Page 19 of Viper's Desire
“Viper,” Saber calls out.
Eden wakes up. Her head comes up. Her fingers fist in the sheet and drag it to her throat. She’s scared.
I’d like five minutes alone with whoever trained that into her. Then I remember I already know who did, and the wanting goes specific.
“Open up, Viper,” Saber yells. “We’ve got a problem outside. The preacher is here. Says we’ve kidnapped his daughter.”
The color drains from Eden’s face. She stares at the door. Under my palm, her back has gone rigid, and her hands turn into fists.
“Hey.” I turn her to me. “Look at me. Nothing happens to you. He doesn’t walk you out of here unless you want out. Okay?”
She searches my face. Whatever she’s hunting for, she finds it, because the worst of it drains off her. Her shoulders come down. Her hand flattens out of its fist.
“Yeah,” she says.
I’m in my jeans before I finish talking.
I pull the door open.
Saber stands there, knuckles raised up, because he was just about to knock on the door again. He looks past me to the bed where Eden’s got the sheet to her chin.
“Knew she’d be trouble the second she drove you through my gate,” he says.
“She’s not trouble,” I bite out. “She’s my Old Lady now. Mine to protect.”
Saying it out loud lands different than thinking it. Thinking it was private. Saying it to Saber makes this official.
Something in me sets, the same click as a round going into the chamber. Done. Loaded. Hers.
Saber’s eyebrows go up. He looks past me at her, then at me.
“Old Lady.” He lets it sit. “Huh. Okay. Do you need backup?”
“No. I got this.”
The sheet rustles behind me.
“I’m coming down, too,” Eden says.
Stepping into the hallway, I close the door to give her some privacy from Saber to get dressed.
“No point fighting it,” I tell the club Prez.
If she wants to face her father, I’m not going to stop her. Her father shut down her choices. I won’t.
Saber smirks. “I’d tell you to handle it, but we both know who’s handling who.”
The lot is bright and already hot from the Arizona morning sun.
Gravel dust hangs where the preacher’s car kicked it up. Eden’s father stands just inside the gate in pressed slacks, sweating through his shirt, his sedan parked behind him.
He sees Eden come out the door behind me, and his face pulls tight. “Eden. Get your things. We’re leaving.”
She stops at the top of the porch steps and doesn’t move toward him.
I walk down the porch steps and put myself between them.
“You.” His finger comes up, pointing accusingly at me. “I know exactly what you are. I’ll have police out here inside the hour. Kidnapping. She’s my daughter.”
