Page 15 of Forged in the Fire
Laughter and voices rolled as they drank beers and probably bragged about their latest kill.
Half the men wore jeans and black leather vests with a morbid emblem on the back.
A gathering of three crows sitting on a headstone with blood dripping from their talons. Another prancing on the grave.
Crimson Crowswas stitched in red and arched over the scene.
It was no shocker that a group of crows was called a murder.
For these guys, it was undoubtedly fitting.
My stomach tightened, and a little of that fear flashed up my spine.
This was seriously fucked up.
Fiction that I shouldn’t be living. The type of fiction it seemed only Dereck could drag me into.
I glanced around, trying to decide on my next move. Discern exactly what I hoped to achieve by slinking around here, having no idea what I was even looking for.
Shrill laughter rang from a woman who was being tossed over a man’s shoulder, the brute carrying her away as he pawed at her ass.
I nearly rolled my eyes.
How cliché.
Is this how they really lived? At least from where I was standing, no one was having sex right out in the open.
I started to edge around the corner when my skin prickled in awareness.
A shivery sensation flying across my flesh and lifting the hairs at the nape of my neck.
That was only a second before I felt the actual breath panted against the same spot.
Terror gripped me, and panic streaked through my veins. My mind spun through every self-defense move I had ever learned.
Only before I could ram my elbow into the offender’s gut, that elbow was encased by a hot, heavy hand, held firm as I was yanked back against a wall of stony muscle.
Fire burned at the contact point, and the air was ripped from my lungs, hurled into the shadows where we were concealed beneath the trees.
The low voice that had tormented me all night rumbled in my ear, “Thought I told you to be a good girl?”
Each word was a blade. A shallow carving against my flesh.
I inhaled a shattered breath. Too bad I was sucking the scent of him down into my heaving lungs.
He smelled like cherries drenched in whiskey.
It was a horribly delicious combination.
“You never told me I couldn’t leave my room.” I snarled it through clenched teeth, my back bowed as I tried to peel my body away from the gravity of his.
“No, I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know you’re up to no good.” He cinched down tighter on my elbow, and my heart hammered at my chest.
Fear and something else there was no way I was feeling careened through my senses.
“Let me go.” I yanked my arm, the words coming out a whole lot more like a plea rather than the vicious demand I was going for.
I expected it to be a fight.
