I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but I knew my girl was in there and these motherfuckers were aiming guns her way. That was more than enough information for me.
My baseball bat was clutched tight in my grip and I swung it at the back of the first guy’s head so fast that I had to wonder if he’d even known he was dying or if the lights just blinked right out. I had no intention of being so merciful to the rest of them.
Before his body hit the dirt at my feet, I swung for the guy standing at his side, Tatum’s scream from within the house lending fire to the ache in my blood and a brutal power to my muscles.
He got his gun aimed my way just as my bat slammed into his arm, breaking the bone with a crack which seemed almost as loud as the bang from the pistol in his grip. But his aim went wide as I shattered his elbow, the bullet tearing into the treetops to my right and the gun falling from his fingers as he screamed.
I kicked him solidly in the chest before he could do any more than howl in pain, sending him crashing into the two guys behind him who were scrambling to aim at me too and making them all stumble back.
I stooped down, grabbing the pistol and tossing it to Blake who had just tackled a guy to the ground and beaten him near unconscious while Saint stamped on his throat to finish him off.
Blake caught the gun, raised it and fired at the guys behind me as I hefted the bat high again and the element of surprise wore off.
There were at least ten more men spread out surrounding the cabin and their attention was turning from the fight inside towards us.
Saint grabbed the dead guy’s gun and the two of them dove into the cover of the trees as the assholes we were facing opened fire.
I should have taken cover too, but as Tatum screamed inside the cabin again, a rage unlike anything I’d ever felt overwhelmed me and I dove into the fray instead, leaping at the three guys in front of me and swinging my bat with wild abandon.
My muscles flexed and burned with the force of my strikes and blood splattered me from head to toe as I roared Tatum’s name at the top of my lungs in the hopes that she would know I was here. That I’d come for her, that I’d always come for her.
The chaos of the gunfire and the yell of wounded men surrounded me until all of it just became this ringing in my ears which wouldn’t quit.
Pain seared along my side and I twisted away from it, swinging my bat in a wide arc as I spotted the gleam of a blade wet with my blood. But the asshole wielding it had barely scratched me and the moment my bat connected with his skull, he was done for.
My heart was pumping so fast that the beat of it was all I could hear, the red of the blood shining dimly in the faint starlight was all I could see.
I lost myself to the basest part of me. That fractured beast who was all instinct, violence, rage and an overwhelming sense of protectiveness for the girl who was stuck inside that cabin. My family might have forged me into this fucked up creature, but in that moment I couldn’t even hate them for it. All of the bars on the cage I’d constructed to keep myself in check crumbled and I just gave in to it. To the bloodlust and steely determination to destroy everyone who came against me.
I would tear through walls of iron and fire to get to her, to protect her and bring her safely into the comfort of my embrace once more. There wasn’t a thing in on this Earth that could stop me.
The taste of other men’s blood coated my tongue as I charged towards the next cluster of my enemies, not caring as they raised their guns my way. They stood between me and the girl I’d sworn myself to. She was mine and I was hers and I’d give everything it took to defend her from harm.
Blake and Saint shot at the assholes before me from the trees, some of them falling in sprays of red which made my veins hum with pleasure. I was a dark and dangerous beast at the best of times, but tonight, with Tatum’s screams ringing in my ears, I was far worse than a monster. I was the monster my grandfather had always known I could be. I was the creature in the dark, the one who dined on agony and bathed in endless blood. And right now, it was all I wanted to be.
Bullets tore the air apart around me, the sound deafening and hollow and nothing to me. A flash of pain ripped across the flesh of my thigh but it wasn’t enough to slow me, let alone stop me.
As I swung my bat at the next group, the power of my muscles was enough to shatter two skulls in a single strike.
I leapt on the third man, releasing my weapon for a second as I fell into the ecstasy of my flesh pounding on his, my fists burning and cracking and bleeding as my knuckles hummed with the raw and brutal power I loved so fucking much.
He was trying to fight back, but I was one big motherfucker and once I had an opponent beneath me, they never got up again.
Blake was shouting something behind me, firing his weapon as Saint drove a blade into another
