Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“I’m here,” I answer immediately.
Not “yeah.” Not “hold on.” Not “we’re fine.”
I’m here.
I catch the way her shoulders ease. Not much but enough to tell me she needed those two words more than anything else.
Lightning splits the sky, lighting up the road in stark white.
We’re not going to the clubhouse. We’re not going to the fallback cabin. We’re going deeper into Kings territory a place only a handful of us know exists.
A place I swore I’d never have to bring her.
She watches me drive, eyes darting between my face and the darkness outside.
“You’re angry,” she whispers.
I exhale once through my nose. “I’m always angry.”
“No,” she says softly. “This is different.”
I don’t answer.
Because she’s right.
This isn’t the slow-simmer fury I live with. This is wildfire rage edged with fear. I almost lost her once. I’m not fucking losing her again.
I keep my eyes on the road. “Tell me if you see anything outside. Movement. Headlights. Shadows that look wrong.”
She nods instantly. “Okay.”
Another strike of lightning crashes overhead, illuminating the trees on both sides of the road and something moves in the glow.
My body locks.
“What was that?” Kelly gasps.
I hit the brakes so hard we both jerk forward, seatbelts snapping tight. The truck fishtails briefly before gripping the pavement again.
“Stay in the truck,” I order, already reaching for my gun.
Her voice trembles. “Riot!”
“Kelly,” I snap, turning to face her, “if something happens out there, I need you low, I need you quiet, and I need you still. You move when I say. Not before.”
Her lower lip trembles.
But she nods. “Okay.”
I step out into the rain.
And the world goes cold.
The storm is deafening a roar of water slamming into gravel, wind ripping through the trees. My boots splash into mud as I circle the truck, gun raised.
Lightning cracks again.
The roadside ditch flashes into view—And a figure bolts into the woods.
“HEY!” I roar, taking off after them.
Branches whip across my arms. My boots sink into mud, pulling and sliding. Rain blinds me, but I keep running, chasing the shadow darting between trees.
He’s fast. Trained-fast.
He knows the terrain, moving quiet as a ghost even with the storm burying his tracks.
I push harder.
He slips down a slope and disappears behind a deadfall. By the time I scramble after him, he’s gone swallowed by the dark.
A growl rips from my chest, primal and vicious.
“Come back!” I shout into the storm. “You wanted me? COME FUCKING GET ME!”
Nothing answers.
Just thunder.
Just rain.
Just my own pulse pounding in my skull.
I turn back toward the truck breath heaving, soaked to the bone and see Kelly through the fogged-up window.
Her face is pale. Her eyes wide. Her hand pressed to the glass like she can anchor me from inside the cab.
My legs move on instinct.
I wrench open the door and climb inside. Her hands reach for me immediately.
“Are you hurt?” she breathes out.
“No.”
She grabs the front of my jacket and pulls me toward her— Not to kiss me. Not to cling.
But because she needs to check, needs to see with her own eyes that I’m okay.
Storm water drips off me onto her sleeves.
Her fingers shake. “Riot, I thought.”
“I know,” I murmur, voice low and gravel rough. “I know, sunshine.”
At the nickname, she lets out a tiny sound a soft, broken exhale that hits me harder than any punch I’ve taken.
“You can’t run into the dark like that,” she whispers.
“Like hell I can’t,” I mutter. “If someone’s hunting us, I’m not waiting for them to get brave.”
Her voice cracks. “But if something happened to you.”
I press a hand to her cheek, forcing her eyes to meet mine.
“Kelly. Listen to me.”
She swallows.
“You will not lose me,” I promise, slow and deliberate. “You hear me? Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”
Her eyes glisten in the dim truck cab light.
“You can’t promise that,” she whispers.
I lean closer, close enough that our foreheads nearly touch.
“I just did.”
Her breath shudders out.
For a moment, we just sit there, my forehead now on hers, storm raging around us, our breaths mingling in the dark cab, both of us clenched tight with adrenaline and fear.
Then I force myself to pull away before I forget all the reasons I shouldn’t kiss her senseless while she’s shaking.
“We’re leaving,” I mutter, shifting into gear.
The truck lurches forward.
“Where?” she asks, voice unsteady.
“A place even the Kings keep off books.”
She frowns. “Why didn’t we go there first?”
“Because I didn’t think they’d be stupid enough to follow us this deep.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m not taking chances.”
She nods and leans back, still breathing harder than normal. Her hands are closed in fists on her lap, little tremors running through her fingers.
Without thinking, I reach over and cover one with mine.
It’s not romantic. It’s not calculated.
It’s instinct.
Her fingers open, sliding between mine without hesitation.
My throat tightens.
She whispers, “I don’t want to be scared. Not of the dark. Not of forgetting. Not of who’s out there.”