Page 65 of Steel Rain

“Yes?” I asked, as if he had simply called my name for a chat. Not to stop me from executing the pathetic man at my feet.

I hadn’t seen them go upstairs. I had probably been too focused on Keith’s bruised face, seeing the swollen eye socket as a sign that she at least gave as good as she got. But the fact that his two friends were also injured told me they had ganged up on her, like weak, pathetic, chicken shit cowards.

She would have killed them in a fair fight.

But fights are seldom fair off the mat.

“Come to dinner tonight,” Dairo said.

Why was he speaking for Eoghan?

Had they seen her? Had they discovered what had happened? What had she told them?

I woke up with her in my arms. I wanted to demand answers to questions she wouldn’t give. Answers I already knew, but I wantedherwords. I wanted her to fill in the details. But first, she’d have to admitwhohad caused her harm.

Instead, I let her sleep. I delayed that morning’s class so I could just watch her breathing. To touch her fingertips, and make sure that blood still circulated in her extremities, and that the cold hadn’t done any permanent damage. If I had seen something … if something felt off … I would have taken her to my car and rushed her to the nearest emergency room.

It wasn’t the “Irish way”, of course. They wanted everything to be done in their clinic. The same clinic that had saved my life. But could she trust them?

I suspected not, if she was showing up at my door at night.

“Okay,” I answered, looking at Eoghan’s clenched fists. Then his scowling, closed lips.

“Bring Shiny,” Dairo added, staring at the back of Eoghan’s head, who still said nothing.

“You think she’d go if I tell her to?” I scoffed. “You’re overestimating my influence on her.”

Eoghan’s lip curled, and Dairo put a hand on his shoulder, as if calming him down from the brink of anger. It spoke to a friendship that was old.

Then I saw Eoghan’s gaze. It wasn’t on me. It was on Keith. Maybe she had told him something … if so, why didn’t she tell me?

“Just make it happen, Ajax,” Dairo continued. “We have to put some things to rights.”

I clenched my teeth, my jaw feeling like it could crush walnuts between my molars. I silenced myself, because I was still a guest in this world. A guest in this strange, medieval place of blood oaths, and ancient ideas. Vendettas ran deep in this bizarre world.

I nodded, giving Dairo the acknowledgement he needed. Eoghan was somewhere else entirely in his mind.

Dairo pushed Eoghan down the stairs, and out of my gym and I knew that I had to close out my class.

I had always made a point to say something profound. I wanted to teach them a lesson for them to ponder in their quiet moments. A small kernel of wisdom that they could take to the rest of their day and come back slightly better men in the morning.

But I didn’t have it in me today.

Not when I had seen the viciousness of these people that was left unchecked for too long, creating a climate of cut throats and thieves. I led them through stretches and breathing exercises, but stayed silent.

I felt the moment she was watching. It prickled my senses, and lifted the hairs on the back of my arm. Like something electric was crackling in the distance between us. A distance that was far too large.

I looked to the stairs that led to my apartment, and I saw her eyes, peering down from the crack on the slightly open door.

An old story popped into my head. A fable from long ago. Something I had been told in the SEALs when the masculine competitiveness had led to some in-fighting. I wasn’t sure if it would work. In fact, I was certain that it wouldn’t. But I had to give it a try anyway. Even while I actively considered the murder and destruction of some of our Army’s most cancerous members.

No, notourArmy.TheirArmy.

I wasn’t one of them. I never would be. I didn’t want to be.

My gaze travelled up the bare steps, to the open door, where her fingers clasped around the frame. She stood, shivering, still. Staring down with pleading eyes. A She-Wolf, wounded. The weaker of her pack were nipping at her heels, hoping to break her with their sheer numbers, because they couldn’t take her straight on.

Her salvation was me. A wolf of her stature, of her viciousness, of her cunning. A wolf that was like her in every possible way. A man to stand beside her and ensure that her weak side was never left unguarded ever again.

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