Page 50 of Heresy
An hour passes.Or maybe it's a lifetime. We stand in a silent, helpless vigil as Doc works, the only sounds the soft clink of his instruments and the steady, fragile beep of the heart monitor.
Finally, Doc straightens up, peeling off his bloody gloves with a sigh that seems to carry the weight of the entire night. He looks at me, his eyes hollow with exhaustion.
"He's stable," he says, his voice a dry rasp. "The bleeding is stopped. He's not out of the woods, but he'll live."
The collective tension in the room doesn't just break; it shatters. Zero slumps against the wall, dropping his head into his hands in a rare display of emotion. I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding for an hour, the world rushing back in with a dizzying force. We are exhausted, we are bloodied, but we are victorious. We saved him.
In the quiet aftermath, the other brothers start tending to their own wounds or just collapse into chairs. My gaze sweeps the room, looking for her. I find her at a deep, industrial sink in the corner, her back to me. She's washing the blood—Rook's blood—from her hands and arms, her movements slow and methodical.
I walk toward her, my boots heavy on the concrete floor. The other men see me approach and instinctively melt away, leaving the two of us alone in our own bubble of charged silence. The adrenaline is gone, leaving something raw and exposed in its place.
I stop a few feet behind her. I watch the water run pink in the sink. The events of the night collide in my head with the force of a physical blow. Her intel on Grizz saved us from being slaughtered in our own home. Her calm in the cell saved me from my own suicidal rage. Her steady hands at Doc's side just now may have been the deciding factor that saved Rook's life.
She is not a liability. She is not a complication. She is the reason we are still standing.
The debt I owe her is immense. And in my world, a debt this profound cannot be paid with words or money. It is a primal thing, a ledger that must be balanced in blood and flesh. The obsession, the curiosity, and this new, terrifying sense of gratitude all merge into a single, undeniable need.
She must feel my presence, because she stills, her hands frozen under the running water. She doesn't turn around.
I close the distance between us. I don't grab her. I don't snarl. My hands come up to her shoulders, my touch surprisingly gentle. I feel a tremor run through her body, but she doesn't pull away. I slowly turn her around to face me.
Her face is pale, streaked with grime and blood, her dark eyes wide and full of a weary, defiant fire. I look at this woman whohas been my prisoner, my obsession, my strategist, and now, my savior.
The king in me knows I should thank her and send her back to her cell. Maintain the distance. Reassert control.
But the man, the one who is drowning in his own ghosts, needs something else entirely.
I lower my head, and my mouth finds hers. It's not a punishing kiss of rage or a desperate act of possession. It's a collision. A raw, messy search for life in the face of so much death. It tastes of blood and whiskey and the salt of her skin. It's a question and an answer, a confession and a claim, all at once.
To my shock, she doesn't just endure it. After a moment of rigid stillness, she responds, her hands coming up to grip the front of my cut, her mouth opening to mine. It's not an act of passion; it's an act of survival, a shared, desperate need to feel something other than pain and fear.
This is no longer about captor and captive. It's a raw, brutal acknowledgment of the new, unbreakable bond forged between us in the heart of the fire. A debt being paid. A new war is just beginning.
Peacein the safe house is a fragile thing, thick with the smell of antiseptic and the shallow breathing of my wounded brother. I stand watch outside the medical bay, a king without a kingdom, my entire world reduced to the four walls of this anonymous warehouse. I’m not sure what will be of our clubhouse when all of this is said and done. The Kin have enterprises and safe houses all over the East Coast. This was just the quickest way to get Rook the attention he needs. Decisions later on might prove we are relocating while we rebuild.
My mind should beon the war, on the club, on the traitor. But it's not. It's on her.
She is the reason Rook is still breathing. Her intel, her calm, her steady hands. She is not a liability; she is the most valuable asset I have. A debt has been incurred. And in my world, debts are always paid.
I find her in the small, sterile kitchen area of the safe house. We are alone. I walk up behind her, caging her against the steel sink.
"You did well tonight," I say, my voice a low rumble against her ear. "You proved your value. Assets are rewarded. Tell me what you want, Vera."
"I want to be free," she whispers, her voice a raw, broken thing.
A humorless laugh escapes me. "Anything else."
Her body is rigid, a pillar of resistance. But I know better. The mind screams defiance, but the body has its own truths. I turn her around to face me, pinning her between my body and the cold, hard edge of the sink. Her dark, defiant eyes meet mine.
"You want this," I say, a statement, not a question. I lower my head, my mouth claiming hers. It's not the brutal, punishing kiss from before. It's slow, dominating, a deliberate exploration. I feel the moment her resistance falters, the hesitant touch of her tongue against mine.
"Hex..." she breathes, the name a surrender and a plea.
The sound of my name on her lips is the final blow to my restraint. My control snaps. My hand finds the hem of her skirt and I shove it upward, bunching the cheap fabric around her hips. Her panties are a flimsy, final barrier. I hook my thumb into the waistband and rip them down, the sound of tearing lace a satisfying punctuation in the tense silence. My calloused fingers find her wet heat, a stark contrast to the cold steel of the sink. She gasps, her body ready for me, betraying the defiancestill warring in her mind. A grim, possessive satisfaction courses through me.
I position myself and plunge into her with a single, hard thrust.
TWENTY-THREE
