Salvation: Saving Setora Book Seven

by Dark, Raven

  My heart dropped into my stomach. He wouldn’t sit there because Steel sat next to it.

  Steel glanced at him, rolled his eyes, but went on eating his chicken without a word.

  “Pretty Boy, come on, don’t be like that,” I coaxed.

  He started filling a plate with food. “It’s all good. Have a seat.”

  The false pleasantness in his tone made my stomach clench. I sat down heavily.

  Pretty Boy took his plate to the other side of the room, stopping only to stroke my hair, then squatted on the floor beside Bear with his plate on his palm.

  “What’s happening between you two?” Bear asked quietly, but not softly enough that I couldn’t hear.

  “Nothing, Bear. Steel’s just pissing me off.”

  I nearly choked on my salad. The two of them never talked about each other that way. Until now, I’d have thought it was impossible for them to make each other angry.

  The men continued to talk and eat until everyone was stuffed, including me. The conversations flowed, lazy and easy for the most part. Except that Steel and Pretty Boy didn’t say a word to each other. Steel got himself a mug of beer and brought one to Pretty Boy.

  “Peace offering,” he grunted.

  Pretty Boy ignored him and laughed at something Bear said that wasn’t funny.

  “Really?” Steel sighed and chugged his beer, then handed Bear the other mug.

  That sense of family, the sense of completeness, slowly slid away. Steel returned to me. I shook my head and got to my feet. “I can’t watch this anymore.”

  “Petal.” Steel reached for me.

  “I’m sorry, Master.” I picked up my half empty mug of cider and downed it. When I set it down again, I caught Hawk’s eye.

  There were too many rifts driving themselves between the men; we didn’t need another one between me and Hawk.

  Hawk lifted his chin, his eyes questioning. At least he didn’t look as if he’d rather walk over hot coals than talk to me.

  I walked over to him, my heart speeding up. Was it too soon? Did he still think I didn’t trust or respect him?

  Tentatively, I reached out for his hand. “May we speak, Master?”

  He set aside his empty plate. Then he nodded and took my hand, pushing to his feet.

  Progress.

  He set his hand warmly on the small of my back and steered us toward Steel’s room, the only private, quiet place to talk.

  Inside the bedroom, I glanced around. My mouth fell open. It was…clean.

  Okay, so it wasn’t perfect. A few articles of clothing lay scattered on the floor, and dust coated the top of the dresser. His bed was rumpled. But it was made, if hastily, and a few clothes and a bit of dust was a far cry from the disaster area his room in the Grotto had always been. Compared to his bedroom in the Grotto, this one was spotless.

  “What is it?” Hawk prompted gently, pressing his fingers into my back.

  I shook myself and turned my focus to him.

  Feeling suddenly awkward and uncertain, I licked my lips. “Master, I… Um. I don’t want you to think I’m saying this to get back in your good graces. I just want you to know.” Gingerly, I took his hands in mine and pushed the words out. “You were right. I shouldn’t have gone to Sheriff after I promised I wouldn’t. I was scared. I didn’t trust your authority.”

  “Setora—”

  “No.” I squeezed his hands, pleading. “Please, I have to say this, Master.”

  He nodded and backed up with me, sitting on Steel’s bed with my hands still in his. His eyes never left mine. Waiting, letting me clear the air, I hoped.

  “Master, I should have trusted you. I know that. I hate that I hurt you. I was just so scared of everything that was happening to this club. It’s become like a family to me. You all have become everything to me.”

  He looked at my hands, rubbing his thumbs across the back of them.

  Unsure what he was thinking, I went on.

  “Sheriff’s leadership is the only leadership I’ve ever known with the Legion. Everything was just happening so fast, and I’m terrified he’ll never be the same again. Look, I’m not making excuses for myself. I only say this because I hope that if you understood where I was coming from, it would be easier to forgive me. I should have trusted you. But I wanted you to know, I love you. If you need more time… If it’s too soon, I won’t press, but—”

  Hawk seized my face in both his hands, and I stiffened, expecting him to tell me off.

  Instead, he yanked my head down, and his mouth devoured mine.

