Page 42 of Savage Surrender

Owen takes a corner so hard the scalpel skips off my neck.

Weller jerks the blade clear before it finds me again. “Owen.”

Owen’s eyes flash in the mirror. He doesn’t apologize, but the car stops trying to throw us into one another.

There is no room for any of this. I’m half on Tristan’s lap in the middle of the backseat, plastered against his chest, his palm spread over my scalp. My hair is wound around his fist to keep it off my neck. Weller is pressed against my side with Winston’s medical kit open on his lap, everything inside rattling when Owen finds another pothole. Up front, Freddie has bolt cutters wedged beneath his collar, one elbow braced on the dash while he twists for an angle that does not exist.

Above the houses, the black drone that appeared after we cleared the woods banks through the turn with us. It is not even pretending to hide.

“Do it,” I say.

Weller tears open another antiseptic wipe. “I need you still.”

“I’m being as still as the getaway driver allows.”

The car bounces over a dip. Weller barely raises his voice when he says Owen’s name again, which is worse than shouting.

“If I cut her because you are driving like an idiot, we’ll have a big problem.”

“Oh, a big problem, hm?” I smile into Tristan’s throat. “That sounds kind of hot.”

His arm tightens until my chest is flush to his. Every breath I take fills my head with mint and burnt amber.

I’m running from a psychotic doctor, getting a tracker cut from my neck, and my body thinks this is an excellent time to daydream about dick.

Focus, bitch.

There’s a metal crack. Freddie whoops, then rips the broken collar from his throat and hisses at the red line beading beneath it.

“Ready?” Weller asks, but the blade goes in before I answer.

Pain pinches my face. Tristan sees it, shifts his grip on the back of my head, and kisses me. Surprise barely makes it out before his tongue strokes inside. I bite his lower lip, he groans into my mouth, and Weller gets the stillness he wanted by letting Tristan make me forget about the knife.

“Almost,” Weller murmurs.

The tweezers clink, and he draws out a bloody sliver of metal half the size of my pinky nail, holds it to the light, then drops it into an empty vial.

Blood runs warm down my back. Weller presses gauze to the cut, then twists open a tube from the kit. “This will hurt.”

“A little pain can add to the experience.”

My fingers lock around Tristan’s thigh when Weller pinches the skin closed and paints liquid bandage across it. Tristan’s mouth brushes mine again, gentler now, which somehow makes me shiver worse.

Weller holds the wound closed until the glue sets, his breath moving through the loose hair at my nape. Maybe it’s the champagne. Maybe adrenaline, blood, and a car full of sweaty male pheromones have done something to my brain. He’s oozing comfort through the bond.

“It might need stitches,” he says. “We’ll have it checked when doing so doesn’t require walking into an emergency department with a picture of your face in the break room.”

“It’ll be fine.”

His thumb comes away red. The look he gives me says I’m not qualified to make that determination, but Owen has already pulled onto an empty side street and yanked at his collar.

“Me next. Get this fucking thing off.”

Freddie fits the cutter’s jaws beneath the band while Tristan leans between the seats to add pressure. When the metal gives, Owen pries it apart with both hands and drags in a deep breath.

Weller and Tristan remove their collars. Owen starts to throw his through the window, and I slap his arm.

“Don’t litter.”