Page 72 of Painless
Itwirled my favorite hunting knife in my fingers as Shadow led us down the hall. Horus clicked his beak, talons squeezing into my shoulder. I swore I could feel his frustration, or maybe I was just projecting my own.
He barely flew during the attack—the tear gas was too thick even for his vision. He was able to get above the smoke clouds, but still couldn't chase the drones that were in the thick of it. My fly boy was almost as blind as we were, and I knew that pissed him off.
Those drones had to have infrared sensors on them. That was the only explanation as to how they were able to drop grenades so close to people. Thankfully, my guys were ready and had plenty of cover. Their ears would be ringing for a few days, but that was a blessing compared to what Dallas got.
Fuck. I stopped my knife twirling and tightened my grip on the handle. Losing him was huge, a wound that the Steel Demons would feel for months, if not years. I barely thought about Python, but Dallas was just a good dude. It didn't feel fair. Why couldn't it have been Big G?
Reaper stopped Shadow and I a few feet away from the holding room where the Sons of Odin were being kept.
"Tell me exactly what happened," he instructed the big guy.
"I was overseeing the scouting team, as you ordered," Shadow reported. “As the smoke cleared, I saw three men approaching the front gate on bikes. They claimed they were not part of the attack, but happened upon it and stopped it. We stripped them of their weapons, cuffed them, and I came straight to you."
Reaper listened intently with his arms folded. After Shadow finished, he looked toward Hades as if waiting for some input from the dog. Whether he got it or not, he continued on to the holding room with me and Shadow right behind him.
"Well, let's meet our saviors, or see if they need to meet their maker. Gentlemen?" He pulled the door open and stepped aside, allowing Shadow and I inside first.
"Youngblood," T-Bone's familiar, gravelly voice greeted me. "Good to see you again, although this isn't the welcome we expected from the Steel Demons."
Reaper ignored him. "These the ones you met at the cantina?"
"Yeah." I studied all three of them, sitting with their arms and legs cuffed to metal chairs. "These are them."
"Where's that pretty little brunette you had with you?" T-Bone was in the mood to be a loudmouth apparently. "Gotta say I'm disappointed she's not in the welcoming committee—"
My knife was in my hand. And then it wasn't. No one saw a thing until thethunkalerted the whole room that my blade was half embedded in the wall directly behind our new guests.
And a small cut on T-Bone's cheek began to bleed.
"Sorry, I didn't catch that. You want to ask about our woman again?" I gestured between me and Reaper, who was trying his damn hardest not to smile.
All the bravado dropped out of the Sons right then. Their jaws clenched, throat muscles working with nervous swallows. It was one thing to givemeshit, but disrespecting our president's property was not a road they wanted to go down. In all likelihood, they’d probably heard stories about Reaper's kills, including Python.
"Didn't mean nothing by it," T-Bone backpedaled. "She ain't my type, anyway. Youngblood, on the other hand..." He trailed off, eyes taking me in appreciatively from head to toe.
It didn't completely surprise me. I got that look from women, as well as men on occasion. What I didn't expect was T-Bone's two club brothers to slide narrow-eyed gazes over at him. It looked like jealousy.
"Enough," Reaper snapped, grabbing an empty chair and spinning backwards to sit in front of them. "Y'all are gonna tell me how you justhappenedupon our club while we were in the middle of an attack."
"Like I told your big friend there," T-Bone nodded at Shadow, "we weren't part of it. We stopped it. You're fucking welcome, by the way."
"How convenient," Reaper sneered. "How'd you do it? And for that matter, why?"
Hades growled at his side, showing his teeth off to the captives. Horus screeched on my shoulder, spreading his wings threateningly as he leaned forward. Shadow stood with his hands clasped in front of him, ever the loyal sentry. I swept my arms back by my sides, showing off the silver gleam of the 9mm under my cut.
Forget the good cop, bad cop routine from the movies. We were all fucking bad.
T-Bone didn't look scared, though. He just dropped all the cockiness and decided to give it to us straight.
"I saw you, Reaper," he began ominously. "At the remains of our clubhouse."
"Did you now?"
"I saw the little memorials you made with the personal objects. You paid respect to my fallen brothers and I thought, that's a man I can ally with. We're all that's left." He jerked his chin to indicate the three of them tied up. "And we need all the help we can get to rebuild."
"Why'd you confront me with my uncle's hand?" I demanded. "Did that have anything to do with your place burning down?"
T-Bone leveled his gaze at me, a predatory smile growing on his face. "Oh, it haseverythingto do with it."
