Savage was so sick most of the time he couldn’t keep down food. He cried. He stayed alone. He refused to talk to the others or look at them. Absinthe and Demyan both continued to try to help him accept what he couldn’t change. None of them ever believed they would live through their time at the school. It didn’t occur to them that what they were being trained to do sexually for their captors as children and then as teens, all the way to adulthood, they would continue to crave even after they escaped. Those practices would be ingrained in them.
“Accept who you are,” he whispered to Savage under his breath straight into that pathway, his brain to his chosen brother’s. “There is no monster. You do nothing wrong. You don’t want to hurt anyone. Be at peace with yourself.”
He did his best to try to take the worst of Savage’s sins. He knew they weren’t Savage’s. Those were on the men who had so cruelly used a little child and then thought it would be great fun to teach that child to become one of them. They had never considered that the child would surpass the instructors. Not only had he learned from them dark sexual practices, but all of them had been trained to be assassins for their country.
If that hadn’t been enough, in order to survive a school they weren’t meant to survive, they had to crawl through vents as children and kill the worst of their instructors. While all of them had played their part gathering information, Reaper and Savage had been the two who had most excelled at the actual killings while the others kept watch.
Absinthe breathed deep, trying not to look or act sick in any way in front of Savage. If he failed, he knew his brother would never come to him for help again. He couldn’t speak, so he waited in silence.
Savage sat for a few minutes and then slowly nodded his head. “I don’t know how the hell you do it, but you fuckin’ save my life every single time. Thanks, bro.”
Absinthe shoved his cold coffee cup toward him and indicated it. Savage heaved a sigh. More than anything, he detested dealing with people. He stood up, looked over at Lana and Alena with such a pained look on his face that in spite of his churning stomach, Absinthe wanted to smile. Both women immediately rolled their eyes, stood up and took the coffee cups.
“You’re such a coward, Savage,” Lana hissed.
Savage looked completely unperturbed now that the women were doing what he wanted them to do. He sauntered back to his table, winking at Absinthe over his shoulder.NINEScarlet’s heart was beating far too fast as she watched Absinthe saunter over to the car through her rearview mirror. He took her breath away. He was tall with wide shoulders and wearing his jeans, motorcycle boots and that tight tee that stretched across his thick chest and incredible arms. He wore a thin leather vest over it. His hair tumbled wildly around his face and there was that ever-present blue shadow on his jaw. She could hardly breathe just looking at him.
Hand on the door, she managed to open it with shaky fingers and then she was in his arms and his mouth was on hers. She hadn’t imagined the way he kissed, hotter than hell, consuming her, pouring fire down her throat until she went up in flames and there was only Absinthe with his rock-hard body and his amazing, most intelligent brain, those large, strong hands that could be by turns gentle and then rough, melting her.
She slid her arms around his neck and let herself surrender to him in a way she’d never given herself to anyone before. It felt good, and more, it felt right. Absinthe held her as if she were the only woman in his world, protectively, when she knew she wasn’t the kind of woman who needed protection. Still, she wanted it.
She kissed him back, heat rising, blood rushing, feeling alive, that woman she kept hidden deep rejoicing in being set free. For him. She felt she could do anything for him. She might not have been with him for these past six weeks, but she’d connected with him. She’d noticed every little thing about him. She felt like she knew him whether they’d actually been physically together or not. She told herself a million times she was crazy, and yet she couldn’t help herself. Being with Absinthe made sense, she fit with him. She didn’t know why, she just knew she belonged with him.
He lifted his head and framed her face with his hands. Just the way he did that, his crystal-blue eyes staring down into hers, brought another rush of heat so that flames licked over her skin and settled in her stomach, burning brightly.