Annihilation Road Read Free Page B

woman—the kind for pedestals. He hadn’t believed a woman like her existed, although Czar had told them she was the best. Now they all knew it and guarded her like the treasure she was.
    He stayed close to the door, looking the way he always did: calm, expressionless, menacing. He didn’t move a muscle, going still so that he seemed to fade into whatever background he stood in front of. Shadows were what he was most familiar and comfortable with. He didn’t feel calm inside, and that was something he wasn’t familiar with.
    He didn’t like anything that he couldn’t explain. Whatever the weird reaction he had to Seychelle—and God help him if he was that big of a monster that his body reacted because she was hurt or crying—he had to see her. He shut down that way of thinking.
    He knew he needed violence. The rage would begin to build in his gut first, churning there like some terrible storm he couldn’t control. It would spread through his body like a cancer, and when it finally hit his brain, he would go to San Francisco and participate in the underground fight clubs there. His brothers went with him to pull him off his opponents before he killed them. He needed violence. He needed to feel his fists hitting flesh. He needed the blood . . .
    “Savage, she’s got a concussion and there’s some damage to her leg. She didn’t call anyone, nor did she put down anyone as an emergency number. She was just admitted. This is her room number.” Blythe pushed a folded piece of paper into his hand.
    He closed his fist around it. “Thanks, Blythe. I appreciate it.”
    “Please tell her thank you from me as well. If you think she needs anything, let me know. I don’t like to think she’s alone in the world and needs help after saving one of ours.”
    He hesitated, but he wasn’t the type of man to hug or kiss. He didn’t like to be touched. Reaper, his birth brother, was the same way.
    Savage stuffed the paper into his jeans pocket and gave a casual shrug. “Not certain when I’ll have the chance to follow up, but I’m going to try.”
    That performance should win him a fuckin’ Oscar. Not because Blythe believed him, but because he was trying to believe it. He told himself it was the truth and he wasn’t going anywhere near Seychelle Dubois—that if he did go, it would be to thank her. Or just check on her like any decent man would. He knew he was lying to himself and Blythe.
    He turned abruptly and stalked out, heading for his bike,the only real thing in his world. His club. The bike. They were wrapped up together, and ever since Reaper had found Anya, and Savage knew he was happy, he had been slowly separating himself from his brothers. He took more and more trips alone. He spent time away from the others. He talked less and less. There wasn’t a place for a man like him in the new world Czar was creating for the club. There wasn’t a place in the world for him, period.
    He wasn’t a man to pretend. His brothers were fucked up. Hell. Alena and Lana, his sisters, were fucked up. Reaper was a mess. But not one of them was a monster. They might think they were. They were dangerous, and they didn’t hesitate to kill, but they weren’t like he was.
    There was no cure for a man like him. He knew because he’d looked that shit up. A person could find that information on the internet, and he’d logged over a hundred hours looking. He wasn’t the only one. Absinthe, the brainiac of their club, and his wife, Scarlet, put in even more hours referencing journals in order to try to find a way to make him different. That hadn’t happened, and he’d finally accepted the fact that he was what he was. He had a code he lived by, and he kept to it. That had to be good enough.
    He took his time heading to Caspar. He even looked at the sign as he went on past. Shit. There was no hope for him whatsoever. He kept going though. Even knowing he was acting like a moron, he kept going. He drove straight to the hospital