Czar looked around the table, swearing under his breath. “This changes things. I thought Alena was in the clear. She told me Pierce had no knowledge anyone ever called her Torch.”
“Easy enough to forget,” Blythe said gently.
“Alena is in a lot of danger,” Czar bit out between his teeth. “It’s coming at us from every direction, and I don’t know why.” His gaze jumped to Seychelle’s face.
Savage tensed. He felt Czar’s rage. It spread like a cancer through the man, that feeling of losing too many, of trying over and over to save them and failing. Alena was theirs. She’d come so close to dying so many times, and they weren’t losing her now.
Anger. Rage. Hatred. Those emotions could destroy one from the inside. Shred your soul. Dehumanize you. Make it possible to do terrible, vile things and feel absolutely nothing. Make one need to do them. For so long no one had ever looked out for Czar. Physically, yes, but not for his emotional well-being.
Savage had realized early on that they would all lose Czar if he didn’t have help, the kind of help only someone with Savage’s strange talent could give him. As a boy, he’d looked up to Czar. He’d recognized they needed him. If anyone was going to lead the way to freedom, it was going to be Czar. Savage had practiced for hours every day until he could draw the terrible fury from Czar. He had to do it slowly so no one would know or suspect. He had to be careful. Eventually, he got so good at it, he was able to take on the rage of the others until he couldn’t stop. Now, it was as much a compulsion for him to take on the anger of the Torpedo Ink members as it was for his woman to reach out to heal sick people.
Savage lifted his gaze to Seychelle’s. His woman. She would be the one paying the price if he did this. If he took this on his shoulders. He knew he would. It was Czar. He had to, and yet there was Seychelle, and she wasn’t close to being ready to take on his sadistic repercussions. Damn it. Just damn it. He had committed to getting the club through the run and what was necessary to clear them with the Diamondbacks. That would already be a weight on him.
The only way to stop himself was to get up and walk out. Abandon Czar. The man he respected most in the world. Looked up to. Owed his life to. Loved. Taking on his rage was the only way Savage knew to show his love for the man. Taking on the fury for the others was his way of showing love. He had always done it, and he didn’t know how to stop.
Seychelle smiled at him. Bog, so damn sweet. She saw what he was already needing to do. What he could never stop himself from doing. She simply nodded her assent. She knew what it would mean for them both, but she gave him the green light. Put herself squarely in his corner. Made herself his partner all the way, even knowing ultimately it would be her pain. Her tears. Her suffering. First Czar. Then Savage. Then Seychelle. A fucking chain.
Savage reached across the table and took her hand as he inhaled. As he opened himself up and took on the brunt of Czar’s rage, allowing him to think clearly and precisely the way he always did when he planned out how the club would handle saving one of their own.
The fury was almost too much to contain at first. Savage was always astonished at the depth Czar was capable of feeling for all of them. He’d started so young and he’d continued for so long. He felt responsible for every child brought into that school of torture and death, no matter their age, and many were older than he was. Czar still carried that responsibility. That was his personality and his nature.
Savage took more care than he ever had, to bleed that rage from Czar slowly. Czar knew his secrets now, and he wouldn’t like that Savage was helping him, but it was what he did. What he would always do. The dark rage swirled into Savage like a ferocious wind, ripping and tearing through him in the way that it did. Wrath was a repulsive, ugly emotion, one that fucked a person up inside, twisted the brain into so many dark paths that eventually it was difficult to find a way out.
Czar stood up slowly, pushing back his chair. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse us, we have a little work to attend to in the kitchen. Just helping Alena out. This won’t take long.”
Savage and Steele followed his example, rising as well, pushing their chairs up to the table. Savage brushed a kiss along Seychelle’s temple. “Be good, angel. We’ll be back soon.”