Darling Wildfire (Red Rabbit #2)

33

ATLAS

TWO MONTHS CAPTIVE

“All I’m saying is I’m an ass man,”

Nyx said, flashing me a brilliant smile so at odds with his appearance. He was the definition of shadows, with his black hair long on top, short on the sides and dark eyes a color in between black and brown. He had tattoos covering his chest, back and arms all the way down to where they spilled over his hands and fingers. I could see tan lines where rings usually adorned him and sometimes I’d see him try to play with them, as though it was a habit he hadn’t yet lost even though the rings weren’t there anymore.

Despite his generally positive demeanor, there were times I’d see his mind drift and shadows would take over, filling his eyes and spilling over where it was almost physical in the way his entire personality darkened. He was a brooding, sarcastic and dark humored playboy with a look that could tear you to pieces or melt you into a puddle—sometimes I wondered if they were one and the same. I was drawn to him in a way I couldn’t explain and despite only knowing him for a few months; it felt like I’d known him for years. Now North was here and in a few short weeks, the three of us had become inseparable.

I racked the bar of the bench press and sat up. “I like to have a pillow,”

I said, sticking out my hands and acting like I was going to rest my head on a woman’s chest. “What about you, T?”

I stood up, and North took my place. He laid back on the bench and positioned his hands on the bar.

“I like a woman with a good personality,”

he deadpanned before beginning his set.

Nyx and I burst into laughter. North had slowly been warming up to Nyx and I the last few weeks. Like I’d said to Nyx in those first few days of meeting him, he was one of those men who thrived in the military because of how much of a sociopath he was. His eyes held the haunted look of someone who’d lost his humanity a long time ago, if he’d ever had it at all.

I’d held on to mine for as long as I could. I was still trying to hold on to the scraps of it if I was being honest. I couldn’t bear the thought of letting it go for fear of what I would become. Vetticus had shredded it further when he’d taken me from the safety of my civilian life and torn my loved ones away. He’d killed both of my partners in front of me—my wife first, then my husband. They’d been my anchors to my humanity. The ones who’d shown me the true meaning of love made even more potent by being in a polyamorous relationship. Now there was only darkness left where their light had been and everyday I sunk deeper into its depths where all I thought about was revenge.

North finished his set and sat up, breaking through my morbid thoughts.

“Have you guys even lost your virginity yet? What are you like teenagers still?” He said.

We weren’t much younger than him, early thirties, but he enjoyed making fun of us for it.

“Ha ha old man,”

Nyx said. “Very funny. I lost my virginity to an Italian beauty the first year I was deployed abroad.”

“Are you bragging, Nyx?” I joked.

Nyx held up his hands with a grin. “I’m just saying—Europeans know how to do it better in my experience. At least I wasn’t the cliche like Atlas over here—”

“Fuck off,”

I laughed.

“What do you mean?”

North asked, starting another set.

“I lost my virginity at eighteen to a girl I knew in high school a few weeks before I went in—”

“Where?”

Nyx prompted.

“The back of my truck,” I added.

“Like a typical Cali boy,”

Nyx chuckled.

I had to look away from his teasing eyes. I didn’t want to admit it but I was quickly developing a crush on this shadowed contradiction of a man. I would never say anything, not here, in this place where vulnerability and affection didn’t have any business showing its face. But the stirring in my gut was there whenever he turned that cheeky grin on me. I’d started looking for ways to bring it out and I’d been relentlessly telling myself to stop to no avail, especially since he seemed to portray himself as straight.

Nyx looked over at North. “What about you, T?”

He sat up again and leaned his forearms on his thighs. “Same as Atlas actually—high school sweetheart before I went in. But I did it the proper way—in her bed while her parents were asleep.”

Nyx barked a laugh, and I shared a smirk with North before I saw his face grow cold. Turning to see what he was looking at, I saw trouble in the form of three men making their way towards us. I recognized the one in the middle. Yuri was a swarthy, stocky, bullish man with a perpetual frown that pulled his features into an ugly countenance.

“Clear off if you’re just going to bullshit on the equipment,” he said.

“I’ve got one more set, then it’s yours,”

North said easily.

“Nah, I think you’re done now.”

“Fuck off, Yuri,”

Nyx said. “It’s not like we don’t have enough time out here.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, asshole,”

Yuri snapped.

Yuri’s eyes never left North’s, and I sighed. I knew a pissing match when I saw one. Unfortunately for him, North was not one to suffer insecure fools. Sure enough, he dismissed Yuri by laying back and starting his final set.

Yuri’s jaw ticked in anger as he stepped forward. Nyx and I went to block his way and he lashed out at Nyx and attempted to punch him in the face. Nyx easily dodged it and grabbed Yuri’s shirt as he pulled back his own fist to retaliate.

North sat up abruptly. “Stop,”

he demanded.

The authority in his tone was unmistakable and Nyx immediately paused, his eyes black pits and his humor gone as he glared at Yuri. Yuri smirked at him as though he’d won something and knocked Nyx’s hand off his shirt, smoothing down the fabric as he did. North stood up but one look at his face and I wanted to take a step back myself. His gray eyes were iced over and had the look of a predator luring in his prey. Yuri didn’t see it, or chose not to, I wasn’t sure, but he continued forward, obviously gloating.

Before he could reach the bench, North attacked with a quick punch to his jaw. Yuri staggered into the weight rack and North twisted his arm behind his back then slammed the man’s neck into the bench press bar. Yuri choked and flailed but North simply applied more pressure, calm and collected. Yuri stilled, chest heaving as he gasped for air.

“I said I have one more set,”

North growled. “But now, it looks like I have two.”

A chill rushed through me at his words, his presence filled the space with a dangerous undercurrent of violence. Yuri’s two counterparts stepped forward like they were going to help him, but I blocked their way with Nyx at my side.

Yuri jerked in North’s grip again.

“Don’t fucking test me,”

North snarled close to his ear before he yanked him up and threw him towards his men. Yuri stumbled, his eyes wild as they hatefully bounced between the three of us. He swiped at his bloody lip and pointed at North.

“Watch your back,”

he snarled. He spat on the ground at our feet and stalked off.

We watched him go and after a moment, North resumed his position on the bench and started another set as though nothing had happened. Nyx shook his head and leaned against the weight rack.

“Boredom gets to people,”

he said. “I want to punch someone too but I’m not about to do it over some gym equipment.”

North grunted as he sat up and regarded Nyx thoughtfully. “I’m surprised you didn’t clock him.”

Nyx shrugged. “You gave an order.”

A half smile pulled at North’s lips.

“You are the ranking officer,”

I said dryly.

Nyx stretched his neck from side to side and cracked his knuckles. “My time will come.”

He gave North a long look. “Plus, I had a feeling you needed to punch someone more than I did.”

He wasn’t wrong, North had a tension about him I was familiar with and knew would boil over, eventually. It was only a matter of time. A man like him was in control until he wasn’t and then god forbid someone get in his way or wrong him.

Regardless, I definitely had grown fond of the guy. He had his moments where I’d see the darkness and intensity lift and for a moment he’d be present.

Would we all be like that in the end? Weighed down by our past with no hope of escape except through violence and vengeance. I hoped not, but looking at North, I knew a monster when I saw one and he didn’t try to hide his like the rest of us.

I’d been a phantom in the field, a sniper sent to be invisible—there to deal out death and then disappear like it never happened. My call sign reflected that—Phantom. I wondered if that was what I would become once all of this was over—a ghost—nothing more than an apparition of shadows and regret that would eventually just…disappear.