Chapter 2 Blake
BLAKE
The heat of the forge usually settles my blood. There is a simplicity to fire and steel that makes sense to me in a way people never have. You heat the metal until it surrenders, you strike it until it obeys, and you quench it until it hardens into something unbreakable.
But tonight, the hammer in my hand feels wrong. The rhythm is off.
I bring the three-pound sledge down on the glowing bar of high-carbon steel, sending a shower of orange sparks spitting across the concrete floor of my workshop. The sound rings out, a sharp clang that echoes off the corrugated metal walls, but it doesn't drown out the noise in my head.
Tiffany.
It’s been twelve hours since I walked into her bakery. Twelve hours since I let the monster off its leash just enough to let her see the shine of its teeth. I told myself I did it to warn her, to fix the lock on her back door so the ghosts from her past couldn't slip inside.
Lies. I did it because I was tired of watching from the shadows. I did it because the sight of her kneading dough through the front window at 4:00 a.m., looking like a curvy little angel dusted in flour, makes my chest ache with a violence that feels like a coronary.
I strike the metal again, harder this time.
The vibration travels up my arm, settling deep in my shoulder.
My phone vibrates against the workbench, buzzing against a pair of calipers.
I ignore it. Only four people have this number—my cousins and the Club President.
If the clubhouse is burning down, they can handle it.
It buzzes again. Two short pulses. Then a third.
The pattern stops my hammer in mid-air. That’s not a call. That’s an alert from the perimeter system I rigged up three weeks ago.
I drop the hammer and strip off my heavy leather welding gloves, snatching the phone. The screen glows with a grainy black-and-white feed from the motion-activated camera I tucked into the eaves of the abandoned building opposite Sweet Pine Bakery.
My blood, already hot from the forge, turns into liquid nitrogen.
A sedan idles in the alleyway behind her shop. Black. Late model. Plates obscured by mud that looks too deliberate to be accidental. Not a delivery driver. Deliveries happen at ten in the morning, not ten at night. Not a customer; the shop is closed.
A man steps out of the passenger side. He wears a windbreaker and a baseball cap pulled low.
He doesn't look like a local. Pine Valley folks move with a certain casual slowness.
This guy moves with efficiency. He checks the perimeter, eyes scanning the windows of the bakery.
He steps toward the back door—the one I just reinforced.
He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a slim metal tool. A lock pick.
"Wrong move," I say, the sound tearing out of my throat like grinding gears.
I don't bother shutting down the forge properly.
I kill the gas to the burners, leaving the steel to cool on the anvil, and grab my cut.
The leather is heavy, the Broken Halos patch on the back a warning to anyone with a brain.
I check the chamber of my Sig Sauer P226 in one fluid motion, then slide it into the holster at the small of my back.
I don't take the bike. I need weight. I need mass.
I vault into the cab of my lifted black Silverado. The engine roars to life, a guttural beast waking up in the quiet of the mountain. I tear out of the gravel driveway, the tires spinning and spitting rocks before biting into the asphalt of the winding road leading down from Grizzly Peak.
The drive usually takes twenty minutes. I’m going to make it in ten.
My hands cramp on the steering wheel, bones threatening to poke through skin. I knew this was coming. I knew her ex-husband wasn’t going to just let her go. Men like that—men who break women to feel strong—they don't understand loss. They only understand theft. He thinks she belongs to him.
He’s about to find out she’s been claimed by something much worse.
I drift around a hairpin turn, the back end of the truck sliding dangerously close to the guardrail. My foot stays buried on the gas. The lights of Pine Valley twinkle below me, peaceful and ignorant. Down there, people are sleeping, watching TV. They don't know a war just started on Main Street.
I pull up the camera feed on my mounted phone. The guy is still at the door. He struggles with the new deadbolt I installed. Good. That hardened steel core is designed to break drill bits and frustrate tension wrenches. He steps back, frustrated, and kicks the door.
He’s losing patience. He’ll break a window next.
I hit the city limits doing eighty. I blow through the single stoplight on the edge of town, the red light reflecting off my hood. When I turn onto Main Street, I kill the headlights. I want to be a ghost until impact.
I swing the truck into the alleyway, the tires crunching over broken glass and gravel. The sedan remains. The guy at the door freezes, blinded by my sudden arrival as I flip on my high beams, flooding the narrow alley with blinding white light.
