Page 227 of American Hellhound
Waiting was horrible. It tasted acidic on the back of the tongue; the air heavy and metallic with the rain of clouds they couldn’t yet see, night settling dark, and clear, and star-studded over Dartmoor. A false portrait of peace.
Ghost woke with a start, breath caught in his throat, heart leaping out from between his ribs. His gaze darted wildly around the dark room, trying to catalogue his surroundings, rectify them in his mind. He knew right away that he wasn’t at home, and it took an alarming handful of seconds for him to realize that he was at the clubhouse, in a dorm, instead of his own bedroom.
Shit.
He breathed through the burst of panic, slow and steady, until his heart began to slow. He lay on his side, facing Maggie, the two of them curved like parentheses around Ash, who slept on his stomach between them, snuffling into the sheets.
It took him a moment to realize that Maggie’s eyes were open, ocean blue in the darkness.
“How long you been awake?” he asked, voice rusty from sleep.
Her face was soft in the shadows, a stolen bit of calm before the storm broke. “A while.”
“You should try to go back to sleep. Gonna be a long day.”
“I could say the same to you.”
But the difference was, he was the cause of the long day; he was the asshole who ran the club that tempted other clubs to test their strength. That forced them to answer. When he was twenty-seven, the night they rolled Duane’s body into a hole and Maggie told him she was pregnant, he could have packed up their growing family and driven them clear across the country. Sold his bike. Settled them in a town where no one knew what the black dog tat on his arm meant, gotten a job at a garage, or a grocery store. Mopped floors, anything. Anything to support his family.
Instead, he’d stayed, and he’d led. And by some miracle, Maggie had stayed right by his side. She deserved a medal for that.
Careful not to wake Ash, he reached across and tucked her hair behind her ear, passed his rough thumb across her impossibly smooth cheek. “I’m sorry, baby.”
She frowned. “For what?”
He felt his own mouth attempt a smile, sideways and sad. His daughter was the writer of the family; he didn’t think he had the means to putI’m sorry for your whole life with meinto words with any eloquence. So he said, “Everything.”
“Don’t be sorry.” She reached to lay her hand over the back of his. “Be the meanest damn dog in the fight.”
~*~
Kris startled awake and then wasn’t sure why. Then she saw the figure standing at the end of her bed.
“Shit,” she breathed in the same moment that fear spiked and, just as quickly, realization dawned.
Mercy had a point about getting Reese a bell. He was her own brother and he still managed to scare the hell out of her.
She pushed upright, so tired she felt drunk, head fuzzy and eyes full of grit. “What are you doing?” As her vision cleared, she saw that dawn was breaking, pale light filtering through the curtains, and that Reese was dressed for a job: black skinnies, combats, his grubby surplus jacket, and beneath it, Kevlar. The black turtleneck that covered his pale throat, hair tied back at his nape with a band, so it wouldn’t get in his way. If he pulled his hood up, he’d be set, ready for battle.
“I,” he started, gaze on the floor, corner of his mouth tucked back in a rare show of doubt. Expressing himself was difficult, always, having been denied the privilege for so long, but this seemed different. She felt the tension coming off of him. His hesitancy.
“I want,” he tried again, sighing through his nostrils, frustrated now. “Be careful.” His eyes snapped up to hers, electric, raw, full of emotion that he clearly didn’t know how to handle. “I want you to be careful.”
Kris bit her lip – and bit back all the things she wanted to say. She wanted to tell him that he should stay here, that he didn’t have to involve himself in this war. That she wanted him to find a way to crack his shell and let her in, just a little. Even though it would doubtless take months and months for therapy to accomplish such a thing.
What she said was, “You be careful too.”
He nodded and turned away, left as soundlessly as he’d no doubt entered, when she’d been sleeping.
Kris blew out a breath and flopped back onto her pillow, body alive with nerves, now. She hated this – all thisemotion. She had no idea how to handle it; no doubt she needed a therapist too.
She stared at the ceiling, buzzing with anxiety, until she realized there was no hope of going back to sleep, and no sense in staying in bed. She flipped the covers back, stepped into her flip-flops, and ventured out in search of coffee.
The hall was dark, but several doors bore strips of light along the bottoms. She heard muffled voices, shuffle of sheets and feet on carpet. The clubhouse was packed to the gills, every intown member and his family, all of them crammed into small dorms with folding cots and playpens for the babies.
Just a few months ago, being surrounded by so many bikers would have been horrifying and mundane.
Now, it wasn’t horrifying – these people weregoodin her eyes – and for that reason she was nervous in a way she never had been when she was a slave. She never knew when her standing here might change; in so many ways, she was finding out that the pressure of the unknown could be twice as frightening as known terrors.
