Salvation: Saving Setora Book Seven

by Dark, Raven

  “Master, I’m really not tired. Don’t let me go.” It was ridiculous, but it felt like his and Pretty Boy’s nearness was all that was keeping me from sinking into a pit of panic and fear that had nothing to do with Julian.

  Steel looked intently at my face. He must have seen something there that made him realize I was too worried for sleep, because he settled back into the couch, pressed his lips to mine, and folded me in his arms.

  “What do you think Master Leif was talking about when he called Julian that… Gang—”

  “Genghis Khan?”

  Pretty Boy and I looked at Steel who shrugged.

  “What? I can’t remember all these weird names.”

  “What the hell kind of name is Genghis Khan?” Pretty Boy frowned. “Sounds like a lizard or one of those scorpion things Hawk keeps as a torture pet.”

  “No, that wasn’t it,” I said. “It was Ging tie?”

  “Gin Gitai.” Pretty Boy. “Holy shit!”

  “What?” Steel and I asked together.

  “Hawk mentioned the name once, back at the Grotto, when Julian was playing puppet with you, Princess.”

  I tried to ignore the shudder that went through me at his words.

  “He’d said that the Yantu had a name for their boogeyman, the kind children fear at night. They called it Gin Gitai.”

  “Shit.” Steel’s grip on me tightened.

  “And Master Leif thinks Julian is this… boogeyman? Maker.”

  “How the fuck does he know all this stuff, anyway?” Steel demanded. Clearly, he was as frustrated as the rest of us that so many questions arose at every turn, questions that seemed to have no answers.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Pretty Boy said. “If they know who and what Julian is, then they might know how to get rid of this fucking hold he has on Setora. That’s all I care about.”

  “And Sheriff,” I added softly.

  “Yeah. Sheriff, too. Fucking Yantu.” Pretty Boy sighed but didn’t add anything more.

  “Maybe I should stay here. Let you all take Sheriff—” I began.

  “Princess, Doc pretty much said he didn’t think there was anything anyone could do for Sheriff. Not now, when there hasn’t been any improvement. We may not have any other option left but the Yantu. Fuck!” Pretty Boy stood up and paced for a few moments, then slumped back down on the couch.

  I was at a loss for what to say, but I wished I could comfort him somehow. It was just as I had feared—there wasn’t anything anyone could do outside of the Yantu helping us.

  None of us spoke for a long time. Silence spread over the hut, broken only by the occasional crackle and pop of the flames from the wall torches and the distant sound of Bear yelling something at Blade.

  Darkness started to lower itself like a blanket over the village, adding to the tranquility out here, peace that somehow now only made me more aware of my worry.

  At some point, Pretty Boy and Steel had both fallen asleep, because Steel was snoring softly, and Pretty Boy’s grip on my hand had gone slack.

  I still couldn’t bring myself to close my eyes.

  There wasn’t much outside light left by the time Hawk’s frame darkened the open doorway of the hut.

  “Kitten.” His voice carried soft and throaty. The darkness from outside reduced his face to shadows, making it impossible to read.

  “Hawk?” I sat up slowly, my heart beating faster, torn between hope and fear for Sheriff.

  I got up carefully, unwilling to wake Pretty Boy and Steel, needing to hear the answer first, to give Hawk time to process before the hellfire exploded if the answer was bad. I walked slowly toward him, some tiny part of me trying to hold off an answer I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  “What did he say?” I whispered, stopping in front of my warrior master.

  He said nothing, and I looked up into his face. As soon as I saw his expression, I understood his silence.

  Hawk didn’t have to say a word. I could see it in the pain that filled his eyes, the loss that deepened the lines on his face, the way his fists tightened at his sides.

  Master Leif had said no.

  My heart flew apart in my chest, tiny pieces cutting up my insides like glass. All at once, with a single blow, the ramifications hit. The General of the Dark Legion had lost his sight, and the only people we knew who could restore it had refused. It was really over now.

  Sheriff was the one who’d now have to live forever in a world of darkness, but to me, it felt as if my world was falling apart, too.

