. Whatever the fucking bastards did to her in the Society made her scared of taking pleasure from her submissive side. Or abused her natural tendencies.

She jerks away but her eyes don’t leave the ink on my chest. “You can go to Mexico, or wherever you want. I’m staying. Someone has to stop my mother.”

The color on her cheeks turns a deeper red. I brush the back of my knuckles across the smooth, warm skin loving the way her lashes dip just a fraction.

I run a hand down my face. “And you think you can go up against her alone?”

“What choice do I have? I need this.”

I storm across the hotel room and then come back to stand in front of her. I take her face in my hands and force her to look at me. “Don’t put yourself in danger. She hurt you once. Don’t give her another chance to do the same or worse. You have nothing to prove. ”

“And you do?”

“Yes. It’s my fault she hurt you. I didn’t protect you. That is on me.”

The fight in her evaporates. “What happened to me is not your fault. You tried to save me. I know you did but what happened is not on you.”

I lower my lips to hers. Our breath mingles. Her body heat mixes with mine. I breathe her in to calm my monsters. “You were mine to protect.”

“I was yours, yes. For a moment.”

---