Page 20 of Guarded By Atlas

God help anyone who stands in the way of that!

I pause for a second when I spot her purse on the left side of an open door at the far end of the hall. I don’t waste a second as I sprint toward her apartment kicking the door open just as it’s closing, splintering the wood. I crash into the doorway, and I see it first—the knife pressed against the delicate skin I so adore.

And then I see those beautiful blue eyes, wide with terror, a hand clutching her mouth. My vision turns red.

I let out a roar, a sound so primal it could be confused for a mountain lion. The man takes a surprised step back, and it’s just enough space for Marie to drop to the floor and throw herself away from him. With her out of the way, I launch myself forward, colliding with the man and gripping the sharp end of the knife I knock the man to the floor. I ignore the sting of the blade biting into my skin as we grapple for control of the knifebefore I manage to yank it away from him and toss it aside. He swings, the blow landing on my jaw, but the pain only serves to fuel the rage blinding me. He punches blindly, missing this time as my hand finds his throat. There is rage written in those dark eyes, but more than that, there’s fear. He has every right to be afraid.

“Atlas!” Someone calls my name, but it sounds muted. “Oh my God, you’re going to kill him!”

He deserves to die. The fucker put his hands on Marie, held a knife to the woman I love. He does not deserve to live. I will not let him live!

The man thrashes, arms flailing to pull my hands away from him, but I push him back, jaw set and intent on seeing him leave him without a whisper of air in his lungs, or a fucking heartbeat. There are voices and hands grabbing me to pull me away from the man, but I am a mountain, unwilling to move until the fucker is dead.

“Atlas…you have to stop!”

A pair of hands close around my forearm, and the familiar scent has the red haze fading to reveal the man quickly losing color. I pull my hands away, turning around to look at Marie, surprised to realize that she’s not alone. There are other people in her apartment, all staring at me in horror.

“I’ll…um, call the cops,” someone says, but my attention is on the woman staring at me in shock. Her eyes shift from me to the man who now lies unconscious on her floor. He’s not dead–yet. Another minute, and he would have been.

Fuck, if I needed to give Marie a reason to be afraid of me, this is it right here, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t control the blinding rage, and somewhere in the back of my head, I didn’twant to. I wanted the man gone, only then would the woman I love feel safe.

My eyes drop to my hands. They are bloody, and its mine. From the place where I cut my hand earlier when I grabbed the knife. “You’ll need a tetanus shot,” a small voice whispers close to me, and I look up to find Marie staring at my hand before she looks up to meet my eyes. “Let me see,” she says, reaching for the injured hand and examining it, silently asking me to move my hand to check for loss of sensation or function. “Okay, it’s deep, but it’s not as bad as it could be. Any deeper, and we’d need to visit the ER to make sure you didn’t damage a nerve or tendon.”

“Marie…”

“Let’s get this cleaned up,” she says, avoiding my eyes and the people filing into her apartment as she leads me down a short hall and into her bathroom, shutting the door behind us. She guides my hand under the sink to wash off the blood. I watch her gently wash it off before guiding me to sit on the toilet.

She turns her back on me as she begins opening drawers and closing them, taking one thing after another and laying them on the counter. Once she has everything, she kneels in front of me and begins cleaning the wound with antiseptic wipes.

“Marie—”

“This might sting a bit, but it’s important to prevent infection,” she cuts me off, avoiding my gaze as she tends to the cut. I watch her bandage it once she’s done, her touch gentler than anyone else’s I’ve ever had on me. Working at the oil rig exposed me to many injuries, and those who treated them weren’t always as gentle as she is now. They didn’t look at my injury with such concern, and it didn’t stress them as much as it does the woman kneeling at my feet.

“Thank you,” I say, and those seem to be the magic words that finally pull her gaze from the injury to my eyes. My gut clenches at the tears I see in her beautiful ocean blues, but before I can reach out and touch her, we both catch a commotion coming from the other side of the door.

“That must be the police,” she says, rising to her feet and busying herself by putting everything away. “We should go talk to them.”

“Marie.” I reach out and grasp her hand before she can leave. “I’m sorry about what happened today. We thought we had eliminated all the Vipers.” There is so much to regret. I should never have ignored the instinct that there were more of them, and worse, I never should have allowed her to come up here alone. “I promised to keep you safe, and tonight…”

Christ, I didn’t just ignore her safety by letting her come up here, but I scared her by almost killing that bastard. How did the fucker even find her address? To be fair, it wouldn’t be so hard to do if he knew her identity. He already knew where she worked, and once he had her full name, I bet the rest was easy. Perhaps he’s been waiting here every night for her to return, and maybe that’s why we missed catching him during the motel raid.

The fucker was already waiting for her. I shudder at the thought of what would have happened if I hadn’t returned.

“It’s not your fault,” Marie whispers, tugging her hand from mine. “This is no one’s fault, but the man lying on my living room floor. You saved me, Atlas. Again.”

“Marie…”

“The cops,” she says, turning the door knob to open the door. “Let’s not keep them waiting. I need to get rid of all these people in my apartment, then we can talk.”

She’s not asking me to leave—not that I would be able to. I’d probably camp outside her door, intent on protecting her from anyone else who dared come after her, but she doesn’t kick me out, which I take as a good sign.

I can still fix this!

Chapter Nine

Marie

I try to keep my eyes from drifting to him, but it’s impossible. I can’t take my eyes off him long enough to focus on the cop taking my statement. Atlas is standing at the far end of the room giving his own statement, and a part of me wants to walk over there and shield him from the cop. Protect him from whatever judgment these men and some of my neighbors have formed of my gentle giant.

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