Misted (Team Zero #5) by Rina Kent

“You’re the one married to a nurse,” Hawk points out.

“Hashtag, burn. In Flame’s voice.” Scar jumps and I can’t help smiling.

Eloise appears at the threshold of the house, carrying a tray of lemonade and cradling her back.

I run towards her and help in placing the tray on the table. She straightens, patting a hand over her engorged belly.

Although I try to ignore the pang, it hits me anyway. I’ll never have this. Not in this lifetime.

I don’t deserve to be a mother after I failed to protect my child.

“Do you want a drink?” Eloise asks, her ‘R’ is more pronounced in the French accent.

“Maybe something stronger.”

She groans. “If I have to suffer without even a beer then everyone else will.”

I’m about to help her sit down when an arm wraps around my collarbone from behind. “Hey, love.”

I don’t get to blink or think or smell the male perfume properly.

Hawk sprints towards us, shatters a glass of lemonade and is hauling the presence off me.

I shriek when blood splatters on the floor.





37





Hawk





We can’t fix the present when the past is all messed up.



There’s that expression about seeing red. Some would think it’s just an expression for rage.

It isn’t.

The moment Ink’s arm draped around Mist’s shoulders, I saw fucking blood. And I needed to spill his to feel better.

I punch him in the face, blood explodes from his lip. I’m going to fuck up his pretty-boy features and slash them with the glass until he’s unrecognisable.

This has been long overdue.

“Let him go.” Three guns click to my head.

Ink’s goddamn minions. I swear they grow on trees or something.

A woman and two men surround me in a tight circle all wearing black leather clothes and are covered in tats from their necks to their toes.

“Fight me without them,” I snarl, clutching him by the collar of his elegant shirt.

The fucker smiles in a golden boy fashion which smears blood over his teeth. “You’re shot. It wouldn’t be fun.”

“I promise to make it fun.”

“It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Since when do you care about what’s fucking fair?”

“I don’t.” His grin widens. “But I still need to mark Mist’s flesh and I don’t want her hating me.”

I’m going to fucking kill him, and to hell if I die, too.

I raise my fist when a red mane barges between us. Mist pushes me back and stands in the middle, facing me, her shoulders squared. “Enough.” She glances over her shoulder at Ink. “Stop provoking him, you devil.”

My chest rises and falls with harshness and I resist growling like a fucking animal. All I see is all those years this bastard has been there for Mist while I wasn’t. I hate myself and I want to murder Ink for it.

Mist places her hand on my arm, tiptoes and seals her lips to mine. The red halo slowly vanishes to be replaced with her lilac scent and soft curves against my hardness.

I grunt as I kiss her back. My arms drape around her waist possessively as I resist the urge to flip her over and take her in front of the world to see that this woman is fucking mine.

Then I’ll have to kill all of them for seeing her naked.

Mist breaks away first, her lips swollen and her cheeks flushed, those tiny freckles are barely visible. We stare at each other for a second too long, and the world around us disappears.

It’s only me and her just like all those years ago.

I’m linked to Mist in ways words and emotions can’t begin to explain. She’s the essence of my life. Without her, the mere act of breathing sucked my soul into a black, empty hole. I only resurrected back to life when she returned to my immediate vicinity and shot colours to my fucking veins.

“Uh…” Scar is creepingly close. She searches my face then Mist’s as if looking for something she lost. “Why did you kiss like you want to eat each other’s faces?”

For once, Scar appears genuinely confused. Her gaze bounces between our expressions as if she’s searching for a missing piece of the puzzle. She’s a master at killing, manipulating, and creating chaos, but she’s complete rubbish when it comes to feelings.

I was, too, for fifteen years.

“You do that, too!” Scar points an accusing finger in Crow’s direction who’s protectively holding Eloise away from Ink’s minions. “Why do you do it?”

Crow lifts a shoulder. “You have to feel it, psycho.” He ushers Eloise through the door and she waves at us. “We’re out of your freak show.”

“That’s not an answer, Crow-Man,” Scar snaps with an almost comical expression. She’s funny when angry and confused.

Ink leans over to whisper in her ear – loud enough for all of us hear, “They’re weirdoes, Scar. How about we ignore them and destroy the world? Call?”

“Call!” She jumps, expression brightening.

“You’re such a traitorous little bugger, Scar,” I mumble still holding Mist possessively to my side.

“No hard feelings, Hawky.” She glances back at Ink. “Oooh, by the way, are you still on Omega?”