Page 1 of Savage Possession (Savage Reign #3)

ASH

I woke up this morning believing demons made up half of this God-forsaken, cursed world. I know for a fact I’m not wrong. There’s a reason I carry the name I do among my Savage brothers and it’s not because I have a lovable and sunny disposition.

But I can change that. I mean, damn. If I can believe in demons, I can believe in their counterparts. Right? I’m asking because as I live and breathe, I’m looking at an honest-to-God angel and I want her to be real.

She’s standing in the middle of aisle six of the Broken Chapter. Snow-white hair cascades down her back, and her skin appears so creamy it begs me to touch. And then there are her sexy little freckles.

Fuck me. The sweet angel has tiny little scattered freckles that look like powdered sugar sprinkled across the bridge of her nose.

Before now, I don’t think I even paid attention to freckles but I want to kiss every single one of them on her nose, across her cheeks and then find out if there are any more under that cute little knit dress.

If that isn’t enough to put me on my knees, she also has pink, kissable lips I can barely look at without my mind going straight to sin.

But what makes me believe in angels again is the sweet aura of kindness and love coming off her like she has one goal in life and it’s filling this world with good.

That alone makes her off-limits.

But I swear it’s like a beacon that speaks to the darkness in me and pleads for me to be the man she wants at her side. I don’t know how I can do that, but I know that I’ve never been a man who falls first. Hell, I don’t even think love at first sight is possible.

Or I didn’t.

But now I’m questioning my entire existence because of her. I’m halfway gone and I haven’t even heard her name.

I set a new stack of lumber on the floor, my hands rough and a little splintered from the morning’s work, and try not to watch her as she turns in a slow circle, taking in the shelves I’ve built.

She’s so damn petite, lost in that knitted burgundy dress that looks so soft you could sleep in it, though right now, all I want to do is see how it would look puddled on my floor.

The sweet angel hasn’t noticed me yet. Her fingers brush over the spine of a book, leaving a faint smudge in the layer of sawdust I haven’t managed to sweep away.

There’s something delicate about the way she moves—careful and precise, as if she isn’t used to taking up space, as though she was taught to make herself small.

The urge to wreck anyone who’s made her feel that way nearly chokes me.

She startles when she turns and finds me watching.

The tiny gasp she lets out is a punch to the gut—a reminder that I’m twice her size, broad-shouldered and tattooed, hair messy, hands still dirty from the work.

I probably look more like the monster under the bed than the kind of man she’d ever dream about.

But she doesn’t run. Her ice-blue eyes meet mine, searching for any signs she’s in danger. I decide right then I’ll be her protector, if she’ll let me.

“Sorry, sweet angel. Didn’t mean to scare you.

” I keep my voice as gentle and soft as I can.

I hunt criminals and dig graves when I’m not building shelves for our president’s woman.

Soft and gentle are not in my nature, but I’m surprising myself right now.

“Didn’t expect anyone back here. You lost, or just looking for trouble? ”

The edge of her mouth tilts up and a soft pink moves over her cheeks. She’s shy, and it’s killing me in all the good ways. My fingers itch to reach out and touch her just to make sure I haven’t fallen off a ladder and got shoved into heaven by mistake.

But I keep my hands to myself because if Saint Peter screwed up and I am in heaven, I’m not going to sound the alarm.

“I, um, was just… looking.” Her voice is quiet, uncertain, sweet as honey on a hot day. “I don’t get to read often. Not anymore. But I heard about this place and I couldn't resist. I should have kept going, but the name of the place pulled me in.”

“Broken Chapter?” Her pretty eyes turn haunted in a way that has me taking a step closer. To my surprise, she doesn’t retreat. Instead, she shifts her weight to face me more.

“Yeah. Hits a little close to home lately.”

I don’t like seeing the pain filter over her soft expression, so I jump back to what put a smile on her face a few moments ago.

“Shame you don’t get to read as much. You’re missing out on a lot of good fantasies,” I murmur, letting my eyes run over her from crown to toes, lingering on the way her dress hugs her curvy hips.

I catch myself and rein it in. “If you want, I could show you some of my favorites. Unless you’re here for romance.

I might not be your guy for that. But fantasy?

Dragons? Curses? Doomed love and fated soulmates?

