Page 35 of Heresy
Hex is the last one through the door, and he brings a different kind of storm with him. He is the cold, hard center of the chaos. He's not being carried, but he's hurt. A fresh, ugly split on his lower lip weeps a steady trickle of blood down his chin. A deep, nasty gash on his forearm soaks the sleeve of his shirt in crimson.
He ignores his own injuries completely. His focus is absolute, his presence a commanding force that immediately sucks the panic out of the air.
"Get him to the back room!" he snarls, his voice a low, angry growl that cuts through the panicked whispers. "Now! Get Doc."
The men move with a renewed, disciplined urgency, half-carrying the wounded man toward a back hallway. Hex doesn't follow. He stands for a moment in the center of the room, a wounded king surveying his bloody kingdom. His eyes, burning with a cold, controlled fury, sweep over the room, ensuring his orders are being followed.
From my corner table, I watch him. I see the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his hand is clenched into a white-knuckled fist at his side. I see the exhaustion and the pain warring with the iron will on his face. And for the first time since I was dragged into this hell, I see something other than a monster.
I see a man. Wounded. Bleeding. And for a fleeting, dangerous moment, vulnerable.
The chaosof the entry recedes down a back hallway as the men haul their wounded brother away. Doors slam, and the main room of the clubhouse falls into a tense, charged quiet. The remaining prospects and club girls linger, their eyes wide, whispering in nervous, hushed tones.
Hex doesn't move. He stands alone for a long moment, a statue carved from violence and exhaustion. Then he turns and stalks toward the bar, his movements stiff. He grabs a clean glass and the nearest bottle of whiskey—the cheap stuff, not his usual Macallan. His uninjured hand pours, but his injured one rests on the bar, the knuckles white with tension. I see it then, a slight, almost imperceptible tremor in his fingers, a weakness he is desperately trying to conceal from his pack. He is a wounded predator, and he knows it.
My entire being screams at me to stay put. Be invisible. Be a ghost. Do not draw the attention of the wounded animal. It is the voice that has kept me alive for years, the voice that preaches survival through silence and stillness. To move is to become a target.
But another voice, one that has been growing louder and colder since the night in the hallway, pushes back. This is an opportunity, it whispers. A crack in the armor. A king who is bleeding is just a man. And a man can be understood. A man can be broken.
It is a terrifying, insane gamble. A move on a chessboard where one wrong step means annihilation. But to sit here, to do nothing, is to remain a piece he moves at will. To act is to become a player.
The decision makes my heart hammer against my ribs, a frantic, wild percussion. Slowly, deliberately, I push my chair back. The scrape of the wood against the floor is a gunshot in the tense silence.
Every head in the room snaps in my direction. The whispering stops. The prospects freeze, their eyes wide with disbelief and terror on my behalf. I am breaking the most sacred of the new rules. I am, of my own free will, approaching the king.
I don't look at any of them. I stand and walk to the end of the bar, my movements calm and measured, a stark contrast to the storm raging inside me. My hands are surprisingly steady as I pick up a clean bar rag and the bottle of whiskey he had just been pouring from—not for a drink, but for an antiseptic.
With the rag and bottle in hand, I turn. I walk the ten steps across the floor, directly toward him, toward the wounded, glowering predator leaning against the bar. And with every step, I feel the weight of every eye in the room, all of them certain they are about to witness my execution.
He sees me approaching,and his entire body tenses. His eyes, which had been staring into the amber depths of his whiskey glass, snap up to meet mine. They are burning with a mixture of pain and pure, undiluted fury. A low, guttural sound, not quite a word, rumbles in his chest. It’s the sound a wolf makes just before it rips out a throat.
"Get back to your table," he snarls, his voice low and dangerous.
I stop a foot in front of him, close enough to see the way the muscles in his jaw are clenched. I don't flinch. I don't retreat.I simply hold up the rag and the bottle of whiskey. My voice is quiet but steady, a calm island in the sea of his rage.
"You're bleeding."
It’s a simple, undeniable fact, and it seems to short-circuit the violence coiled within him. He is completely thrown. He was braced for a challenge or for cowering fear, not this calm, clinical observation. He stares at me, his dark eyes narrowed, searching my face for the angle, the trick. His gaze drops to my hands, to the steady way I hold the bottle. His rage is at war with a deeper, shocked curiosity. Every instinct, every law of his world, is screaming at him to throw me against the wall for this insubordination.
But for a reason I will never understand, he doesn't. He gives a single, curt, angry nod, a concession that feels as loud as a gunshot in the silent room.
Permission.
I step closer, into his personal space, into the very heart of the storm. The heat coming off his body is a palpable thing. I can smell the sharp, metallic tang of his blood, the sour bite of cheap whiskey, and the dark, intoxicating scent of him that I remember from the hallway—ozone and leather and pure, male fury.
I gently take his injured forearm in my hand. His muscles are coiled beneath my fingertips, hard as steel cables. He flinches at the contact but doesn't pull away. I keep my gaze fixed on the gash, a deep, ugly wound full of grime and road rash. I pour a small amount of the whiskey directly onto the cut. He hisses, a sharp intake of breath, but his arm remains steady under my hand.
I begin to clean the wound, my movements small, precise, and detached. It’s a purely mechanical task, a problem to be solved. But my heart is hammering against my ribs, a wild bird in a cage. I can feel his eyes on me, a burning, obsessive intensity that feels heavier than a physical touch. He is not just watchingme; he is trying to dissect me, to understand the motive behind this insane, suicidal act of care.
I finish cleaning the wound,my focus absolute. My touch is clinical, but the simple act of caring for an injury in this world of brutality is a foreign language, one he doesn't know how to process. His control, already frayed by pain and war, finally snaps.
The trigger isn't anger. It's the unbearable intimacy of the act.
His uninjured hand shoots out, his fingers locking around my wrist like a manacle. His grip is not cold and punishing; it's a raw, desperate act of possession. A low, ragged groan is torn from his throat, a sound of pure agony that has nothing to do with the gash on his arm.
He doesn't drag me. He just turns, pulling me with him, and pins me against the hard, sticky wood of the bar. The movement is a storm of desperation. His body presses against mine, and he is all coiled muscle and trembling tension. The air is thick with the scent of blood and whiskey, a primal cocktail of violence and vulnerability.
His mouth crashes down on mine. The kiss is not a calculated brand of ownership; it's a raw, punishing, and desperate search for something he can't name. It's messy, brutal, and shot through with a pain that is more than just physical. His injured arm is trapped between our bodies, and I can feel a fresh wave of heat as the wound likely reopens. He doesn't seem to notice.
