Free Walk on the Striped Side by Jessie Lane

away so he growled, “NOW.”
    They all slowly started to back
away from Elena and her relatives, but Gage didn’t move a muscle. There’s no
way to tell that if he tried to back away from her if she would pull that
trigger or not. Does she hate him that much now that she could kill him? With
the .45 this close to his head, it would basically blow it clean off, and there
was no coming back from that. Immortality and an advanced healing system
couldn’t cure missing most of your cranium.
    Feeling the stirrings of a despair
he’s never known before, Gage wonders if he has a chance in hell of fixing
things between them. Never taking his eyes off of hers, so that she could see
the sincerity he was baring here, he raggedly whispers. “I would never hurt you
Elena.”
    Her unflappable mask is back in
place so he has no idea what she’s thinking. No way to know if she believes
him. All he can do is stand here, with the cold steel of her gun digging into
his skin reminding him of just how badly he’s fucked this all up, and wait for
her response.
    Finally, after what felt like an
eternity, but in reality was more than likely only a minute, those lush lips of
hers part, and she turns all his hopes to ashes.
    “What a lie Ivanov. We both already
know that you don’t care about anyone else but yourself, and this hot piece
of ass knows better than to trust anything you have to say. If you see your
sister, give her my card and tell her it’s in her best interest to call us. If
she continues to hide from us, I’ll just keep assuming she’s guilty. And don’t
think you can hide her from us, because if I get wind of it, I’ll be back.
Trust me when I say, you don’t want me to come back because of that.”
    With that, she lowers her weapon,
but keeps it in her hand at the ready as she departs the bar with the three
other women. She doesn’t look back to see that for once, Gage isn’t wearing a
mask to hide what he’s thinking or feeling. Anguish is written plainly on his
face for everyone to see. But even worse, the fact that she doesn’t look back
is a silent message to him. She’s doesn’t consider Gage a threat, and she no
longer cares enough to give him a second glance. It’s the last part that
bothers him the most.

 
    CHAPTER-SIX
    Elena
     
    With her chin held high, Elena
marched out of that shifter run bar like she wasn’t afraid of anything. She should
be scared. Absolutely terrified even. But the part of her brain where the fear
to survive is supposed to be embedded isn’t there. According to her Aunts, it’s
part of her nifty Amazon breeding. So, instead of fear she feels damn near
giddy on the inside. She’s so freaking stoked right now to have finally put
Gage Ivanov in his place that she could do a damn cartwheel!
    She’s aware this reaction isn’t
normal, but after everything she’s learned these last few months about what
really lives in the world, what exactly is normal? And she could care less that
she’s just potentially pissed off a lot of super-fast, seriously powerful
supernatural creatures that have the ability to turn into some form of animal
and run her down like she’s a happy meal on legs. Nor does she care that they
don’t really need to turn into said animal to rip her into teeny tiny
pieces. No, the only thing she can think about right now is the fact that she
finally, finally , got the chance to give the jackass who broke her heart
the proverbial ‘fuck you’. Frankly, she hasn’t felt this good since the last
orgasm that douchebag gave her a couple of years ago. But Elena refuses to
linger on that sad truth.
    As she reaches the front passenger
side door of their SUV, Delta’s delicate hand lands on her shoulder. Her soft
voice asks, “You okay?”
    With a wide grin she answers,
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
    Delta’s eyebrows furrow down into a
‘v’ and she cocks her head to the side. “Because you just confronted the man
who broke your heart? Maybe because when he