Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
LOCH
Smoke snakes through the morning air, the remnants of last night’s campfires still smoldering in their fire rings.
I inspect them, walking past the row of RVs as campers emerge for the dawn.
“Mornin’, Ranger.” Sue, a spry older woman with a long silver braid, raises her coffee mug. “Can I pour you a cup?” She and her wife fish here almost every weekend.
“No, thank you.” But I pause for a chat. “How were the trout last night?”
“Damn delicious with butter and dill.” She plops into her camping chair, grinning, “How was your date last night?”
For two months, Alena and I have guarded our tender secret. In a way, it’s felt more special. Our sweet dinners together. Our hot nights in bed. Our morning laughs over pancakes. Hell, even doing our laundry together is goddamn bliss to me.
But I had to tell someone, and Sue is a retired cop. I trust her in many ways.
“Perfect when I gave her a bouquet of coneflowers.” I grin. “Then a little dancing after some steaks and cheesecake, and she was all mine.”
Sue and her wife, Juliana, who’s still sleeping in the RV, I guess, love hearing about my secret romance with Ranger Allen. But I love their trained eyes on this campground. Juliana is a retired homicide detective.
I nod toward the motorhomes and fifth wheels in their reserved spaces. “Everyone behaving around here?”
“Nothing suspicious,” Sue shares before sipping her steaming cup.
She’d know. She’d tell me.
It’s also been two months since Alena rescued Sasha, and we haven’t heard a peep from the Feds. Alena told me about an odd man in the convenience store. How she called the Feds about him, so I told Wilder and Remi, who have a cabin up the road, to keep an eye out.
Like Alena, I have a bad feeling about that man, though for more reasons.
Was he involved in Sasha’s trafficking, or a Bratva soldier? Has my father finally found us? Or was he one of our local enemies?
All I know is that it’s been quiet.
Too damn quiet.
Guess whoever was running victims through here knows this location is burned. We’re watching. And in a mountainous national park of eight hundred square miles, you need every pair of eyes you can trust.
“Come by tomorrow,” Sue offers, “and take our catch from today and make that lady of yours another delicious dinner.”
“Can’t.” I adjust the brim of my hat as dawn crests over the ridge. “Going home tomorrow.”
“Where’s that?” Sue asks politely, but it’s not an innocent question.
My home, my origin, my family. A retired cop can’t know about it.
“Edisto Island,” I answer, close to the truth and keeping my story consistent. They chat with Alena too.
Sue nods. “That’s some damn good bass fishing down there. We’ll have to visit you one day.”
The Southerner in me wants to agree and bake them some biscuits. The Bratva in me cocks a brow, wondering if a good cop can smell my criminal DNA from a mile away.
“It’s a date. Maybe this fall.” I raise my hand, turning toward my SUV. “See ya next weekend.”
“You too,” she calls out while I give one last glance at the RVs in the campground, noting that none look like the one I know Sasha escaped from, the one Carter was in.
I have no proof, just a burning instinct because my brothers can’t find Carter either. He’s in the wind.
It adds to the nerves, bristling the hairs on my neck as I spend my day, like a bloodhound, checking the popular campgrounds.
Alena’s with a group of summer camp kids, all smiles, I’m sure, as she teaches them about soil percolation and forest sustainability, no doubt with dirt on her cute nose.
It’s still there when I meet her outside our cabins at the end of our shift.
I let Mutt out, watching him dash through the woods while she grabs her gear from her truck.
“How’d it go today?” I ask, beaming at the smudge on her face.
“Fun.” She takes off her hat, grinning. “Two boys kept asking me how much bear poop was in the dirt. They were obsessed.”
I laugh, aiming her way. “Boys and poop: wish I could say I don’t know a thing or five about that obsession.”
Fuck. I hide my wince. Don’t usually bring up my family with her.
“When can I meet your brothers?” she asks.
And that’s why.
I brush a lock of hair from her face. “One day, I’m sure.”
“What about tomorrow?” She blinks. “When we go home?”
We’re taking two days off together. Alena’s going home to have a spa day with her, “like a grandmother, Nadine.”
When really, it’s my mom, wanting to keep Alena safe, while I have to drop my guard to initiate another queen. I told my mom that Wilder can watch Alena, but Mom wants time with her too.
And me?
I want to drop a bomb on my lies with Alena. I hate them. When it’s just the two of us, we’re so true and right together, I fucking fight back tears sometimes.
But with everyone else, the secrets are oppressive to the point of pain.
“My brothers don’t live in the Lowcountry anymore,” I lie. “They live on the West Coast with wives, kids, and jobs. I rarely see them.”
“So, it’s just you and your mom when you go home?” Naturally, she’s curious. “But you don’t stay with her on Edisto? You stay with your friend in Charleston?”
“Yeah, he’s my former pastor.”
“Wait.” She perks up. “Who?”
And I’m a fucking idiot. I can’t keep up with the lies.
“Pastor Sire Rutledge.” I shrug. “Why? You know him?”
Fuck yes, she does, and I forgot!
“Yeah!” She beams. “He’s my pastor, too, and good friends with my dad. They met in juvie. Not that they’re criminals now. They were like young Robin Hoods, and now they’re close. Nadine, the one I keep telling you about, who’s been like my grandmother, she’s Sire’s mom. Do you know her too?”