  My muscles tensed…until I felt his kiss, really felt it.

  He wasn’t kissing me to shut me up or to asset his authority. His mouth claimed mine with nothing but heat and passion…. and love.

  My heart soared.

  He broke the kiss and buried his face in my chest, holding me tight. So tight. “Fuck. I missed you.”

  My eyes closed, stinging with tears of joy. I pulled back. “So…you’re not angry with me?” I could feel that things were different between us now, but I needed to hear it.

  “No.” He rumbled into my neck. “You aren’t angry with me?”

  I shook my head and kissed the top of his.

  He drew back, his hands on my hips. “You know why I had to do that to Steel and Pretty Boy, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Their loyalty is tantamount, especially now. You can’t appear to be letting anything slide this early. You can’t go halfway with them.” I offered a shaky smile. “Besides, look what it’s done to Steel. His room is clean.”

  He let out one of those rare belly laughs, a deep guttural sound that warmed my insides. Then his arms crushed me to him. He tipped us back on the bed and we toppled, me landing on top of him.

  There was a crunch under him that sounded like something broke.

  “Uh oh,” I said.

  Hawk sat up a little and pulled something out from under him. He held up a broken magnifying glass and then tossed it aside. “Oops.”

  And just like that, any remaining tension or awkwardness between us evaporated.

  “Apparently his housekeeping skills still need work,” I said.

  Hawk captured my face in his hands and kissed me long and hard.

  “I love you, Master,” I said breathlessly when his lips left mine.

  He ran his hand through my hair.

  “I thought I’d lost you.” I rained kisses on his cheeks, his forehead, his lips.

  He took my shoulders gently, pushing me back so that he could look into my eyes. “Just because we argue and get angry with each other doesn’t change how I feel about you, Kitten. Nothing will change that.”

  “I guess I know that.” I ran my hands over his chest. “It’s just that after everything with Sheriff…” My heart squeezed.

  He sighed and laid his head back. “I know. We’ll have to figure that out. He didn’t mean what he said to you, and he will come around, I know he will. But I’m going to have to knock some sense into him and put a stop to his self-pity bullshit.”

  “Maybe you should give him a whipping too, Master,” I said savagely.

  He snorted. “Maybe.”

  I sighed and laid my head on his chest. “What are we going to do about him?”

  He rubbed my back. “I don’t know yet. But I’ll figure it out. As you said, we are the Four.”

  I lifted my head, and he stroked my cheek.

  “We will always be.” He tipped my chin up and we kissed long and slow.

  “I’m so glad you’re with me, Master.”

  “I am always with you, Setora. Always.” His lips met mine once more, his tongue teasing them.

  This time when he drew back, his amber eyes were dark and smoky. He sat up and set me on my feet again. “We’d better get out of this room before I end up fucking you so hard I break Steel’s bed, too.”

  I laughed. He stood up and took my hand.

  There was a smash of glass in the living room. I glanced up at him. He frowned and le
d the way out of the bedroom.

  “What are those clowns up to now?” he growled.

  When we got out into the other room, I was surprised to see that most of the men had left, all but Doc, Pretty Boy, and Steel.

  “How long is this going to go on, Pretty Boy?” Steel growled, standing toe to toe with his Brother.

  Pretty Boy’s face was twisted with anger. “For as long as it takes for the Steel I know to come back. Not this replacement who doesn’t give a shit about what’s really going on here.”

  “Hey.” Doc stood up, sounding tired. “What the hell is going on with everyone these days?” He looked back at me and Hawk standing in the entrance to the room. “Did someone put something in the fucking water or what? Pretty Boy, back off.”

  “Not a chance, Doc. When’s the last time anyone’s gone to see Sheriff besides you? Are we just going to sit around and pretend he’s dead?” He threw his arms up in the air, looking to Hawk and Steel, his eyes wild. “You’ve given up, Steel. Hawk chose the Yantu over us, so who are you going to choose?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Steel shook his head, clearly confused. “Pretty Boy, for fuck’s sake, grow up. What’s this about? The fact that I won’t go gallivanting out into the woods and steal moonshine with you? That I actually want to start being responsible?”

