Page 35 of Hunter

“But—”

“He isn’t coming back.” A dark shadow past over Hunter’s face as if he had been tortured beyond repair by whatever memory haunted him. “The dead don’t come back.”

It was the slam of reality that came crashing down on top of me. The pain of the past hitting me all over again because I knew.

I knew Noble was dead.

I knew Noble wasn’t coming back.

I knew it, and yet, for just a moment, I had …

My voice broke, and I felt hope crumbling around me. “I thought … I really thought it was him.” Tears poured down my cheeks as Hunter brought his arms around me and lifted me before striding down the hall.

“I know,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to my head. “I know.”

Chapter Thirteen

Hunter

Ishutthe door behind me, leaving Adair and Mallory curled up on my bed. Then, leaning back against the painted wood, I ran a hand down my face. My body ached with exhaustion, but I couldn’t bring myself to sleep. Everything had seemed like a roller coaster the second Lamb and Pretty had walked out that door.

I swore that moment had shocked me back to the second I had turned that corner, heard that swerve, and saw the crash and the explosion. And then …

I shook the memories away, refusing to let them plague me when they had nearly destroyed everything I loved three years ago.

“You okay?” Kay looked up at me and smiled. The woman was beautiful with her strawberry-blonde hair and gray eyes, a mother to all the boys in her club. A true president’s wife before Roscoe, her old man and our ex-president, had died.

I shrugged. It was the best I could offer.

Kay stepped to the side of the hallway to let me pass. When she dipped her chin at me, I knew she would look after them as I headed to the other side of the clubhouse.

* * *

Irappedon the door with the plaque “President’s Office,” and it opened the next second.

Wolf stood there with the door wide open as I passed into the small room and through a second door, where Jax, Lamb, and Pretty all sat around, waiting. The long, black glass table looked bigger with half my brothers missing.

Wolf sat down at the head of the table and moved the black gavel out of the way since this meeting wasn’t for Church. I sat down to his right across from Lamb and next to Jax. Lamb looked as cool and unruffled as ever, despite the eerie calm radiating from his body.

“Your girl good?” he asked.

My brain hitched on the title of possession, but I didn’t feel like correcting him. “Kay’s with her.”

They all gave a small nod, small traces of relief on their faces and a big bruise on Pretty’s.

Seeing Mallory in his arms had set off so many alarms that I had panicked. Ripper had taken Adair off my hands the moment he saw what was going on, and I had charged forward. Lamb had held me back long enough for Pretty to take her upstairs and call on Kay to check her over. But when Pretty had denied me entry to my own room, I had snapped and swung. It had taken Lamb, Jax, and Pretty to drag me out the clubhouse before Wolf came out after them and yelled at me until I calmed down. Pretty had shrugged off the hit, saying it was understandable. And for that reason alone, I had asked if Pretty could join our little meeting. He had earned it.

With that out of the way, Wolf went straight for the kill.

“Adair ain’t yours. He’s Noble’s kid.”

I looked down at the glass table as if my eyes might bore a hole through it. Despite the burden of the lie being lifted off my shoulders, I still hated myself for lying in the first place. “Yeah.”

“No wonder he didn’t look a damn thing like you,” Lamb said, leaning back in his chair.

I offered him a growl, and Lamb just shrugged. Cocky bastard.

“Why hide it?” Jax asked, only now realizing what the others seemed to have already suspected.

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