“I’ll stay inside,” I mutter, squinting at him. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Babysitter isn’t exactly for you, Trouble.”
Oh.
It’s to make sure if I freak out, I don’t end up taking souls from those around me.
“Gotta go, baby,” Heat murmurs and kisses me once again before letting me go and heading for the exit.
I feel like I should say something, tell him how I feel, but the words all seem lodged in my throat. I can’t get them out if I could. I do feel the emotions swirling around inside me. Mine and Heat’s. His were the same.
He loves me. It’s in there, filling me up as nothing ever has. His touch inside soothes me in so many ways. Knowing he’s with me in at least this way while he’s heading into danger, I can be calm in the storm he’s heading toward.
TWENTY
HEAT
Stepping just past the gates surrounding the clubhouse’s inner property, I scan the distance.
“He’s out there,” I tell my brothers. I don’t know how I know, but I can feel the dark elf watching us. He’s hiding himself from us, but there’s no missing his strength.
“Need us to shift?” Pyro asks.
“Not yet,” I grunt. If he shifts too soon, the plan will go haywire, if not up in smoke completely. To make this work, to keep McKenna hidden from the one after her, this has to go off without any hitches.
Leon and Rashon had been able to tell me how to take this bastard out, and I didn’t like the answer. No way was I putting my woman in harm’s way. She wouldn’t be able to do what needs to be done without feeling the pain of it.
McKenna was a lot of things, but a killer isn’t one of them. It would kill her to have to do this. I decided to try to use the connection between us to wield that power of hers. I have my own strengths. The warrior in me that takes after my mother. Ican handle any fight on my own, but to kill the elf, I have to take his soul. That’s why Hel gave McKenna and me that drink. To allow me access to it.
I knew what drinking from the goblet would mean. It sealed McKenna and me together completely as one. I could feel her with me now, though I knew she was safe inside the clubhouse away from the danger.
“I don’t like this,” Brimstone remarks quietly.
“Same,” Fire agrees. “This doesn’t feel right.”
I couldn’t agree more. This seems off.
“Pyro, Inferno, go ahead and shift,” I tell my brothers. It might fuck things up, but something in me is saying now is the time.
Within seconds, both men are in dragon form on either side of my brothers and me. Trigger and Hotshot are the only two back at the clubhouse with the women and prospects. It’s a good thing Clay was still in fighting form and showed up at the clubhouse as we walked out. Not to mention Hel was sticking close to her goddaughter. With how protective the woman was of McKenna, she might as well be her blood instead. I wonder sometimes if that could be the case, however, that’s a stone I won’t turn over.
“What’s the plan here, Prez?” Fire grunts from my left.
“We didn’t discuss how we’re doing any of this, Heat,” Brimstone reminds me.
“I know we didn’t. But you know me. Like the club says, ‘No one fucks with the Kings.’ I’m not about to let this fool fuck with us or my woman. Not anymore.” I step ahead of them and call out. “Come on out of the shadows, Tarron. We know you’re out there.” He’d been out there since the other night when I found out about him.
A mist forms into a man nearly as tall as I am. Dark hair, thin structure with lean muscles. Paler than any vampire I’ve everseen. His ears slightly poke out from his long hair. If you didn’t know better, you’d think him to be a fashion model and not some dark otherworldly character, thinking he can get his hands on my woman. A woman who thought he was a friend.
Over the past few days, she’s talked about working at the strip club and how she thought of some people, like Tarron, to be friends she could trust.
“You know who I am, but I’ve yet to learn who you are, though it does not matter. All I want is McKenna. Send her to me, and I shall spare your lives,” Tarron says, his voice thick in accent.
“Sending my woman to you will not be happenin’, elf,” I sneer.
“McKenna is mine.”
Was he joking? The lunacy in his eyes tells me he isn’t, but he’s about to learn just how wrong he is.