He scrambles, reaching for his waistband.
I don't give him the chance. I slam the truck into park and kick the door open, the metal groaning. I’m out before the vehicle settles on its suspension.
"Get in the car!" the driver of the sedan screams, the engine revving.
The guy at the door hesitates. He looks at me—a mountain of scarred muscle and bad intentions—and does the math. He sprints for the sedan.
I could shoot him. I could drop him right there on the pavement. My hand twitches toward the small of my back. But shooting a man in downtown Pine Valley brings cops and questions. I don't have time for delays. Punishment comes later.
Right now, I need to be inside that bakery.
The sedan screeches away, peeling rubber as it fishtails out of the alley. I memorize the taillights, filing the image away. I’ll find them. I’ll take them apart piece by piece in the quiet of my forge.
But right now, I turn to the door.
I slide the master key into the high-security cylinder I tapped into the frame this morning.
The tumblers fall with a heavy, mechanical snarl—a sound of pure, unyielding steel.
I don’t need a keypad; I need the tactile certainty of a deadbolt that requires a Gunnar’s hand to move.
I push inside, the hinges silent, a predator entering his own territory.
The bakery smells of yeast and cinnamon, underscored by something sour and sharp. The lights are off in the kitchen, save for the spill of streetlamps coming through the front windows.
"Tiffany!" My voice booms, too loud for the small space.
There’s a crash from the front of the shop. I move through the kitchen with the predatory grace that kept me alive in places where the sand was stained red. I round the corner to the front counter.
She’s there, backed against the display case. She holds a rolling pin like a baseball bat, her grip tight enough to crack the wood, her chest heaving beneath her flour-dusted apron. Her eyes are wide, terrified saucers in the gloom.
When she sees me, the rolling pin doesn't lower. "Who—Blake?"
"Pack a bag," I say. I don't ask.
She blinks, her breath hitching. "What? Blake, you can't just burst in here—"
"There was a man at your back door," I interrupt, stepping into her personal space. I need to be close to her. I need to inhale her scent to wash away the metallic taste of adrenaline in my mouth. "Black sedan. Two guys. One was picking your lock."
Her face goes paper-white. The rolling pin clatters to the floor. "He found me," she whispers. The sound is a jagged shard of glass. "Oh God, he found me."
She takes a deep breath, forcing the tremor in her hands to stop. She squares her shoulders. "He found me." It’s an acknowledgment, not a surrender.
I can’t have that. I reach out, my large, rough hands engulfing her upper arms. I’m careful not to squeeze, but I hold her firm enough to ground her. "Look at me."
She stares at my chest, eyes unfocused.
"Tiffany. Look at me." I give her a gentle shake.
Her gaze snaps up to mine. Blue eyes swim with tears. "He’s going to kill me, Blake. He said if I ever left..."
"He’s not going to touch you," I vow, the promise vibrating through my ribs and into hers. "Nobody touches what’s mine."
The words hang in the air between us. Heavy. Absolute. Confusion wars with the fear in her eyes. Mine. She heard it.
"Yours?" she breathes.
"We don't have time for the conversation you want," I say, releasing one of her arms to grab her hand.
Her fingers are cold, delicate. I could crush them without trying, but instead, I lace my fingers through hers, claiming the space.
"You have five minutes. Get your purse. Get a change of clothes if you have them here. If not, I’ll clothe you. "
"Where are we going?" She moves because I’m pulling her, towing her toward the small office where I know she keeps her bag.
"Up the mountain," I say. "To the Peak."
She resists, digging her heels in slightly. "Blake, I can't. The bakery—I have orders for tomorrow morning. The sourdough starter needs to be fed, I have to—"
I stop, turning on her so fast she bumps into my chest. I wrap an arm around her waist, pulling her flush against me.
The contact makes my cock buck against my fly, a thick, demanding weight that wants to bury itself in her heat.
She’s soft everywhere I’m hard, her tits crushed against the rough leather of my cut, the nipples likely peaking into hard points I can feel through the fabric.
I can smell her pussy from here—soaked in fear and the sweet, musk of a woman who hasn't been claimed in years.
"Fuck the sourdough," I say roughly, staring down into her face. "If you stay here tonight, they will come back. And next time, I might not be watching the feed fast enough. Do you understand? They will take you."
She trembles, a tear spilling over and tracking through the flour on her cheek. "I... I don't want to go back to him."