Page 49 of Rook

Luka

Despite everything…despite just having my ass kicked…Gunnar wants to talk to me.

He tells me we should talk after our little brawl—or, I guess, beating, since I didn’t fight back—and then we’re heading to the elevator, my hands shoved in my pockets. I deserved that, I don’t deny it—and maybe it felt good to finally be punished for what I did to Aisling.

Punished by her pack’s alpha, just like it should have been from the beginning.

Gunnar wordlessly lets me into his room with the quick scan of a keycard, and I step inside before he shuts the door behind us both. The place is a disaster zone, like a twister tore through here. Papers scattered across the floor, shattered glass sparkling like a constellation under the dim lights. Gunnar doesn’t seem to notice the chaos.

He moves with the kind of exhaustion that weighs down on a man’s soul.

I can practically feel it.

“Drink?” He gestures towards the decanter, amber liquid catching the last sliver of evening light slipping through the cracked blinds.

I shake my head, a quick jerk to the left. “Nah, I’m off all that stuff. And…well, everything. No booze, no drugs. Nothing.”

“Since when?” He’s frowning now, eyes searching mine like he might find some kind of lie tucked away in there. I’m sure he’s thinking to nights no more than a few months ago when he would sit on my couch at the church and get high. A lot has changed since then.

“Since New Eden.” I look away from him, fixate on a dent in the wall, probably one of many reminders of the shadows clinging to Gunnar’s frame. “Just don’t trust myself anymore, you know?”

Gunnar’s silent for a moment, then he pours himself a glass with a hand that’s not quite steady. He doesn’t drink it though, just holds it, staring into its depths as if it’s got answers. Maybe for him, it does.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and his voice is gravelly, like it hurts to get the words out. “For what happened at New Eden. For…everything. For beating the hell out of you downstairs. She’s not even mine anymore, I just…I went off.”

His gaze lifts to me, and I see something raw there. It looks like guilt, feels like regret. This man is shattered—broken by circumstances, by people, by choices. I see him now, really see him, beyond the alpha strength and the pack leader façade.

He never wanted to be the Archangel; he just wanted Aisling.

And she used him and used him until he was hollowed out.

“Shit happens,” I mutter, but then I realize my lip’s still leaking blood. The taste is iron and salt, a reminder of the punch that split it open. I touch it gingerly.

“Want some ice for that?” Gunnar’s watching me, his eyes tracking to the red on my fingers…then to his bruised knuckles.

I nod. Better than bleeding all over his fancy carpets.

He moves, surprisingly light on his feet for a guy his size, towards the kitchen area of the suite. He returns with a washcloth wrapped around a bag of ice cubes, and hands it to me without a word.

“Thanks,” I grumble, pressing the makeshift ice pack against my lip. It stings like a bitch at first, but soon the numbness sets in, dulling the pain.

We sit down together, he in an armchair, me on the couch that’s probably worth more than I am. The opulence around us is offset by the mess—a mess that Gunnar’s made, like he doesn’t want room service here.

Because the mess inside feels better when it matches the mess outside.

I get that too.

He nurses his drink, amber liquid catching the dim light, while I nurse my face. There’s a sort of symmetry to it that makes me want to laugh, but I figure it would hurt too much.

The silence stretches between us, taut and fragile, ready to snap. But neither of us seems willing to break it just yet. We’re two men adrift, caught up in the undertow of Aisling’s storm. She’s wrecked us both in her own way, though we’d never admit it out loud.

“Didn’t know you for a teetotaler,” Gunnar says after a while, his voice low.

“Didn’t know you for the sentimental type.” I shoot back, the words muffled by the cloth.

“Guess we’re both full of surprises.”

“Guess so.”

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