Page 9 of Serendipity

Cain stepped to the side, revealing me, and I met stunning grey eyes filled with shock, and then hate. The heat of his hate hit me like a wave. I’d never met this man before, how could he look at me with such open disgust?

His eyes fell to my cursed stomach, and the disgust turned to horror. What the hell? He stood up, pushing the beer that Shots had placed in front of him off the bar onto the floor.

“What the fuck is going on!” he roared.

I flinched and much to my embarrassment, I hid behind Cain like a chicken-shit. Semi-immortal I might be, but being beaten to the point of death wasn’t something I was eager to repeat ever again.

The guy was huge and angry, and I had no idea what I’d done. The whole room was quiet now, everyone watching the scene with wary eyes. Solomon stood between Cain and the big guy who looked like he wanted to chew me up and spit out my bones.

Now I could see him a bit better, he made my breath stick in my throat. He was heavily tattooed, even more so than Cain. I couldn’t see an inch of his body that wasn’t tattooed, except for his face.

Even the back of his head, beneath the shaved sides of his scalp, was tattooed, right down the edges of the nail beds of his fingers. He had a huge, old scar that traveled down from his forehead, across the bridge of his nose, and over his cheek.

His face was red as I watched him, like my slow perusal of his tattoos was making him even angrier. He pointed a tattooed finger at me. “She needs to go,” he growled, and I shrank back.

Judas was suddenly there, all up in the big man’s face even though he was a couple of inches shorter.

“When I say I need to see you immediately, I mean it, Asshole.”

The man grunted a low, primal sound, and I was kind of convinced that he was about to rip Judas’

head clean off his body.

“She needs to leave,” he said again, in a lower voice that seemed more like an animalistic whine.

He sounded in pain. What had I done?

I didn’t realize I’d whispered the question out loud until all four men looked at me. Solomon looked over his shoulder, his smile sad.

“Nothing, Sweetheart. Just existed. Don’t worry.” He stepped toward the scarred man. Both he and Judas talked in a low voice, but the huge dude didn’t take those penetrating eyes from mine.

Eventually Solomon and Judas dragged him out back towards Judas’ office.

Cain’s hand felt heavy and comforting on my shoulder, like a security blanket. “And now you’ve met the last of my brothers. Goliath. Just avoid him if you can.” Yeah, that wasn’t going to be a problem. If I saw him coming, I’d be running the other way. “Come on, Sera. I’ll take you back to your room. We can throw things at the Prospects until they’re finished.” He gave me a smile, and I swallowed hard as I nodded.

I looked back at the bar, but my pancakes were gone. For some stupid reason, probably goddamn hormones, I wanted to cry. As I felt the sting behind my eyelids, I realized I was crying. Fuck.

Shots looked panicked, and even Cain looked around for someone to pound into dust. They seemed to realize at the same time I was crying over goddamn pancakes.

Shots raised his hands. “Hey, it's okay, they just got cold.” He turned and rushed toward the kitchen doors, yelling Sweetie’s name in a panicked voice.

Sweetie appeared once again like the goddess of baked goods, holding a plate covered in aluminium foil. “Ah, love. It’s okay. I was just warming them for you.” She handed the plate to Cain,

and gave me a quick, tight hug. God, that hug from a complete stranger meant so much to me at that moment. “Go on up and have a lie down. I remember what my first baby was like. I kicked Shots out of the house for five months. Every time I looked at his big stupid face, I wanted to cry or throw something at him. Hormones are a bitch.”

All I could do was nod as Sweetie loaded Cain up with a bunch of snacks so I wouldn’t have to walk up and down the stairs to the bar unless I wanted to. She was an angel.

Cain smiled warmly down at me and gripped my hand. It was a bit of a liberty considering I had only just met him, but I felt like he was my only anchor at the moment, so I gripped it tightly.

If I was going to weather this storm, I was going to need a rock. I looked up at him as he walked with single-minded focus toward the stairs. Luckily for me, I’d managed to secure myself to a mountain instead.

4

GOLIATH

Iput my hand through the drywall. I was surprised to find a hole already there, but it wasn’t enough to shake me from the red haze of rage that had come over me at the sight of the woman in Cain’s arms. Nothing shook me from my rage much anymore.

I felt the satisfying crunch of drywall cutting my knuckles, but I knew it’d be healed before I drew it back to my body.

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