The Beast

THIRTY

For most of his nights on the planet, Rhage was only vaguely aware of how big he was. But at the moment, even though he was on the far side of three thousand pounds of steel and engine, he felt like he was an enormous, muckling nightmare.

And OMG, that kid had haunted eyes.

As Rhage waited for Bitty to say something, anything, in response to Mary, he couldn’t help but measure how much taller the girl was than the memory he had of her from that horrible night of the rescue. Not that he’d spent much time at all with her—he’d been too busy fighting to have anything more than a foggy recollection of her brown-haired little self cowering in her mother’s arms.

Man, he wanted to dig up that father of hers just so he could kill him all over—

“Bitty?” Mary prompted. “We should either go or head back inside.”

Rhage was prepared to wait out here all night if that was what it took for the kid to make up her mind, but his mate had a point. This was a safe neighborhood—relatively speaking. Which was to say it was much better than that den of lessers they’d attacked at that prep school, but not nearly as secure as inside the house.

“Bitty?”

And that was when the young looked at him for the first time.

The was no shift of her head, no change in her expression, but suddenly the moonlight caught her eyes properly and they flashed.

Later . . . Rhage would reflect that that split second was one of two defining moments in his life. The other being his hearing Mary’s voice the first time.

“Is this really your car?”

Rhage blinked. And had to take a moment to make sure he’d heard the question right. “Ah, yes. Yes, this car is mine.”

Bitty walked over to the hood and extended her small hand to the GTO’s shiny, smooth body. “It’s so pretty.”

Rhage looked at Mary—who seemed equally flummoxed.

“The, ah, the paint job is custom.”

“What does that mean?”

“It was specially made just for her.”

Bitty glanced up at him in surprise. “It’s a girl?”

“Oh, yeah. Sexy—I mean, hot—er, good muscle cars are always girls. It’s ’cuz you gotta take care of ’em like they deserve.”

“Muscle car?”

“That’s what she’s called. She’s a GTO. When I got her, she was a wreck, but I had her redone—I brought her back to life. She’s old, but she’ll blow the doors off any Porsche on the road.”

As Mary started making can-it motions with her hand, he clammed up.

Except then Bitty asked, “What’s a muscle car? What does it mean, blow doors off?”

“Well . . . would you like to hear the engine? I’m warning you up front, it’s loud—but it’s supposed to be. There are a lot of horses under that hood.”

Bitty recoiled, and yeah, he got an impression of just how sheltered she was, how little she had been exposed to.

“There are horses in your car?”

“Here,” he said, holding up the key. “I’m going to start her up—and pump her with some gas. But you might want to cover your ears, ’kay?”

Bitty nodded and clamped her palms on either side of her head like her skull was in danger of popping off her spine.

Opening his door, Rhage got in, left-footed the clutch to the floor, made sure the stick was in neutral, and shoved the key into place. One crank and a little gas—

VROOOM!—mah, mah, mah-mah-mah, VROOOM! VROOOM!—mah, mah, mah-mah-mah . . .

Bitty walked in front of the car as he continued to pedal the accelerator. After a minute, she slowly dropped her arms and tilted her head to the side.

Over the din, she shouted, “But where are the horses?”

Yanking the parking brake hard, he leaned out. “It’s the engine!” he said loudly. “You want to see the engine?”

“What?!”

“The engine!” Reaching for the release, he pulled the lever and got to his feet. “Let me show you.”

He was careful not to move too fast as he came to the little girl, and he was very conscious of the way she put her hands in the pockets of her too-big parka and took a couple of steps to the side to keep some distance between them.

Freeing the second latch right in front, he sprang the hood, releasing a sweet, hot breath that was clean oil and fresh gas combined.

Bitty leaned in and seemed to take an inhale. “That smells nice.”

Annnnnnnnnnnnnd that was pretty much when he fell in love with the kid.

Who’d have thought Rhage would be the Bitty-whisperer, Mary marveled as she watched the huge hulk of her husband and the slight body of the girl bend over an engine that was making more noise than a fighter jet.

As Rhage started to point at various things, there was no hearing what he was saying over the noise, but the words, the terms of art, the explanations didn’t matter.

The fact that Bitty ended up standing right beside him was all that Mary cared about.

And, oh, boy. If she had loved that male before? This put him straight into heaven territory.

Any avenue in, Mary thought. Anything that could open up the girl, get through to her, reach her in some way . . .

Yes, she wished somehow it had been her to make the connection. Not that she liked admitting such a thing. After all, what could be more selfish, self-serving, and ugly than to feel disappointed that you didn’t get to be the savior. But that was a mere passing thought. More than anything, she was sagging in her own skin from relief that Bitty was having a conversation for what seemed like the first time since she’d come to Safe Place.

Rhage lifted his arms, took hold of the hood, and closed it gently. He was still talking as he led Bitty to the open passenger-side door, and as he came around, he spared Mary a quick shrug of, Are we okay here?

Mary nodded as discreetly as she could.

“—sure you can,” he said as he held the seat back and Bitty scooted into the rear as if she had been doing it all her life. “Anytime you like.”

Mary shook herself back into focus. “I’m sorry, what? What’s this?”

Bitty sat forward and peered out. “He says I can drive her later.”

As Mary’s jaw unhinged and she recoiled, Rhage gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “It’ll be fine. We’ll just go out to an empty parking lot somewhere.”

“You can come with us,” Bitty said. “If it’ll make you feel better.”

Mary looked back and forth between the two of them. “Can you . . . ah, can you even reach the pedals? And it’s so powerful—”

“Bitty’s going to do great. I’ll get blocks for the wheel well if I can’t get the seat up far enough.”

“He says girls can do anything.” Bitty looked at Rhage. “He says, girls are . . . powerful.”

“Yup.” Rhage nodded. “That’s why the fastest and the best cars—”

“—are always girls,” Bitty finished for him.

All Mary could do was a little more of the back-and-forthing with her head, as the pair of them clearly waited for her blessing.

“We’ll see,” she murmured—as she enjoyed a happy little reminder to be careful what she wished for.

“Please?” Bitty prompted.

“Come on, Mary—”

Shooing Rhage out of the way, she put the front passenger seat back into position and got in. “I’m not saying, ‘yes,’ but if you do drive her, I’m absolutely coming with you two.”

“Yes!” Rhage pumped a fist. “That’s a yes, Bitty, we got this.”

“Yay!”

OMG. Was the girl smiling?

With a curse, Mary shut the door—and could have sworn Rhage was frickin’ skipping around the car. But then she had to get serious.

Wrenching into the gap between the seats, she said quickly, “Are you okay with this? With him? And I have to ask. It’s important.”

Bitty didn’t hesitate. “I really like him. He’s like . . . a big, friendly dog.”

As Rhage hopped in and shut his side, Mary started to smile and turned to face the windshield so maybe it wasn’t quite so noticeable.

But she couldn’t resist reaching over and giving her man’s shoulder a squeeze.

And then the three of them were off.