Page 41 of Savage Surrender

Weller studies the paths below us with both hands curled at his sides. He wants to go too. That is the only reason I can stand hearing him say, “We wait two minutes. Then I’ll go find him.”

The house has become the largest bonfire I have ever seen. Glass bursts outward. Part of the roof folds into the flames.

If he is still inside -

Brush snaps below the ledge.

I spin so fast my foot slips on the rock. Someone barrels uphill through the undergrowth like an enraged bear, then Owen breaks between two pines with soot across his face and a savage grin that makes my knees threaten mutiny. His right arm is tucked close to his side until he sees me. Then both hands reach for me.

I skid down the last few feet toward him.

“Followed your scent, Princess.” He is breathing hard, sweating, a feral look in his eye. “It’s strong.”

I hit his chest with both fists. “You asshole. I was worried to death.”

He lifts me. My legs lock around his waist, my hands fist in his hair, and I kiss him like I can crawl inside him. He tastes like smoke. His hands crush the backs of my thighs, and the heat is suddenly there with us, coiling low between my hips while his scent floods my head.

“I thought you—” The words tear on the way out. I bite them off. “Don’t ever⁠—”

“Can’t get rid of me that easily.”

His pupils swallow his eyes. Slick runs hot between my thighs when his scent tangles with mine, and my hips roll against the hard ridge behind his zipper before either of us decides they should.

“Fuck, you smell⁠—”

I reach for him.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Tristan’s voice cuts clean through the haze. He stops beside us, blood bright beneath one nostril from my headbutt. “You know in movies when inevitably two idiots stop to kiss or fuck or do something epically stupid and then die?”

Owen lets out a low rumble without loosening his grip.

“Car first,” Tristan says, with a tinge of alpha command in it. He’s never done that before. “We need to get rid of the collars and your tracker, evade the cops, then you two can make bad decisions. In that order.”

The words reach me, unfortunately.

“What car?”

“Winston left one at the park. Ezra has a place north.”

“Where?”

“Not here, Bianca.” He glances toward the shouting below. “Move your asses before Owen mounts you in the dirt and we end up back where we started.”

Owen sets me down slowly, and his hands linger. His eyes promise everything his body can’t deliver yet.

It takes twenty minutes to reach the park. Familiar trails twist beneath my feet, places we used to come as kids. Winston’s car waits where he said. Weller finds the key. Inside are water, clothes, cash, blankets, a first-aid kit, and sealed prepaid phones.

We pull out with the headlights off until the trees give us cover, then Weller guides Owen toward the back roads out of town. I sink into the seat between Tristan and Weller. Cool leather touches the cut at my neck.

Sirens rise in the distance and move away from us.

We’re free, or something like that.

I look around the car. “Who wants to cut this tracker out of me?”

11

BIANCA