Say It's Forever (Redemption Hills #2)(69)

But Tessa was suddenly there, yanking at his jacket. “Stop it, Karl, just stop it.”

I let him go, hating to give him a pass, but this was Tessa we were talking about. Girl was sweet as fuck even though she clearly had horrible taste in men. But Karl whirled around and shoved her.

Hard.

Sweet thing flew back, and she knocked into Salem. Both of them toppled, their asses hitting the floor, sending them in a tumble across the stained concrete.

And Karl was dead.

I had the fucker pinned to the ground before he registered that I’d moved.

I set to wailing on his face.

Punch after punch.

Blood splattered. Bone crunched.

Demon laughed and writhed and whispered in my ear.

Calling me back to who I really was.

A monster.

A beast.

Grim.

I cocked my arm back again to render a blow that would flip the switch.

Lights out.

Only a hand caught me around the wrist and jerked my arm back. Trent’s low voice hissed in my ear, “Want to end the bastard, too, but how about we do it without an audience, yeah?”

I heaved a stuttered breath while the piece of shit writhed and screamed. He held his mangled face as he pushed up to sitting. Blood seeped through the seams of his fingers. “What the fuck? What the fuck? You’re finished, you bastard. Finished. I’m going to own you. All of you.”

I lumbered to my feet, trying to rein the violence that screamed through my veins, trying not to look at Salem because I was afraid if I did, it’d send me spiraling all over again.

Some random dude shouted, “Have you on video pushing your girl, pussy. Call the cops, why don’t you? Dare you.”

That was right as Logan busted through the crowd and came rushing up to my side, eyes darting everywhere. “What the hell? Why do you guys always have all the fun without me?”

Our two head bouncers, Kult and Milo, came barreling in. They shoved back the mob that had gathered around us to ogle the mayhem that always found its way into our house.

Milo and Kult looked around to assess the damage.

Kult yanked Karl up by the collar. Asshole’s feet dangled a foot from the ground. Kult was a goddamned mammoth, and he whipped him around like a rag doll.

“Ambulance or the front door, boss?” Kult asked.

Trent looked at me, telling me it was my call.

“Front door,” I instructed. Prick could get his own ass to the hospital.

Kult cracked a menacing grin. “My pleasure. Out of the way.”

He started to haul a shrieking Karl through the crowd so he could kick the prick to the curb.

Right where the fucker belonged.

One step, and the crush parted, Kult nothing but intimidation and brute strength.

I inhaled a cleansing breath, doing my best to get it together enough to look to where the group was huddled on the floor while my heart raged a riot in my chest.

Eden, Trent, and Logan had already gathered around Tessa and Salem. Eden was frantic, kneeling in front of her friends, her hands shaking out of control as she tried to check if they were hurt.

Milo leaned down, and he gently scooped a sobbing Tessa into his massive, gigantic arms. Dude was basically a mute fortress. Quiet and soft and forbidding as fuck. “You’re safe, little dove. Don’t cry, you’re safe.”

He rumbled it like a promise as he started to carry her through the throng.

Trent gave me a quick glance, and I gestured with my chin. “Go.”

He dipped his head before he guided Eden to follow behind Milo who cut through the crowd.

My attention shifted to Salem. Salem who had her knees to her chest and was rocking. Rocking and trembling and mumbling incoherently.

Logan stood guard over her, watching me, giving me a fierce look that told me not to be a fool. That he was going to step in if I didn’t.

Thing was, it did make me a fool.

A fuckin’ fool as I went for her.

Because that girl looked up when she felt me cautiously approach.

Ground rumbled beneath.

The warning of a coming earthquake.

Of devastation.

Destruction.

I leaned down and slipped my arms around her back and under her knees.

Salem yelped.

A shout from her soul.

Mine clutched.

I gathered her closer. “I have you, Salem. I have you, baby.”

A sob wrenched from her throat, and she buried her face in my neck, into my beard, against my chest, like she could hide away in the safety of my arms.

“I have you.”

And I didn’t want to let her go.





TWENTY-ONE





SALEM





I have you. I have you. I have you.

Jud’s promise rained over me as he curled his arms tighter, and he carried me through the swarm of people that undulated around us.

The band continued to play from the stage where half the crowd still seethed below it. Jud stormed right through, carving a path and dipping us into a narrow, dusky hall.

In an instant, it was only the two of us.

His heavy boots thudded on the floor as he peered down at me with that unrelenting obsidian gaze.

A gaze that speared me to the core.

Tears streamed and my shoulders hiccupped with the sobs that wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t seem to halt the terror that wracked through my body. The panic that had hit me when a stranger had come at us from out of nowhere.