Hell yeah, sweet angel. That I can talk about all day. ”

She lets out a breathy laugh, soft and nervous, and something in my chest cracks wide open. I want to hear that sound again. I want to be the reason she makes it.

“I don’t know much about fantasy books,” she admits, those pretty pink-tipped fingers finding the spines of nearby books again. She traces each one like they are portals to other realms and she only needed to pick one to escape into.

“Maybe you could… recommend one?”

The need to touch her is a living thing in me.

My fingers itch, my palms ache, every sense I was born with tunes to her and only her.

I gesture for her to follow, leading her through the shelves, the floor creaking beneath my boots, the overhead lights casting our shadows long and close together.

I watch the way she tucks a strand of that wild hair behind her ear, the faint trembling of her hands, the almost imperceptible quiver of her lower lip.

God, she’s precious. The kind of preciousness that makes a man want to fight the world down to the last evil man or monster just to see her smile.

We reach the alcove in the back I like to call Arabelle’s “secret spot” with an overlarge velvet armchair the color of dusk, a coffee bar, and a lamp draped in some silk scarf that bathes everything in golden light.

The place smells like old paper and fresh espresso, sweet with a hint of vanilla from the bakery bag Arabelle always leaves open.

I grab a book from the shelf, the one with the dragon shifter king, and press it into her hands. Our fingers brush. Her skin is warm and electric, soft in a way that makes my own hands feel clumsy and dangerous.

“In this one, the king is cursed,” I say, lowering my voice so it’s just for her.

“At night, he becomes the beast everyone fears. By day, he rules a dying kingdom—lonely, broken, desperate to save his people. And there’s only one way out for him and his people, but the price is more than any man should have to pay, if you ask me. ”

She stares at the cover, her lashes lowering as she drags her finger over the gold-embossed title. “What’s the price?”

I want to answer with a joke, but I can’t. Not when my sweet angel looks at me like that, all wide-eyed and hungry for something real.

Mine.

That one word mentally knocks me back. I’m not one for anything beyond a one-night hook-up. Forever isn’t my style, but this woman has me already wanting exactly that.

“He has to give up his true love,” I say, letting the words linger with heaviness between us. “To save everyone looking to him for protection, the cursed king has to lose her. She’s the only thing that ever made him feel alive. The only thing that made the curse bearable.”

She turns those pretty blues on me, and in that moment, I’d burn down the world to keep her from feeling a fraction of that king’s pain or what his lover went through.

“That sounds… unfair,” she whispers. “Who would make someone choose like that?”

“People do it all the time,” I say, unable to keep the bitterness from my tone.

“Sometimes you don’t have a choice. Sometimes you’re just…

left with what’s left.” I regret saying it, the truth in my words exposing a little too much, but she doesn’t flinch.

Instead, she steps closer, the toes of her white sneakers nearly brushing my boots.

“Is it a happy ending? Does the cursed king find a way to save his lover?” Her voice is so small and grasping for a few threads of hope that I have to strain my hearing to catch her words.

I grin, tilting my head, letting my eyes drag over her. “You’ll have to read it and find out. I’m not spoiling the best part, sweet angel.”

The space between us is electric—my breath mixing with hers, my chest tight with the need to touch her, taste her, ruin her for anyone but me.

My hand finds hers. The second our skin touches there’s a fusing of energy.

It travels up my arm and buries deep in my heart to the point I don’t think I can let her go.

“Stay a while longer and let me tell you more.” Those words are out of my mouth before I can properly plan out what an evening with one of God’s missing angels should be.

I let my hand linger in hers a moment longer, my thumb tracing over her knuckles, memorizing every detail of her delicate skin.

She looks at our connection and then gifts me with those eyes one more time.

Those pretty blues shine while her breath is shaky like she’s caught between wanting to run and wanting to see what happens if she stays.

She clears her throat, voice soft but steady. “I don’t even know your name.”

For a split second, I can only stare at her.

At the perfect contrast of her snowy hair and that wild blush riding high in her cheeks.

“It’s Ash,” I offer in a hushed tone, feeling her name hover on the tip of my tongue even though I haven’t earned it yet.

Like whatever it is, I’ve heard before because our souls have been attached since forever.

Listen to me, I must have been a poet in some lifetime.