Page 52 of Sin and Salvation

“You think he didn’t?” Aeron gave me a little shake. “You really think he was blind to what Maxime is? Because he wasn’t. He knew perfectly well you were going to live in a personal hell under his thumb. So if Rastus’s pain intrudes on your thoughts, and you decide you don’t care, that doesn’t make you a monster.”

I nodded slowly. “It’s going to take me a long time to accept that, I think.”

“It probably will.” Aeron blew out a sigh, running a hand through his auburn hair and rumpling it. “Look, I still think about my pack sometimes, even though they didn’t want me. If I saw them now and they were on fire, I wouldn’t piss on them to put them out. But every once in a while… the thoughts intrude. It’s completely normal.”

I exhaled and leaned forward, resting my forehead against his chest. The soft rise and fall as he breathed was oddly comforting, and I closed my eyes, pushing away the memory of that horrible sound.

Pushing away the memory of Rastus. I didn’t have to hold a torch for the family; I could choose to cut those ties and make a new one for myself.

And I had a family waiting right here. The men of the Black Hearts had done nothing but open their arms to me. Instead of dwelling on memories of the past, I could choose to look forward to the future.

“You’re right. I don’t think the memories will ever go away, but… at least I know now that I don’t have to dwell on them.”

No matter what, I wouldn’t let demons like Maxime and Rastus win. They’d tried to gun us down, they’d tried to infiltrate the club, but all of our people were okay.

I realized I’d been thinking in terms of ‘our’ and not ‘their’ for the last week. At some point, I’d crossed an invisible divide. I may not be a true Black Hearts MC member, but I sure as hell was part of their people now, and they were mine.

I only owed my concern and empathy to them.

“Hey, sugar.” Aeron wrapped his arms around me and chucked me under the chin. “If you ever need to talk about it, I’m here for you. We all had to cut ties at some point, and any one of us would be happy to let you spill your feelings.”

My throat tightened a little at that. “Aeron…”

“Yeah?”

I braced myself to kick down the doors. So far, I’d been content to let them make the first moves; but now, with my new realization, I didn’t want to wait anymore.

“I’m mated to Crow now. And… I’ve gotten the really strong impression that you’re all okay with sharing a mate…”

Aeron let out a husky, rumbling laugh. “We do everything else together. The first few nights you were here, we talked it over… and we decided you were the one. You… smell right.”

As though to prove his point, he kissed my head, taking a deep breath of my hair. “You smell like the demon who is going to become my mate. Crow is just less patient than the rest of us.”

“Comes with being from the House of Wrath, I bet,” I mumbled, stepping closer to Aeron and closing the gap between us.

“I smell him here, too.” He ran a hand through my hair, tracing his fingers down my neck. There was a growl in his voice that sent a shiver down my spine. “We’re going to have to rectify that, little succubus.”

For a second, my worries flashed back into my head.

Any demon in Concordia would think me a monster for claiming a mate when my own blood was in the basement, possibly getting killed.

But I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to think about Maxime and all the pain he’d caused. All I wanted was to focus on the family I now had, and celebrate the fact that despite everything he’d done, we were still alive. Still together.

“You can rectify it right now.” I grabbed Aeron’s hand and led him to the door of his bedroom, pushing it open without asking.

That would’ve been unthinkable only last week. Now I felt like I was settling in, accepted openly, and they really meant it when they said to treat it not just as their space, but as mine, too.

Aeron’s room had little of the elegance of Zane or Crow’s. His bed was enormous, piled with fluffy white bedding, but there was a treadmill in the corner even though they had a personal gym upstairs. His helmet was tossed carelessly on a dresser; a bag of grease-covered tools had been kicked into a corner.

“Don’t mind the mess,” he said gruffly. “I work on the bikes in my spare time.”

If anything, his hobbies made me even more relaxed. I felt less likely to leave a grubby stain on anything I touched, whereas Zane’s flawless, silky bed made me fear I was leaving body glitter all over his room.

“I don’t mind at all,” I said breathlessly. “As long as you’re naked on that bed when I come out of the shower.”

I wanted to take my mind off the shooting, but I wasn’t getting into distractions while I felt grubby, like my psychic hands were caked with death.

At least Aeron wasn’t pushing me away even though I’d just sucked the magic and life force out of twenty demons.

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