  I wasn’t sure if I collapsed into Hawk, or if he knew I was about to fold, but suddenly I was crushed to him, my face pressed into his chest, quieting the near howl of misery that ripped itself free of me.

  “Hawk…”

  He crushed me to him harder, and the next instant we were outside. He’d pulled me against the darkened wall of the hut as if he wasn’t ready to share this horrible moment with anyone else yet.

  “Shh. I know.” He rubbed my back and smoothed my hair, pressing his cheek to the top of my head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hawk, no. It can’t be this way!” I clutched at him as if he could keep me from the hole of despair that seemed to be trying to swallow me whole. To swallow us both. “They can’t just…. Sheriff will… It just can’t!”

  “I know. I’m sorry, Kitten. I’m so sorry.”

  Maker, I wanted to beg him to go back and make his master see reason. I wanted to plead with him, wasn’t there anything he could do? But I knew there wasn’t.

  Hawk’s arms shook around me, whether with sadness or anger, I couldn’t tell. I could feel the loss and hopelessness for his best friend hammering off him like a dark energy, coiling itself in his muscles. He clutched me so tightly I could hardly breathe, but I didn’t care.

  “Maker, Sheriff,” I sobbed. “How do we tell him that… How can we…”

  “We don’t, Kitten.” He rubbed my back. “I’ll take care of it.”

  I could hear the burden of guilt in his voice and it crushed me. Before I could say anything, we were back inside his hut. Still holding me in his arms, he dropped his head against the wall. His chest heaved, once, twice, and then I saw that calm wrap itself around him, saw him cage himself in the steel walls of his Fortress.

  I wished I could somehow make it easier on him, but I knew no one could do that. Somehow, Hawk was going to have to tell his best friend that the life he knew was officially over, and the man Sheriff had once been was gone.

  Maker, I wanted to die.

  A short time later, Hawk gathered everyone inside his hut, the biggest of those the Legion had taken. He’d already told Sheriff and Doc privately, knowing better than to break the news to the General in front of his men.

  Whatever Sheriff had said, I didn’t hear it from all the way in Hawk’s hut, but I knew he didn’t take it well. Not by the long series of smashing and crashing and bellowing that went on in Sheriff’s hut.

  It took everything in me not to run out there to him and try, somehow, to take all his pain away. All that kept me away from him was Hawk’s warning to stay away, and his threatening to lock me inside his hut if I tried.

  As soon as all of us were present and Hawk had told the rest of the men the news, everyone lost it at once. Cursing and swearing and growled threats against the Yantu filled the hut. Hawk was the only one who wasn’t raging. It was a measure of how well he trusted and knew these men that he knew not to take the threats seriously.

  “Fucking shit.” Steel stood up from the chair he’d been sitting in so sharply that it toppled. He put his fist through a clay wall, and it went straight through to the other side. Then he stomped out without even shutting the door.

  “I’ll get him,” Bear grumbled. He started after Steel, but Hawk grabbed his arm.

  “Bear, no. Let him go. He needs to cool off.”

  Blade threw one of his knives at a table and it thunked into the wood. Grim paced the room like a tall, angry panther.

  “This is horseshit, Ha
wk!” Pretty Boy knifed to his feet. “What did you say to him? Did you even try?”

  Hawk’s chest rose and fell unusually hard. “Yes.” His tone sounded strained. He picked up the chair Steel had vacated and sat down, scrubbing his palms over his face in a way that almost looked like Sheriff. “I spent three hours in that temple trying to change his mind. He didn’t budge. Stubborn mule.”

  “Let me guess,” Pretty bit out, holding a finger in the air. “Yantu customs, blah blah, cannot be altered, blah blah blah.”

  Hawk nodded into his lap.

  “Did they even have a way to help?” Blade asked. “Would they have been able to do anything?”

  Hawk let out a bitter laugh and put his head back. “Yes. See, that’s the rub. There are ingredients for an elixir that would restore Sheriff’s sight.”

