Page 59 of Ruthlessly Mated

“Decided you have to do something to actually discipline her?”

Tailor gives me a sharp look, as if he’s still mentally in a dominant headspace. I smirk at him and he drops some of the energy, slightly.

“I don’t like her blaming herself for what happens to us. I don’t like that she’s feeling guilty for things we decided to do. We did not have to mate her that night. We could have slapped a fine on that truck and carried on our way. Instead we dragged her upstairs and you fucked her until she didn’t have any chemical way out. We made her ours. We made her our responsibility. And now she’s worried about us. All the time. Blaming herself for decisionswemade.”

He’s passionate, and he’s right. We got ourselves into this. We did absolutely nothing to find out who we were dealing with. We assumed she was just another smuggler who could be taken and go missing without anybody really noticing or caring.

“Taking that much responsibility is just another way she avoids submitting to us,” Tailor says. “I want her to trust us with everything. I want her to let us deal with things. Look what happens when she deals with it. I want to be in charge of this girl. I want her to feel safe with me. With us. And that means taking her in hand.”

Damon and I smirk at one another. Tailor is mild mannered and slow to act, but when he does start acting, he doesn’t stop until his objective is well and truly achieved. Kita better watch her ass from here on out. He won’t let her think the wrong thing, let alone do it.

Damon taps the front of the safe, and the door swings open. He starts handing out the cloth bags containing our gold reserves. Tailor takes a couple. I take one. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something shift in the rubble.

I figure it’s an animal.

Pew!

Until it starts shooting.

We are not armed.

We run.

Kita

I wake to speed, wind, and bullets singing all around. They sound like heavy rain on the exterior of the vehicle, which is mercifully dense, having been designed to repel stupidity.

Rat-a-tat-a-tat!

Tailor is returning fire from the passenger seat. Conroy is driving. Damon is next to me, slumped down, his arm around me, pulling me close.

“What happened?” I shout the question to be heard over the chaos.

“Ambush,” Damon grunts.

I am pressed tight against him as if he is trying to protect me from the gunfire, which is sweet of course. But there’s something in his voice, even just that one word that sounds like pain.

He’s always quiet and he’s always pale, but there’s an extra quietness and a paleness that concerns me.

“Are you okay?”

As I ask the question, I become aware that there’s something warm between Damon and me. I push up a little and see that I am covered in red liquid. Blood. It’s not mine. He’s been shot. In the gut.

“Fuck!”

I press the blanket that was wrapped around me against Damon’s stomach, putting pressure on it, hoping it will help him survive. It feels immediately hopeless.

“He’s been hit! Damon’s been hit!”

A bullet whips past the back of my head. Tailor swings his gun around and I see the awful but satisfying sight of the driver of the vehicle behind us stopping being an alive person in a very short period of time.

Conroy

I hear Kita yelling. Her cry is panicked.

Dammit, Damon. He didn’t say a thing. He just jumped in the car and covered her with his body.

I’m not surprised he has been hit. I’m not surprised he managed to get to the car with the reserves anyway. The footwells of the vehicle are full of gold coins sliding around on top of one another.