Locke sniffed, his brawny frame as familiar to me now as Rubi’s. “It wouldn’t have happened without you.”
“Me?”
Locke squeezed me a little harder. Then pulled back to grin at me with so much peace in his gaze. So much fucking love. “I know it was Nash who brought us in from no-man’s land, but it was you who gave him the freedom to do that. And if you hadn’t...” Ghosts threatened the light in Locke’s eyes. “Can’t speak for the others, but I know I’d be dead, and even if I wasn’t, I sure as fuck wouldn’t be living a life my brother wants to be part of.”
“He’s always loved you.”
I knew that—I’d seen it.
Locke knocked his forehead to mine. “Yeah, but loving someone sometimes means leaving them to their fucked-up fate, and you gave me a fuckin’ future instead.”
Not just me. Barely fucking me. And Locke had saved us as much as we’d saved him. But all that had been said, so I let his words be the last until my break time ran out.
I left Locke with his brother and strolled through the festival that had Rubi and Nash stamped on every corner, just as I’d dreamed it would be when the idea had first come to me the night Saint had come home from the haulage run. Out of my depth with men as clever as Folk and Viktor, my brain had wandered, and this, right here, was where it had landed, from the wild mishmash Nash and River called a line-up to Rubi strolling around in his wedding hat and pink pyjamas like the ring master of his own fucking circus. At least when he wasn’t peeling his jaw from the ground at how goddamn bendy Ranger had turned out to be at his midday yoga class.
The dream didn’t have Nash resorting to emergency plumbing, though.
I found him crouched over one of the drinking taps we’d installed across the fields. “What’s up with it?”
Nash spared me a glance. “Just a leak. That’s what I get for fitting them all in one day.”
“Needs must.” I bent to help him, getting a shower of cold water for my trouble, which I wasn’t that sad about. “Locke’s at the Remy show.”
Nash smirked. “I know.”
“Where’s Orla?”
“Putting the kids down. Then she’s comingout.”
“Lord, have mercy.”
“Eh, she deserves a good time.”
Couldn’t deny that. With a baby on each hip, my sister was the same formidable matriarch she’d always been, but she was human, and I knew she missed the freedom only getting drunk and dancing in a field all night could bring.
We fixed the tap in time for a brother to report a brawl on the other side of the festival.
Outsiders.
Had to be.
No patched Rebel King would dare. They’d been fucking warned.
I hopped a fence, Nash on my heels, and jogged to the rear of the bar tents.
Decoy had it handled, Mateo lurking in the shadows to be sure, but I wasn’t shy about showing my face. This wasourfestival, our future. If some drunk cunt wanted to fuck it up, they had to go through me first.
That was the theory anyway.
River, of all people, eased me back. “There’s a reason you asked Folk and Decoy to handle security, and it wasn’t so you could punch everyone yourself.”
Too true. I’d asked them because they were the least likely to punch anyone at all. But having my kid brother stand me down was a new one. “Married life has mellowed you.”
River laughed and pushed his hair back, wedding ring glinting beneath the festoon lights Ranger had spent the last of his patience untangling over the past few days. “Feels good, big bro. You should try it.”
I just fucking smiled as he wandered off. Cos we’d told no one what we’d done. Not on purpose. We just hadn’t, about that, or the house in the woods Saint loved so much he rarely came inside. Just wandered around barefoot in the forest, until one of us fetched him in.Fucking heaven, even with the fugly cat painting Saint had brought from Angel Cottage to nail to the goddamn wall. Without a family to love and a festival to run, we’d have bolted the gate and never come out.
Decoy booted the brawlers, joining us at the sidelines as he radioed Viktor to trail them with Lida. “Everyone okay?”