  My eyes widened, and I stood from my own seat. “What? They have a cure like that? Well, then there’s hope, Hawk, there’s—”

  He shook his head. “No.” His voice was soft and low and filled with pain. “The elixir—what we call Dragon’s Bane—is right there in the temple. It’s in a back room that’s off limits to all but the highest warriors. There was a blind man in the temple that had the same thing happen to him as Sheriff, so Master Leif can, and has, made it before.”

  Everyone stared at him. He dropped his shoulders and stood up.

  “It’s there, but they won’t give it to me. He showed it to me right before he told me, in no uncertain terms, that I couldn’t have it. They won’t give it to Sheriff.”

  He’d showed it to Hawk? Why would he have shown it to him if he didn’t want him to have it? Such a thing seemed cruel, like dangling water in front of a man dying of thirst in a desert. Anger boiled in me.

  “Then we’ll take it from them,” Pretty Boy shouted.

  Hawk rolled his eyes. “Pretty Boy, fuck. we can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” he scoffed. “Do you have any idea what would happen if I agreed to something like that? We can’t. I can’t.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?” Pretty Boy stepped closer to him, arms crossed.

  Even I didn’t have to know all the ins and outs of MC law to know what he was driving at. “Pretty Boy. Don’t.”

  He ignored me.

  Hawk raised a brow at him. “Excuse me?”

  “Well?”

  “Well what, Pretty Boy?” Hawk’s voice was uncommonly dark now.

  “Oh, come on. We saw you talking to him at the temple gates. We were all trying our damnedest to get your master to see past his own selfish traditions, and you were all, yes, master, no master.”

  Hawk took a step toward him. “I was showing respect for my superior,” he growled slowly. “Something you have clearly forgotten how to do.”

  “Oh, is that so? What about your respect for Sheriff? For your General, Hawk?” He got in Hawk’s face. “Maybe we should be talking about that. About exactly where your loyalties lie, Yantu.”

  A muscle ticked so violently in Hawk’s jaw, I thought for sure he was going to at least shove Pretty Boy back or something. Instead, his fists unclenched, and he raised his palms.

  “All right. Pretty Boy, I’m only going to say this once. You’re pissed, and you’re scared for Sheriff. I get it. I don’t like this either. But I would give my life for this club, and for him, and you know it. Don’t question my loyalty to the Legion or to him.”

  “Would you really?” Pretty Boy shrugged. “Maybe you won’t take what we need to save Sheriff’s sight because you want this.” He waved his arm in everyone’s direction. “Maybe you wanted this all along.”

  “Pretty Boy!” I squealed, horrified. I went toward him, but Hawk put out his hand to block me.

  Muscles in Hawk’s back, muscles I didn’t know a man had, tensed and rippled under his cut. “You’re kidding, right?” His voice was flat.

  “Nope. Who gets to be the General, Hawk? If Sheriff doesn’t get his sight back, who gets the gavel?”

  “Wow,” Grim muttered.

  Hawk raised his hands slowly. “I’m not listening to this.”

  “You’re not answering me, Hawk. Who. Gets. The. Gavel?”

  “You’re right, I’m not answering you, because you’re being fucking absurd. I have never, ever once shown an interest in taking what belongs to Sheriff from him, and when you get your head out of your ass, you’ll realize how stupid you sound right now.” Hawk didn’t give him a chance to argue. He just turned without another word, grabbed my wrist, and stalked out of the hut.

  Shaking with adrenaline from the second near-blow-out between Hawk and Pretty Boy I would have witnessed, I puffed, having to half run to keep pace with him or have my shoulder torn out of my socket.

  Anger rolled off Hawk in waves, anger like I’d only seen in him once before.

  Once, when I’d pushed him too far and he’d unleashed all the animalistic darkness on me that I’d always known hid just under the surface of that calm.

  If not for the dire reason behind that anger, I’d have found a thrill in it. As it was, he was hurting, and I only wanted to wipe the pain away.

  “Hawk, slow down,” I huffed.

  “No.” His voice was low and dark and hard. “If I don’t put as much distance between myself and him right now, you’re liable to have to spend the next week caring for him while his limbs heal.”

