Page 99 of Savage Surrender

I rip Tristan’s shirt over my head. It snags in my hair and I fight with it until the seam tears, then throw it. The flowers tip sideways when the shirt catches the pitcher. Water sloshes onto the cabinet and begins dripping over the edge.

Fuck it. I really don’t care.

All of my mates are liars and half of them left me in the middle of the night.

They could get hurt. They could be captured. They could fucking die.

And they didn’t even have the decency to let me say goodbye.

It makes me even angrier when I think about how happy I’ve been here with them.

Hard to believe that not so long ago, mornings started with a bow in my hand.

I drag the balcony doors open. Wind rushes through the room and tosses the curtains in my face. The ocean is right there, wide and blue beneath the morning sky, and I need to be near it. I need to be anywhere that doesn’t smell like the people I love deciding I am safest when I don’t make choices.

My body wants trees and a direction I picked myself.

I sit in a chair and press my hands between my knees, focusing on my breathing. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. I lose count, swear, and start again.

By the time my breathing slows, my anger has ebbed slightly, but not enough.

I pull on a clean shirt, shorts, and shoes. The knife I hid in a drawer goes into my pocket. I take one of the prepaid phones from the charger and check the battery before I unlock the hall door.

Weller is waiting across the hall. Tristan has put on a pair of pants, and angry red marks cover his chest.

“I’m going for a walk.” I hold up the phone. “Alone.”

Weller steps away from the wall. “No, Bianca⁠—”

Tristan turns his head toward him. “Weller.”

Weller’s attention stays on me. “You’re approaching heat, you’re upset, and people are looking for you.”

“I can protect myself.”

“That’s not in question.”

“You guys have a funny fucking way of showing it.”

His mouth pulls tight. “Take one of us with you. We don’t even have to walk next to⁠—”

“No.” I slide the phone into one back pocket and pull the knife from the other. “I’m telling you where I’m going. I won’t go far, and I’ll call if anything comes up.”

I look at both of them. “If either of you tries to stop me, I’ll fight you. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will. Leave me the fuck alone right now.”

21

OWEN

The breakfast driver leaves two paper bags on the front step, takes his picture, and walks back to his car barely looking up from his phone. Freddie and I stay tight against the stone wall where the lens can’t reach us, listening to the engine turn over on the other side of the house.

Simple. Let the car clear the gate. Wait for someone to open the door. Get inside.

The gate starts closing behind the driver, and Freddie shifts beside me. I catch his sleeve before he can move. “Not yet.”

He goes still again, but his breathing doesn’t. Too fast. Too shallow. He hasn’t made a joke since we got through the gate, and Freddie without a joke is Freddie a lot closer to breaking than he’ll ever admit.

The car turns onto the road. The gate seals behind it. I touch his arm once, and we move.