He had come with her to visit her friends. He’d been charming to them and, more importantly, he’d done badly needed repairs at his own expense. He wouldn’t even allow her to help him with the money for materials. The homes might look nice on the outside, but there was always maintenance to do. The older people tended to put it off. After the string of robberies that had occurred in Sea Haven, most of them refused to allow strangers into their homes, even for repairs. It meant a lot to her that Savage would go with her and help them. He’d done that for her.
She pressed her fingers into her temples to try to stop the pounding headache. She could hear the roar of her own blood. The ache. She’d gone without him. Weeks. The pain of that separation had been excruciating. She hadn’t been able to eat or sleep. In the end, she’d gone to him because she’d thought she could take living his lifestyle, but she thought she would be truly loved by him.
They’d asked each other the question about loving totally, intensely and wholly, and she had been truthful, telling him that was what she was looking for. She was a natural healer. When she was around sick people, she often couldn’t stop herself from trying to mend them. Her body took on the illness. She already had damaged her heart. The doctor had warned her she didn’t have long to live. Savage had promised to protect her during those times she was compelled to help others with diseases she couldn’t possibly save, but where was he when she needed him? When she’d begged him to stay with her? He wasn’t with her. He was with them. The club. His club.
She was only something to use when he needed her, and he controlled her with his voice and the promise of amazing sex because she allowed it. She chose that. She had to learn to choose differently in order to save herself. No one else was going to save her; one way or the other, she was going to have to do it. She didn’t know if she could live without him, but then that was a choice as well.
“I’m telling you, Czar,” Savage said, as they approached the Torpedo Ink camp. “The moment Seychelle touches me, she’s going to know Tawny was all over me. What do you think is going to happen then? She was already upset that I left her. She’d asked me not to leave her and I did anyway.”
“You tell her nothing happened,” Czar said.
Savage stopped dead in his tracks. “Do you honestly believe she trusts me after the way I left her? She’s an extremely intelligent woman. She knows damn well she was brought here for a purpose and it wasn’t just because I need her with me. The club needed her at the bar, and now they need her again, but she isn’t included in the reasons why.”
“That’s for her protection, Savage,” Czar pointed out. “You just said it yourself. You don’t have her complete trust. Until you do, it’s too dangerous to her to know everything. If she were to get scared or angry and say something to the wrong people, where the hell would we be then?”
Savage knew Czar was subtly reminding him they’d eliminated all threats to members of the club. No one was eliminating Seychelle. He was in a hell of a position.
“Plank is going to insist she’s introduced to him. You’ve got to get some of the rage pulled out of you. I know this blows, Savage—the timing, everything about it—but we’re walking a tightrope. The Diamondback club is too big for us to take on. We’d be running for the rest of our lives. We have to get out from under this. Absinthe and Scarlet both know if someone is telling the truth, but they can’t tell if a suggestion has been planted. We’ve got names of some of the top Venomous members from Tawny who may be in on the assassination plot. It’s fairly ambitious to try to take out so many top members of one chapter at once. And they aren’t the only chapter here.” Czar rubbed his forehead. “I knew she was needed, I just didn’t know why.”
“I’m aware of the danger our club is in, Czar,” Savage said and glanced at his brother. Reaper understood what he was trying to say. His features might be unreadable, but his eyes held sympathy. He knew what Savage would be facing when he tried to talk to his woman after all but turning his back on her. “I’m telling you, the chances of Seychelle helping us out aren’t quite as good as you seem to think they are.”
He stalked away from the president, the others, and past the two prospects, who looked relieved that he had gotten back. He made his way deeper under the seclusion of the trees where he’d set up the camp. Seychelle sat in a camp chair, fully clothed, including her boots, and a heavy sweater with a vest over it. Not the club jacket, he noted. There was a coffee mug in her hand. She stared into the fire instead of looking up when he arrived.