Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
acelynn
Three Knights stood in my bedroom, each one with a different reaction to the scene they were witnessing. Kaius hadn’t said much since I confessed everything about Logan. His silence was worse than yelling. It felt sharp, heavy, and made my anxiety claw at my chest like a trapped animal.
“I am not touching that thing,” Nolan muttered, nodding toward the coiled snake in the glass dome.
A laugh slipped from my lips, but died instantly when Kaius shot me a warning look. I dropped my gaze, shame washing over me. There was no way I could go to Watson or Parsons about this without Logan finding out. And if he did, there was no telling what he would do to me in retaliation.
Which left me with only one option—asking the Knights of Lovelen for help. And right now, I wasn’t even sure if trusting them had been a good idea.
“Vince,” Kaius barked out, his voice deep and gravelly. “Get the snake and dispose of it.”
Without a word, Vince emerged from the shadows he had been sulking in like he’d been waiting for orders.
He grabbed the chessboard, the reptile thrashing violently against the glass as he stalked out of the room.
I shuffled my feet back and forth, bracing myself for Kaius to finally explode.
I deserved every ounce of fury he was going to unleash on me, maybe not for what I had done, but for what I hadn’t told him yet.
“Logan Reid was stripped of his patch from the Death Dealers two years ago.” Kaius’s voice was deadly quiet. The control in every word made them even more terrifying.
I could feel his stare burning into me. Tears pooled at the corners of my eyes, but I refused to look at him.
He continued, “We were explicitly told he was dead. So tell me, Acelynn, how the hell is he suddenly back from his shallow grave?”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled. The truth was slippery even in my own mind.
Even the good memories with Logan were now shrouded in darkness if I tried to reflect on them.
I swallowed hard. “We met in college in North Carolina. He had this fascination with the club life. Particularly the Knights of Lovelen and the Death Dealers, but I didn’t think much of it at the time.
Just let it go in one ear and out the other when he started on about it again.
Logan graduated a year before me and moved back home to California. ”
My throat felt like it was on fire as I told the story, because all of it was the truth, one that Acelynn didn’t live, but a scared girl who had let him push her around, and that scared me to divulge to the men who had betrayed my family.
Clearing my throat once, I continued on, “Or at least that’s what I believed until he showed up at my dorm one day with a fresh tattoo and a story about initiation.
It just got worse from there. His anger and outbursts suddenly felt charged by something more sinister.
Logan started claiming he was being unfairly treated in the club and had a whole conspiracy on how the leaders were out to get him.
That’s what got him stripped of his patch. ”
“Why did you think he was dead?” Nolan asked, gaze full of skepticism.
I shrugged once. “I got a call from someone claiming to be a part of the club that said they skinned his tattoo from his body, and they didn’t cauterize the wound quickly enough, so he bled out. Didn’t seem to ask for a picture of the crime scene for proof.”
“You don’t skin a patch off for someone who gets one of your own killed,” Nolan snapped this time.
I could feel the blood drain from my face. My feet stumbled back until they hit the wall, forcing me to stay in the room with the two of them.
“I had no idea,” I whispered. It wasn’t a lie.
When Logan and I had first gotten together, he had been secretive.
Obsessive. And I had thought it was fun to be with someone like that.
That was before I figured out Logan didn’t love me.
It was my last name he fell in love with because he understood the power that came with it.
When he finally wormed his way into the club, it had become clear to me our relationship was failing, and the anger he felt for everyone involved in the club life that “wronged” him was taken out on me.
I grimaced at the memories that flashed across my mind, but as quickly as they came, I shoved them back into their little box.
Nolan exhaled, averting his gaze from me. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“Nolan,” Kaius warned, but his second didn’t seem to care much for it as he flashed him a steely look. Reaching up, Kaius ran one hand through his light-colored hair and then down his face. “You’re right.”
“Usually am,” Nolan replied with a shrug.
I forced down the bile rising in my throat and found the courage to speak again. “I thought he was dead, if that makes any of this any better.”
Kaius stared at me, his expression unreadable. “It doesn’t. But it was worth a shot, kitten.”
I smirked at his pet name. Something about it sent a wave of calm over me. If he was calling me kitten again, that could only mean that his anger wasn’t directed at me anymore, but at the man who had painted my ceiling with blood.
Kaius extended one finger, beckoning me forward. “Come here.”
I moved slowly, every step cautious as my brain tried to catch up with my movements.
When I reached him, Kaius placed his hands gently on my shoulders and turned me, so my back was pressed up against him.
Taking one hand, he reached under my chin and tilted it toward the ceiling.
“Look closer at the words. See how he capitalized certain letters?”
Kaius kept me locked in place as I stared at the bright red letters above my head.
The first word was the only one that had the odd capitalization to it, and as soon as I put it together, I could feel my legs give out from under me.
Kaius caught my weight, not letting me crumble to the floor below me.
A whisper left my lips as I spoke. “Prey. He always taunted me, telling me I was his favorite prey to chase.”
“And now the prey will become the predator.” Kaius’s hot breath met my left ear as he spoke. “I’ll make sure of it.”
KAIUS
Acelynn trembled beneath me, her wide eyes staring up at the blood-slicked words scrawled across her ceiling. Fear radiated off her in waves. I had meant it when I said my little kitten would not become prey to a fallen member. She was mine to chase, mine to protect. And I didn’t share.
