Inmate of the Month (Souls Chapel Revenants MC 7)

“What did you say?” he rasped, his voice hard and edgy and sexy and all wowwee.

“Ummm...” I hesitated. “Love you, too?”

His big, man hands framed my face as he said, “I love you.”

Then, without a single second for me to process those words, he crawled off of me and headed for the door, leaving me breathless and surprised.

Let’s just say, after the words that he’d left me with in the dead of night, I thought I would never get back to sleep.

But I did.

• • •

I blinked open my eyes an hour later to see on the alarm clock across the room that it was three oh three in the morning.

I frowned, wondering what had woken me.

“What…” I paused when I heard the sound of running water. “What the fuck?”

I got up, walking carefully around to find the source of the running water, and realized that it wasn’t coming from inside the cabin, but outside.

That’s when my heart started pounding, because yesterday I’d been on social media, and I’d seen this exact same scenario literally in a post from a friend. The water taps had been running outside, and the woman had gone outside because she’d heard them on and had then been hurt by a burglar wanting her to open the door.

I would not be that woman.

I. Would. Not.

What I would do, however, was call Laric.

At least, I would have had I not heard Al barking up a storm in his kennel that was just off the other side of the room from where I was standing.

That’s when I heard the whining, followed by an abrupt stop to his barking.

“You better not be hurting my dog, motherfucker!” I called out.

There was a giggly laugh that had me stiffening, and then I couldn’t stop myself.

Thor didn’t have a giggly laugh.

Thor had a raspy laugh.

And a giggly laugh meant that it was a woman.

Thor was definitely not a woman.

So, grabbing the shotgun from the side of the bed, I checked to make sure it was loaded, flipped off the safety, and then crept out through the side door that Laric sometimes used when he wanted to be quiet and not wake me.

Which, in this instance, would hopefully allow me to sneak up on whatever woman was outside.

That woman being Chastity.

And, in fact, I was able to sneak up on her.

She was smiling maniacally as she watched Al chomp on a large piece of raw meat.

“Get down on the ground,” I said in my most authoritative voice.

I really hoped that I didn’t have to shoot her.

Seriously.

It would hurt my shoulder like a bitch.

After having to deal with PT yesterday, I knew for a fact that it certainly wouldn’t feel very good based on how it felt just lifting the damn thing up and stretching.

Chastity woodenly turned around. “How did you…”

Her eyes went wide, and that was when I realized my mistake.

She wasn’t alone.

Someone was behind me.

Acting on instinct, I turned around and swung out with the shotgun.

I connected with something hard, and that hard something fell backward, right into Al’s kennel.

The kennel door fell open with a harsh crack, and suddenly Al was very pissed off that his meal was interrupted.

The passed-out man, who happened to be Thor, started to scream like a girl as Al bit him on the throat.

I backed up, keeping both Thor and Chastity now in my line of sight.

“Don’t shoot me,” she pleaded.

I wanted to shoot her so badly that I nearly did it just on general principle.

“Do you have a phone?” I snapped.

She swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Call Laric,” I ordered.

She hiccupped as she started to cry. “I can’t. He b-blocked me.”

I groaned. “Get the phone out. Call this number. Put it on speaker.”

When she had the phone in her hand, she started dialing the numbers, and my brother answered within two rings.

“Hello?” Adam sounded wide awake, ready to do business.

I wondered if he’d been waiting up all night in case Dad or Laric called him ‘in case.’

“Tell him who you are, where you are, and who’s with you,” I ordered, my eyes flicking back and forth rapidly in between her and Thor.

Al had stopped the mauling, but each time Thor so much as twitched, Al would lunge at his throat.

So, Thor sat very, very still.

“Umm,” Chastity hiccupped through her sobs. “This is Chastity Waite. I’m at Laric…”

I heard her say everything that was going on, including that she had no idea who Thor was, and what he was doing here, but that he was also being mauled by the dog.

She told my brother everything, ending with a sob of ‘I’m sorry.’

I rolled my eyes.

“I have cops headed that way,” Adam said, no nonsense in his tone whatsoever. “Don’t move. She knows how to shoot, and she will. Don’t give her a reason to, okay?”

So that was how we stood, my gun pointed at whichever one twitched the most, until the cops showed.