ANMELDENJarekHospitals smelled too much like helplessness.Antiseptic. Plastic. Old coffee. Fear dressed up in fluorescent light.I had stood in rooms with bullets flying and felt calmer than I did standing beside Sable’s hospital bed, watching machines do their quiet, indifferent work around her. A monitor blinked green beside her, steady enough to keep me from tearing the whole damn place apart, but not steady enough to make breathing easy.She looked too still.That was the part my mind kept snagging on.Sable was motion. Fire. Smart mouth and stubborn chin and eyes that dared the world to swing first. Seeing her lying there with her face pale beneath bruising, a bandage near her temple, and tubes running from her arm made something cold and primitive settle beneath my ribs.Bryce stood near the door with blood still dried in the creases of his hands. Hannah had one arm around Charlie, but her gaze stayed locked on Sable like she could force the girl awake by sheer will. Marcus stood on t
BryceThe first thing that hit me was speed.Wrong speed.Too aggressive for an empty desert road, too deliberate to be carelessness.One second I was watching Sable lean through the curve ahead of me, sunlight flashing off chrome, and the next my gut turned to ice as the car behind her surged.I knew before my brain caught up.“Kitty, move!”I shouted it through the comm and twisted my throttle, but I was too far back and everything after that happened in the kind of stretched slow motion disaster lives seem to choose.I saw her jerk the bike sideways, saw the car clip her, saw steel and body and asphalt explode apart in a violence too fast for the eye to understand.The sound of metal grinding against road will probably live in my skull until I die.For one sick instant, as I fought my own bike down and threw it into a brutal stop, I caught a glimpse through the fleeing windshield—a face.Recognition hit me like a fist, so shocking my mind rejected it for a split second. Impossible
SableBy the day after Christmas, I had started to suspect the universe might be lulling me into complacency.That should have made me suspicious.Instead, it made me happy.Which was apparently more dangerous.The garage was busy in that low-grade, restless way it always seemed to be when nobody admitted there was real work happening. Bryce was elbow-deep in inventory sheets and muttering over part numbers like they had personally betrayed him when he mentioned needing to make a run into town.It came out casual.Too casual.Which was exactly why I pounced on it.“Can I go?”The words were out before I could pretend I hadn’t asked.Bryce looked up, not at me but over my shoulder, and before I even turned I knew exactly who he was checking with. Jarek, of course, was leaning in the office doorway pretending he hadn’t been listening to a conversation he was very clearly monitoring.Bryce lifted his brows in silent question.Jarek gave one slight nod.That was it—no discussion, no warni
SableChristmas morning arrived in ribbons of gold through the blinds and the warm weight of Jarek’s arm across my waist.For a while I didn’t move. I listened to the steady rhythm of his breathing and the faint sounds of the clubhouse waking below us—doors opening, someone laughing too loudly, Bryce shouting something unintelligible that was immediately followed by Hannah yelling back.Home had never sounded like that before.Jarek was awake when I finally tilted my head.Of course he was.He lay there watching me with a look that made my stomach tighten for reasons that had nothing to do with fear.“You stare at women while they sleep often?” I murmured.His mouth curved. “Only the ones wearing my ring.”I rolled my eyes, but the smile came anyway, and I buried my face briefly against his chest so he wouldn’t look too proud of himself.He looked too proud anyway.He lifted a hand and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, studying me with a kind of quiet satisfaction that should hav
SableChristmas Eve settled over the clubhouse louder than any holiday had a right to.Someone had dragged in a cedar that looked like it had been bullied out of the desert and forced into seasonal participation, and now it stood in the corner of the common room sagging beneath mismatched ornaments, colored lights, and enough tinsel to qualify as a fire hazard. Bryce had declared the crooked angel on top “punk rock,” which earned him a threat from Hannah involving a serving spoon and his kneecaps. Charlie laughed so hard she nearly dropped a tray of cookies, and half the men in the room pretended they weren’t enjoying the whole thing as much as they were.It should have looked ridiculous. It did, honestly. But there was warmth beneath the rough edges, a strange kind of comfort in the way the room had shifted from leather, smoke, and steel into something almost domestic. Not soft exactly. The Black Daggers didn’t know how to be soft. But there was something close to it in the glow of c
MarcusBy the next day, I had decided the smartest thing I could do was behave as though none of it had happened.The kiss.The tension.The way her mouth had answered mine before I’d come to my senses.All of it.Bury it.Leave it where it landed.Simple enough in theory.In practice, it turned out pretending not to feel something often made a man feel it harder.The clubhouse had fallen into that strange holiday disorder that looked chaotic from the outside but somehow functioned anyway. Decorations were half up, boxes half unpacked, and people kept migrating from work to flirting to arguments and back again in no predictable sequence. Hannah had everyone operating under a system only she understood. Bryce contributed mostly commentary.I tried to lose myself in tasks.Sorting lights.Fixing a faulty extension cord.Helping Charlie anchor garland across the common room beams.Anything useful.Anything that didn’t require thinking about why I kept noticing where Sable was every few m
JarekSable stopped a few feet away from me, her arms folded and her eyes narrowed like she was deciding whether she wanted to punch me or prove me wrong.“You’re crazy,” she said.I leaned back against the dresser, folding my arms across my chest as I watched her.“And you’re chicken.”The reactio
SableThe knock came again just as I finished adjusting the strap on my shoulder.My heart kicked hard against my ribs, and I stood frozen for a second, staring at the door like it might magically open on its own and confirm what I already suspected.
SableMy hand still felt warm when I walked out of Jarek’s room.Warm and very aware of exactly what it had just been touching.I forced my face into something neutral as I walked down the hallway, even though my heart was still beating like I’d just sprinted a mile. The entire encounter replayed i
JarekThe hallway outside Sable’s room felt too quiet.I walked the length of it without really seeing anything in front of me. My mind was still stuck on the same image it had been replaying since the moment I stepped away from her door.Her arm.The bruise.Luke’s hand wrapped around it.My jaw t







