Savage Saints Mc : Claimed By Four Monsters

Chapter 2

Isolde

The first thing I felt was warmth. That was wrong. Wrong enough to pull me up from the dark before I was ready. I had been running through cold rain, and now I was warm, and that meant someone had put me somewhere, and I had no idea who the person was..

My eyes opened and I sat up too fast, gosh where am I? Where the heck is this place? Or am I dreaming.. The room tilted. I grabbed the edge of the cot I was lying on and held on until the spinning stopped. Then I looked down.

My dress was gone. I had on an oversized black shirt that fell to mid-thigh, sleeves swallowing my hands whole. Someone had changed my clothes. The thought landed on my chest like a stone and sat there.

"She's up."

I spun toward the voice. Three men stood near the far wall. Not standing casually. Standing the way men stand when they've been watching you sleep and have opinions about it. The one who had spoken was built like a door, wide shoulders, thick arms crossed, dark eyes moving over me with zero warmth. A scar cut through his left eyebrow.

Beside him, leaning against the wall with his arms loose and a half-smile on his face, was a younger man who was lighter.. The kind of pretty that knew it was pretty. He tilted his head at me like I was something entertaining that had fallen from the sky.

The third one didn't say anything. He sat slightly apart from the other two on an old wooden chair, forearms resting on his knees, just watching. He had pale eyes and the particular stillness of someone who didn't need to move to make a room feel smaller.

I pulled the shirt down and stood up.

"Where am I?" My voice came out steadier than I expected.

"Safe house," the scary one said. "For now. Who are you?"

"Who are you?"

The pretty one laughed. "I like her already, Riot."

Riot, the scary one, did not share the sentiment. "Name."

"I asked first."

"You're in our house wearing our shirt," he said. "Try again."

My mind was moving fast under fear. Real name was not an option. Dorian was dead. Marcus had called it murder. And if these men had any connection to the Voss family, any connection at all, then the name Isolde Vale was a death sentence.

"Mara," I said. "My name is Mara."

The quiet one, the pale-eyed one, looked at me for a long moment without blinking.

"Mara," the pretty one repeated, like he was tasting it. "I'm Zephyr. The cheerful one, in case that wasn't obvious. The wall with a face is Riot. And the one staring at you like a crossword puzzle is Soren."

Soren said nothing. He didn't have to.

"What happened to you?" Riot asked.

"Car accident."

"You were barefoot in a ball gown in the middle of the road at midnight."

"Very bad car accident."

Zephyr laughed again. Riot's jaw tightened. Soren kept watching. Then the door on the far side of the room opened. Everything changed at that moment. I felt it before I understood it. The way the three men shifted, not backing down exactly, but rearranging themselves. The way the air in the room got heavier. Zephyr straightened off the wall. Even Riot uncrossed his arms.

The man who walked in was tall, dark-haired, with a leather cut over a plain black shirt and eyes the colour of charcoal. Not pretty. Not warm. He had the kind of face that had been through things and came out the other side uninterested in pretending otherwise. A jaw like something carved. A scar along the right side of his neck that disappeared under his collar.

He looked at his men first. Then he looked at me like I was some kind of experiment..

"What is this?" His voice was low and even but it filled the room like a shout would have.

"Found her on the road," Riot said. "Kael, she was in bad shape, we couldn't just leave her."

Kael. So that was his name.

"Get out," he said.

All three of them moved toward the door. Zephyr gave me a small sympathetic wince on his way past. Then the door closed and it was just me and the man who had apparently decided he ran everything in this room and possibly everywhere else.

He pulled the wooden chair around and sat on it backwards, arms resting over the top, and looked at me with the flat patience of someone who had never once been lied to twice.

"Talk," he said.

"I already told your friends everything."

"You told them a name that isn't yours and a story with no details. Talk."

I lifted my chin. "I was in an accident. Someone helped me. I woke up here. I'd like to leave."

"You'd like to leave," he repeated.

"Is there an echo in here?"

Something shifted in his face, not anger but something quieter and more dangerous than anger.

"Women don't usually speak to me like that."

"Women don't usually wake up in strange rooms wearing someone else's clothes," I said. "We all have our bad nights."

He studied me for a long moment. The silence stretched until it had shape and weight. I kept my eyes on his because looking away felt like losing something I couldn't afford to lose.

"You're scared," he said.

"I'm annoyed."

"You're both," he said. "But you won't show the scared part. Interesting."

His phone buzzed on the table beside him. He glanced at it once. Then his eyes came back to me slowly, like the message had answered a question he hadn't known he was asking.

He turned the screen toward me. My face. My real face, from the engagement party, hair pinned up and champagne glass in hand, looking like a girl who had no idea what the night would cost her. Bold text above it.

WANTED: ISOLDE VALE.

A number below it that made my stomach turn cold.

Kael set the phone down without hurry. He leaned forward slightly, and the corner of his mouth moved in something that was not quite a smile.

"You lied to me, little runaway."