Does giving birth to me count? Or the twenty-nine years she’s yanked my earlobe every time I piss her off?
“Think I’ve seen her at his sermons, yeah.”
“She’s gorgeous,” Alena gushes. “She’s such a badass. You know the sex club is hers, right?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen her there.”
Mom hates it when we use her club to get our kink on, and most of us respect it. We’re usually only there for meetings, except for Grant. He’ll let Delphine and friends suck his Blow Pop anywhere.
“It’s wild, isn’t it?” Alena unravels her braid. “Nadine runs a sex club, but her son is Charleston’s hip pastor and—”
“Honestly, that’s how we got close.” I always try to give her the truth between my lies. “I heard about his church and liked his message: nonjudgmental. Then I spotted him at the club, and we didn’t shame each other for our kinks, and we’ve been close ever since.”
Yeah, I guess I’m most like Sire. Like bookends—the oldest and youngest—binding our family’s story together.
Alena furrows her brows. “So… while I’m having a spa day at The Mercier Hotel with Nadine, you and Pastor Rutledge will go to the sex club? Without me?”
I take her hand, loving the dirt under her fingernails. “Alena, I’ll never cheat on you. I’m just going home to visit my mom and to meet Sire’s new girlfriend.”
Again: half truth, half lies.
Axel told me how Sire has a new, very young girlfriend. Wren Chapel, and she’s Sire’s soulmate. He rescued her from traffickers, and she rescued his heart.
But I’m not going home to meet Wren. I’m going home because we’re initiating a queen tomorrow night. Nick’s queen, Zar. They’re proudly gay, and we happily love Zar too.
I wish Alena could feel it.
The kings and queens. Our risks and rituals. Our secrets and bonds. The danger Alena’s in because she has no idea that she’s one of us. It rips at my seams. I don’t know how long I can hide it.
Staring into her trusting chestnut eyes…
I can’t.
There are too many connections. Too many loose ends. Too many ways Alena can get hurt. There’s only one way to protect her heart.
For now.
“Alena, I want to meet your dad while we’re home.”
Her eyes widen. “My dad? The one who’ll kill any man who touches me?”
The one who’s like a brother to me?
Yeah, it’ll get lethal.
“Yeah, I want him to know about us.” I take her other hand, clasping ours together. “Our worlds are so connected. It’s Fate, right? So let’s tell him about us so we can be together when we go home.”
Fear bends her brows. “God, I want to, and I don’t. I’m a grown woman and proud of the man I’m with—of you.” She squeezes my hands. “But in my dad’s eyes, no matter what I do, I’m forever fifteen, and he’ll be a royal dickhead to you, and I want to protect you. Punches are a real risk.”
No, they’re a certainty.
I step, toe-to-toe with her. “I’ll take a beating for you, Babygirl. Anyone else and I’ll fucking kill them for you. But for your father? I’ll take his rage until it passes.”
“Ironically”—hope and worry dance in her eyes—“you two are a lot alike, and that’s exactly why I know he won’t like you. You’re two alphas and too alpha.”
“He’ll get over it because...” I reach through her silky hair, pulling her dirty nose to meet mine. “Is it too soon to say that I can’t see my life without you?”
“No, uh… Say, say more,” she stammers, cutely killing me.
“You want me to say what I really want to say?”
Slowly, she blinks. “Yes.”
God, I hope that’s her answer to every question I plan to ask.
Softly, I kiss her, hot rocks forming in my throat. My heart, a silent volcano, roars awake, breaking open, finally able to express what I’ve been holding in for years. “I love you, Alena Allen.”
I have to choke back the rest with another deep kiss. My ultimate truth revealed threatens to liberate everything else I hide.
She whimpers over our lips, breathy with her whisper, “I love you, too, and I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be afraid.” I nuzzle her forehead. “I’ll fight for you, I swear. Your dad. Folks at home. Guys at work. Me and my love for you, Alena, we’re too damn big to beat, but I’ll quit my job if it makes yours easier and—”
“No, don’t quit,” she rushes out. “Just promise…” Her lip trembles, eyes glistening. “Just promise me you’ll always come home. I can’t—”
“I know.” Her mom. I cradle her head to my chest. “Even when I’m in the doghouse with you, I promise it’ll be right outside your door. I’m never leaving you.”
She wraps her arms around my waist, squeezing as I cling to my plan to fight for her.
I’ll wait until right after Zar’s initiation, when all the kings are together, and I’ll tell Nash. And Axel.
The rest of my brothers? Maybe they can stop a murder.
Holding Alena in my arms, we jump when a loud motorcycle pops, the sound of its pipes startling us before Wilder, on his Harley, curves around the bend.
The fucker even grins, waving at us as he revs past, taking the next hairpin turn up to his cabin, overlooking ours.
“He’s always so nice,” Alena murmurs.
“Uh-huh.”
No, he’s fucking infuriating. I told him not to ride his hog on the mountain, and all Wilder heard was a rule he was born to break.
I’m just thankful, he’ll break laws for me too. I have no proof, just another burning instinct.
I’ll need Wilder’s help one day when I break skulls for Alena.