  My blond master gave a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “Seriously? Seriously, this is what—”

  “Pretty Boy, Steel, stop,” Hawk made his way toward them, his hands raised in a placating gesture. Pretty Boy ignored him—his gaze not leaving Steel’s dark blue eyes.

  Steel closed his eyes briefly, then opened again. “Hawk was right.”

  “See?” Pretty Boy hissed. “There you go again, taking Hawk’s side.”

  “I said it before, things gotta change, PB. You and me both. No more trouble making, no more games. For years, you’ve been dragging me into your antics—”

  “Me?” Pretty Boy shouted, outraged.

  “Yeah, you. It was fun for a while, but it’s time to get fucking real, man, before one of us destroys this club.” Sincerity and pain seemed to drip from his words, pulling at something in my heart. “Or gets someone killed.”

  “Right.” Pretty Boy nodded, and repeated the word again in a mocking tone, “Right. I see.”

  “Hawk didn’t crack us across the back for fun. We stole. From him. The Yantu let us stay here, and we stole from them.”

  “To help Sheriff!” Pretty Boy roared.

  Maker, what was happening here? I’d become used to the tension that boiled between the men these days, but not with these two. Watching Pretty Boy and Steel, my two inseparable men who loved each other like real siblings, was excruciating. I wanted to go to them, to pull Pretty Boy back and calm him down, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

  “And it was your idea, man. Yours, Steel,” Pretty Boy whispered, pain evident in his eyes.

  “This time, yeah.” Steel dropped his shoulders. “But that was a first and the last. Now fun time’s over, Pretty Boy.”

  “So this is how it is?” He rubbed his brow, then dropped his arms by his side. He nodded to Hawk, then looked back at Steel. “After everything we’ve been through, you’re still going to side with him?”

  “Pretty Boy,” Hawk drawled, reaching for him.

  Pretty Boy backed away. “So that’s it, Steel?”

  “Yeah, man. Pretty Boy, I love you, Brother. I really do. If you want to shape up, then it’s all good, but if you want to keep—”

  “Nah, I get it.” Pretty Boy held out his hand, stopping Steel mid-sentence. He looked around the room, to Doc, to Hawk, and finally to his best friend. “I’m only going to say this once, so listen good. After Julian has been found, caught, fucking killed, I’m done. I’m leaving the Dark Legion. And if Setora wants to come with me, I’ll gladly have her along. But this,” he made a circle with his finger, including himself and the men before me, “this right here is over. Understand? Over.”

  Then he calmly walked out, shutting the door to the hut behind him.

  I covered my mouth, trying to breathe, trying to see through my tears.

  Maker, not them. Please, not them.

  Fighting was how MC men settled things, but this was different. It felt different. Pretty Boy’s words hit like a hammer.

  The demon of darkness that had found its way into Sheriff had spread its poison to the rest of the club. Up till now, it felt like the club’s foundation had merely been cracked in places, but with this…what just happened… the Legion had done more than crack again.

  The Dark Legion had shattered, and under the weight of their own pain, the Four had finally and irreparably broken apart.

  Chapter 19

  When the Savior Speaks

  In an instant, what had just happened hit me like a battering ram to the chest.

  Pretty Boy was leaving the Legion, whether a week from now or months, he was leaving his Brothers, his friends. Me. Unless I wanted to go with him, he’d said. Maker, there were no words that anyone could possibly say to help me understand what had just happened. The pain in Pretty Boy’s eyes was all I could see in my mind, his heart breaking.

  “Come, Kitten. Let’s go.” Hawk’s gentle touch on my arm grounded me as he led me to the door. “Doc, Steel, we’ll talk later. Let me get her to bed.”

  I didn’t hear what the others said, only followed Hawk’s lead to his hut. His warm hand pressed against the small of my back, keeping me both upright and anchoring me to the present moment. I barely felt my feet taking any steps.

  A few paces from Hawk’s door, that’s when it happened.