  I sighed and went with him into our hut. Any other day, I wouldn’t have taken that threat seriously. Hawk’s Yantu traditions wouldn’t have allowed him to act on them. Only, now, with something this big tearing at him, I wasn’t so sure. Not with him this livid.

  “He didn’t mean what he said, Hawk. You said it yourself, he was just angry and worried about Sheriff.”

  Hawk stormed into the living room and rounded on me. “I would never, never have done what he implied in there. I have no ambitions of holding the gavel!”

  I shook my head. “I know that. And so does he. Pretty Boy was just trying to get under your skin.”

  “Don’t you make excuses for him, Kitten,” he rumbled. “I know you love him, but I’m not in the mood.”

  “Hawk,” I drawled gently. “I’m not. But I know him. I know he likes to shake things up, likes to get to you. His words are coming from a place of pain.”

  Hawk heaved a breath, then put his head back. His amber eyes closed, and his shoulders fell. I thought I saw something flicker across his face. Something confusing. Something that looked like guilt.

  Slowly, I took his face in my hands. “Hawk. There is more to this. This isn’t about what Pretty Boy said.”

  His jaw clenched, as though he were fighting some sort of painful inner battle.

  “What is it? Talk to me, Master.”

  Hawk slid away from me slowly but only to lower himself onto the couch in front of me. He leaned over, running his hands through his thick black hair.

  Knowing better than to push him, how hard it was for a man like him to open up, I just waited, letting him know I was listening.

  Hawk put his head down for a long time and said nothing. When his eyes lifted to mine, his expression was stoic, but his tone was hushed.

  “Sheriff tried to give me the gavel, Setora.”

  The revelation felt like a kick in the stomach. It hit hard, as much for what it meant for Hawk and how much it must have killed him for Sheriff to do that, as for what it said about Sheriff’s mindset when he’d done it.

  A mix of sadness for Hawk and anger with Sheriff pulled at me. If he’d tried to give his role over to Hawk, then he’d already given up. And I hadn’t even known. Guilt stabbed at me, realizing I’d missed how far gone he was.

  I covered my mouth with my fingertips and let out a sigh, sitting on the couch beside him, feeling as if my head would float away. “Maker, Hawk, I didn’t know.”

  “I know.” He looked sidelong at me.

  “When? When did he give it you?”

  “Days ago, at the first camp after we left the compound.”


  “He—” I pushed to my feet, fists tight. “I can’t believe him! He gave up, Hawk. All this time, he was already looking at it like it was over.”

  “I realized that,” Hawk said. “That’s why I refused to take it.”

  I looked at him.

  “I gave it back and told him he wasn’t making it official. I wouldn’t take the gavel until…” He looked away.

  I knew what he was going to say. Until he knew there was no hope left at all. I sat down beside him again. “Hawk, what happened with Master Leif? What did he actually say?”

  All right, so I was grasping at straws, hoping he’d reveal something in his private conversation that would indicate his tai dan might relent.

  Hawk sat slowly back. “Well, he spent the first hour doing the same thing he did the last time I was here a few years ago. Politely trying to convince me to give up my cut and renounce the Legion. He said I’m conflicted, that he knows I still want to be a fifth level tai dan. He offered the test for that level.”

  I bowed my head, processing this. In some ways, Master Leif reminded me of one those quietly disapproving fathers. The kind that never say outright that they disapprove of your choice, maintaining that they love and support you, and yet you can see it in their actions, in their eyes, in the way they look at you. In the way they look at the uniform you wear and wish you wore something else.

  “So that’s why you didn’t want to come here. To see him.” I covered his hand with mine. “You didn’t want him to try to convince you.”

  He nodded.

  “Because you are conflicted. Part of you still wants to be a fifth.”

  He nodded slowly.

  I put the thought of that aside for now. One thing at a time.

  “And what happened when you brought up Sheriff, Master?”

  “He quoted the rule book. The Yantu don’t let themselves help anyone outside the temple whose plights have no bearing on them or on the world as a whole.”

  “Unlike Julian. He does.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are they so unwilling to connect themselves to the outside world, though? I mean, Pretty Boy…is he wrong? Aren’t they all about peace and love and helping others?”