A phenomenon that wasn’t new, but it was the first time he’d been inside me and Nash hadn’t.Because Nash fucked Locke. A reality I couldn’t stop thinking about. The way their bodies moved together. The sounds they made. Locke’s white-knuckled grip on me as Nash had left his nerves at the door and given our man what he needed. Was it weird to be proud of him? Of them both?
Didn’t care. I was anyway, an emotion that warmed my chest as the trees thinned out and my brooding older brother came into view.
A tatty bike skidded in front of him, its bald tyres struggling for grip on the frosty ground. In the low mist, I barely glimpsed the rider, but I didn’t have to see to sense the seismic shift. The moment where all warmth left me and my heart hardened.
Embry’s Triumph burst out of the trees, both wheels leaving the ground. He brought it down with deft skill, gaining ground on the ailing Sportster at breakneck speed, then backing off, toying with the scrawny leather-clad rider. For fun, I supposed. I couldn’t imagine that my anxious older brother had asked him to draw this out.
Regardless, the path to where Cam waited was finite, and there was nowhere else to go. I caught up with the Softail and we emerged from the woods together, until the Softail accelerated with an angry roar, blasting past Embry and flanking the Sportster, cutting it off.
The Sportster careened into Embry’s path. Embry swerved, gifting him a pass, allowing the surge as the Sportster’s rider rose up on his seat, escape in his naïvecrosshairs if he could dodge the Softail too, a feat he wouldn’t live long enough to accept was impossible.
Patience. Like Nash, Embry had it in spades when he wanted it. Likeme, the Softail rider lacked it. He exploded in another burst of speed, and he finished the game with a vicious ram as loud as the gunshots that had chased us here.
Metal crunched.
Tyres skidding.
Brakes screaming into the void.
The Sportster crashed, a rough hit, but not rough enough for my liking as it fell like a toy soldier, kicking up mud from the frosty ground, wheels spinning in the air, debris scattered wide.
A gun skittered into my path.
I slowed, swooping to retrieve it with gloved fingers, steam rising from the stricken hog as the rider tried to run, learning the hard way that even on foot, Embry was too fast to evade.
Bodies collided.
I came to a stop and slid from my bike. I handed the gun to Cam, not caring what he did with it, my gaze on the prize as Embry stomped it into the dirt, the scent of blood and petrol thick in the air. The sense offamilya shroud around this brutal moment as Cam stepped up beside me and the Softail rider yanked off his helmet, revealing the wild hair and dark eyes that made him look so much like our mother.
River.
My baby brother. I hadn’t asked him to be here, but it felt right that he was. That his gallows smirk found a home in my black heart.
“You’re done for the night.” Cam’s instruction was for the good father.
Embry straightened and cast a glance between us. “You don’t want me to wait?”
“Nah.” Cam boxed his spent smoke. “Link up with the van crew. Ride back and get some sleep.”
An order, not a request. Embry backed up, raking his gaze over me before he disappeared, leaving, as I’d predicted, a groaning piece of shit at Cam’s feet.
With Embry gone, River stepped up, wrapping gloved fingers around a greasy, straggly ponytail, forcing the Sportster’s rider to his knees. A rodenty face with rancid teeth hit the light of the moon and I got my first look at the monster who’d spent more than a decade haunting a family as precious as mine, the burden on the shoulders of a man I loved as much as the first to ever claim my heart.
I got my first look atPriest.
A heartbeat of silence cloaked us, my blood brothers quiet as I took in the repulsive creature on the ground. There was no other word for him. He had rapist vibes for days, and it was horrifically clear why Locke had given so much of himself to keep him away from his loved ones.
FromWillow.
My fingers itched for a weapon Cam had yet to relinquish. I stepped closer, tracking the letchy leer as it rose from the pit of horror this creep called a soul.
He took a breath to speak.
I booted him in the face.
Laughing, Priest hocked blood and a couple of his front teeth. “That’s how this is gonna go, O’Brian? Your bitch talking for you?”
Cam shrugged. “With these two fuckers around, trust me, I’m the bitch.”