Page 10

They’d held me down. Taken turns forcing themselves on me. I hadn’t had a gun then, and no way of protecting myself. The one clutched in my fingers now didn’t seem like enough.
“Rebel. It’s me.”
In an instant, the panic subsided.
“Fang…I mean.”
His familiar voice was a balm on my ragged, nervous edges. One by one, each muscle in my body relaxed into my lumpy mattress, and I unclenched my grip on the gun.
I wanted to run to the door, throw it open, and wrap myself in the massive man who had always curled my toes. With his huge, thick body and constant scowl, he’d never scared me. Quite the opposite. His ice-blue gaze that followed me around rooms heated my blood and sent tingles to places I really enjoyed.
Until he’d walked out of the bar that night, unknowingly leaving me with Caleb and his pack of wolves.
It was unfair for me to blame him. If he’d known what would happen, there was no doubt in my mind he would have stayed. Hell, he probably would have killed Caleb on the spot. But no matter how I tried to get up off the bed and let him in, I couldn’t. My legs wouldn’t move. Not until his footsteps went down the stairs.
The scent of chicken soup forced my stomach into a growl of hunger. I hadn’t eaten in days. The carved-out hollow of my belly twisted in pain, and my weak limbs begged for the chance of just a tiny sip.
It smelled so freaking good.
I dragged myself from the bed and tiptoed to the door, pressing up to look out through the peephole.
His ice-blue gaze stared back at me. A flight of stairs down, but waiting on the landing, watching to see if I took his gift.
This close, it was all I could smell. My legs wobbled, and I dropped to my knees, knowing I desperately needed that food before I fainted.
I reached up and unlocked the door, then opened it with agonizing slowness, cringing, just waiting for him to slam his way inside and steal what he wanted, just the way Caleb and his friends had.
It didn’t come.
Of course it didn’t. Because Fang wasn’t Caleb. He didn’t hurt me. He left sex club parties at midnight and brought me soup. That urge to run to him hit me again, so hard and fast I almost did it.
But my face… I was still black and blue. If I showed Fang, he’d want to know who did it.
Then he’d kill them. I had no doubts the man was capable of it. You didn’t get scars like his from living a life on the straight and narrow.
Nobody was killing Caleb and his friends.
Nobody but me.
I reached a hand around the door, almost weeping with relief when my fingers snagged on the plastic take-out bag. I dragged it inside, leaning back on the door to close it and then quickly turning the locks.
I cracked open the lid, taking only a second to inhale the richly scented steam, before putting the entire thing to my lips and swallowing.
It slid down my throat so perfectly warm and tasty, my stomach relaxing instantly as food hit it for the first time in days. I would make myself sick on this, I was sure of it, but I took a few more long swallows, just basking in how good it tasted.
My phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Fang
We’ll be there for the wedding. But, Rebel? You will be on the back of my bike. Only mine.
I put Fang’s soup down on the floor beside me and reread the message, dread filling me with every word.
It was exactly why I hadn’t wanted to ask him. Why I should have just told my mom no.
Putting a woman on the back of your bike was a sacred act in Fang’s MC. My bestie, Bliss, had told me all about it, when she’d fallen for the club prez. It would be different for my mom and new stepdaddy. It was clear they weren’t anyone’s girl.
But me and Fang…that was a different kettle of fish altogether.