Page 50 of Obsession
But Saint is the center of it. He moves through the panic with a brutality so focused it feels less like fighting than judgment. There’s no wasted motion, no flourish, no anger spilling loose in sloppy swings. Every strike lands where it will end something. Ribs crack. Teeth scatter white across the dirty floor. The man who grabbed me tries to pull away, and Saint drags him back by the collar before driving him into the concrete hard enough that his head bounces once and leaves a wet mark behind.
“Saint,” Moth pushes out. “Fuck, Saint, he’s down.”
Saint doesn’t look at him. The man under him is barely moving now, hands fluttering weakly at Saint’s wrist, and still Saint’s fist rises again.
Bricks steps forward. “Saint.”
For a second, I think Saint might turn on him too. Then the man makes a sound through broken teeth, a wet little gurgle that draws Saint’s attention back down. Saint grips him by the front of the shirt and hauls him up enough to speak directly into his ruined face.
“You put your hands on what’s mine.”
The man tries to answer, but the words drown in blood. Saint kills him with a clean, brutal motion that has Cade muttering a curse under his breath. The warehouse goes still afterward, Moth and Bricks both relaxing a little.
I’m still behind the support beam with one hand pressed to my throat and the other gripping the edge of the concrete so hard my fingers hurt when Saint strides toward me. There’s blood on his hands, his shirt, and along the side of his jaw. His eyes are black with whatever he hasn’t put back behind the lock yet. For the first time since I met him, I understand that his control isn’t the opposite of violence. It is the thing giving violence a human shape.
Every surviving instinct I have tells me to move, to get out of the path of whatever still owns him.
He catches the front of my neck with one hand, claiming the space the other man touched. His fingers spread beneath my jaw, thumb pressing along the place where my pulse is beating a little too fast. He tilts my face up as his eyes move over me with a fury that has nowhere to go. Then his mouth crashes into mine.
The kiss is brutal enough to steal the last of my breath. It isn’t soft, a sort of proof of life, punishment for being taken, possession stamped over the fear before anyone in the room can mistake what just happened. My hands lift without my permission and catch in his shirt, fingers curling into blood-wet fabric as a broken sound slips out of me.
Saint’s grip tightens for one second before he drags his mouth away. “Mine,” he mutters against me.
He releases me so abruptly I have to catch the support beam again to stay upright. Then he turns and stalks outside, leaving blood behind him in dark marks on the concrete.
No one stops him and I just stand there with my hand half-raised to my mouth, shaking so badly I can feel it in my teeth. Moth lets out a hearty laugh near the door. “I was going to say you’ve made him less scary,” he muses. “But I guess that only works when people keep their hands off you.”
Bricks steps into my line of sight, blocking the worst of the room behind him. His face is grim, but there’s no cruelty in it. “You better catch up with him before he kills someone at the clubhouse.”
I stare at the door Saint disappeared through. “Me?”
“Yeah, you.” Bricks looks me over, taking in the cut, the blood that isn’t mine, the mark already forming on my throat. “And for what it’s worth, I pray for your ass tomorrow.”
I swallow, but my throat hurts too much for it to help.
Outside, an engine roars to life, Bricks nodding toward the exit. “Go on, little Rogue. He’ll either calm down when he sees you breathing, or we’ll all have a really shitty tomorrow.”
Saint
Oisínvibratesbehindmethe whole ride back. He’s trying not to, his hands clenched at my waist, fingers curled so tightly the knuckles have gone pale, as the tremor keeps moving through him in small, visible waves no amount of stillness can hide.
He head is buried against the back of my neck and shoulder blades, no doubt soaking blood into my cut. None of the blood is his. I know that because I checked him before we got onto the bikes, checked his throat, his ribs, his arms, the scrape along the side of his neck where that bastard locked an arm around him and used him like cover.
I know he isn’t badly hurt, but I still keep looking at the mark.
That bloodbath didn’t have to happen. Oisín should never have been there. Sol should never have been there. I could’ve handled the buyer, the complaint, and Maverick from the Reapers without my father turning it into a lesson and dragging Oisín in as proof of whatever the fuck Sol thinks he still needs to teach me. That’s what sits under the rage. Sol didn’t want answers. He wanted confirmation. He wanted to see whether Oisín would break, whether I would react, whether the Rogues had their fingers in the complaint, whether his son could still be provoked with the right pressure on the right throat.
He got his answers because old men like him always know how to make a room pay for what they want.
Behind me, Oisín shifts. It’s a small movement, just his shoulder dragging against the seat as if his body can’t find a position that doesn’t hurt, but my grip tightens on the bars hard enough that the leather complains.
By the time we reach Obsidian, the front lot is full enough to make me want to turn the bike around and drive through every man standing there. Conversations die as we pull in. Word has already reached them, no doubt, but I don’t have time to entertain it. I put a hand out for Oisín to climb off and then I twist toward him.
He looks up at me like he’s coming back from somewhere far away. I reach forward, catch the back of his neck, and pull him toward me with more care than my temper wants to allow.
“You hurt?” I ask.
His throat works before he answers. “No.”