  A single image flashed across my mind. My garden filled my vision, and as I’d seen it once before, it burned, consumed in flames. I wobbled, pain knifing through my head. I heard myself gasp. Then I saw the image more clearly as the flames covered the whole land. There were houses and castles, buildings and cities running across it in miniature. I even saw a severely dwarfed Grotto, surrounded by its mountain walls.

  This wasn’t my garden. It was the world.

  I was seeing the entire world through a bird’s eye view, so that it spanned before my vision in a single vista. I swore I even saw what could only have been Crite, its huge icy mountain ranges, its men covered in thick furs and riding horses.

  Ivek’s people.

  Except that the men weren’t riding the horses. The men were dead, lying scattered across the land, their mounts either fleeing or lying dead.

  Everywhere I looked, in Crite, here, Delta, in the Grotto, men lay lifeless. Their bodies sprawled and torn apart like wooden dolls burned and ripped as if by some cruel and heartless child who had thrown a world-shattering temper tantrum.

  The Grotto’s men, the Yantu, they were all dead. Warriors lay in their black or red silks, eyes staring.

  And among the wreckage of the Grotto, Hawk stared up from a pit, unseeing. Steel’s eyes were closed, and he had his arm torn off. Pretty Boy’s neck was twisted at a horrible angle. And Sheriff.

  Maker, Sheriff was lying on a pile of skulls, his head turned toward me. His eyes were dead but also white as bone. He’d died, still without sight.

  Mother. My mother lay dead in Mayhem’s lifeless arms.

  And under a pike of rubble, a bleach-white hand protruded from volcanic rock. Red locks draped over the ash covered arm. Terror seized me and I looked closer at the image. Green eyes stared out from a beautiful but dead face.

  Cherry. Oh no, Cherry.

  Dead.

  My Four, my mother, Cherry, all of them, gone forever.

  How I knew, I had no idea, but I understood why I was seeing this, and more importantly, I understood how to stop it.

  I opened my eyes.

  “Setora! What’s wrong?” Hawk’s voice dripped alarm.

  I clutched his shoulders, panting with panic. Even when I squeezed my eyes shut, it didn’t block the images of death I’d seen or shut out the devastation shuddering thr
ough me.

  “Hawk, I need to talk to your master. Now.”

  He sighed. “Setora, it won’t do any good. I know you think this whole thing begins and ends with Sheriff. Maybe it does, but he will not be persuaded. I’ve already tried—”

  I shook my head, seizing his arms, desperate. “You don’t understand. I just saw… We have to go to him. Now.”

  As with the odd pulling sensation I’d felt on the way to the temple, Hawk must have heard something in the urgency of my voice or seen it in my face. His brow crinkled and he searched my eyes. Then he gave a nod.

  “It’s faster if I carry you.” In an instant, he had me in his arms and was marching toward the Temple of Umbi. He held me close and walked faster, long swift treads.

  I couldn’t argue with that. If I’d tried to walk with him at this pace, I’d have lost an arm, or ended up with my face in the dirt.

  In minutes, the gates came into view, open at the top of the stone steps. Ali’san met at the temple steps, practically at a run. Her sword stuck up over her shoulder, her cloth mask around her neck like a scarf.

  “Let me guess,” Hawk said, “You knew we were coming.”

  “Yes. Get her inside now.”

  “What the hell is going on, ladies?” he demanded.

  “There is no time to explain now. You will hear it soon enough anyway, Tai Dan Hawk.” She ran up the steps, and the gates closed behind us the moment we were through them.

  “Ali’san…” I could barely breathe for shock. “You saw it too, didn’t you?”

  She nodded.

  My heart hammered. If she saw it too, then maybe there was a way to stop what I’d seen from happening. I wanted to sob with relief.

  When we made our way toward the temple, I expected Ali’san to lead us toward the same smaller structure where I’d had that awful test involving Julian. Instead, she marched straight up a wide set of stone steps that led to the front of the main temple itself.

  The Temple. A place no woman but Ali’san, and no one who was not Yantu was permitted to be. She ignored the guards at the door and yanked the set of heavy doors open herself, even though they looked like they weighed a ton.