I let go of her jaw, my fingers reluctantly sliding away from her skin. She made no attempt to step away from me. Instead, she wrapped her arms tightly around her middle, shoulders caving in as if her own bones were too heavy to bear.
Shifting my attention away from her, I turned toward Nolan. “Take Acelynn back to the Queen’s Table. Have Astoria set her up in one of the dorms.”
She didn’t argue. That alone sent a fresh feeling of unease crawling down my spine.
In the short time I have known her, Acelynn has always been fire and sharp edges—never silent compliance.
Whatever had happened between her and Logan had left fractures she hadn’t let show until now.
I knew Logan. I knew what kind of chaos he thrived on when he wore the Death Dealers patch.
Alec Spade had always described the new initiate as unstable, dangerous, and the reason why I took my seat at the roundtable years too early.
Acelynn moved like a ghost, her steps clumsy and unfocused.
Nolan stayed close, one hand hovering over the small of her back in case she became unstable.
He glanced over his shoulder at me, a silent promise in his eyes saying I’ll get her home safe.
I didn’t need the reassurance. Nolan had never failed me, but the fact that he gave it anyway twisted something in my chest.
As the front door clicked shut behind them, Vince emerged from the shadows again, rubbing one hand over the top of his forearm where two perfect, angry puncture wounds were visible.
I let out a laugh. “Need me to suck the poison from your wounds?”
“Shut up,” Vince grumbled at me as he shot me a dirty look, knowing that a rattler’s poison would do him no harm thanks to his father’s insistence on building immunity to every poison he could find.
Vince’s dad had given my own father the idea of using hemlock against our enemies, but neither of us had known that he was sick enough to test his experiments on his own flesh and blood. Vince had survived that hell, and I respected him for it.
His gaze flicked to the ceiling, then back to me. “I told you she was hiding something.”
“She had already alluded that she was in danger,” I replied coolly. “We were going to talk particulars this afternoon.”
“She was with an excommunicated club member,” Vince snapped, voice cracking like a whip. It was rare to see him lose his calm, but the moment we stepped into Acelynn’s house, he’d been on edge.
It wasn’t hard to see why either. Acelynn’s home was bare. No moving boxes piled high. No trash needed to be removed from the bin. Not a single nail hole in the wall for decor to show off her personality. Acelynn Thorton did not live in this house. Slept here, maybe. But that was all.
And Vince knew this. He threw a hand toward the red scrawl above the bed. “Read the damn writing on the wall, Kaius. She isn’t who she says she is. That girl is a Spade.”
“Watch your mouth,” I growled out.
My heart pounded against my chest rapidly as the lies I had been trying to convince myself of for over a year threatened to bubble over. Alec Spade’s frantic voice echoed in my ears from the night that he was killed by his own father. The night the Spade family went to their graves.
Alec’s sister was never around the club life. He made sure of it and forced his father to send her to the most elite schools he could find, where she would be safe. But the time of his father complying with Alec’s demands had run out.
The booming sounds of a full bar thudded around the silence in my office. I was buried in paperwork Astoria had tossed onto my desk earlier when my office door flew open, slamming into the wall.
I looked up, coming upon the last man I expected to be walking through the Queen’s Table on a Saturday night when it was crawling with Knights.
Alec Spade, the VP of the Death Dealers Motorcycle Club, stood tall in the doorway, his hands shoved in the dark jeans he wore. I leaned back in my chair, reaching down to trace the underside of my desk where one of my many hidden gun safes sat.
“What can I do for you, Spade?” I asked, voice clipped with annoyance.
His chest heaved upward as if he was trying to find the courage to speak.
I furrowed my brow at the man. I had never once seen Alec show even an ounce of fear when it came to club business, but now he was practically shaking in front of me.
His bloodshot eyes frantically searched around the room on their own, as if his mind was racing faster than he could explain.
“I need to call in a favor.” Alec’s voice was rough with emotion. I nodded, waiting for him to continue. He stepped fully into my office, shutting the door behind him, keeping his back to me.
Frowning at the man, I spoke, “The Spades and Knights don’t strike deals anymore. Not after the last one went south.”
“I know,” he whispered. “So that must tell you how desperate I am, Kaius, to come ask the devil for help.”
Alec turned back to me and began toward one of the chairs in front of my desk. He slumped down, face falling into his hands as they raked through his long brown hair.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “What is it you need, Alec?”
“I need your help killing my father.”
“Kaius.” Vince’s voice pulled me out of the memory where I damned us all.
The Knights, except for Nolan and Vince, thought the Iron Serpents, a smaller club which had been a thorn in our backsides since the moment they arrived outside of Lovelen, executed the Spades.
But it had been my hand that had pulled the trigger that killed Bran Spade seconds after he burned his own family alive in the family home.
That night had left scars we didn’t talk about, and Vince had never forgiven me for dragging us into it.
“Get a cleanup crew in here,” I said flatly, my shoulder connecting with his as I stalked out of the room.
“Don’t let the fantasy of pussy cloud your judgment,” Vince called toward me. I paused in the hallway as he continued, “We can’t afford another devil in our bed. Next time, it’ll be you choking on your own blood.”