1. Crypt Keeper
CRYPT KEEPER
The clubhouse still stank like death.
Not the fresh kind—the kind that hit sharp and metallic and made my wolf seem to pace the inside of my ribs.
No, this was the aftermath kind. Blood scrubbed from floorboards with bleach until the air burned your sinuses.
Smoke clinging to leather and denim like it belonged there.
The faint ghost of Thane’s rot beneath it all, like the walls remembered what we’d done out front and didn’t know whether to be proud or afraid.
I leaned against the bar, arms folded, scanning the room like it was my job.
Because… it was.
Sergeant at Arms meant I kept order. I kept the peace. I kept the brothers from doing something so stupid it got them killed. And when the peace couldn’t be kept?
Well, I kept the bodies from piling up inside our walls.
“Well, you’re good and branded now,” Killswitch teased as he moved the tattoo gun over her skin with precision. But it wasn’t a joke—it was tradition. It meant something in our world that a lot of people didn’t understand.
Mako didn’t laugh when Killswitch said it. His steady gaze locked on his woman said everything anyone needed to know. She was his, and he would die before he let anything happen to her.
Hair piled up on her head to keep it out of the way, Lyra tried to laugh. It came out thin and forced as she squeezed Mako’s hand as Killswitch finished up. Despite her new state, with the type of ink necessary for our kind, it hurt, and I damn well knew it.
“Aww, it’s so cute!” Lily cooed as she peeked over Killswitch’s shoulder.
Once he was done, he took a picture on his phone and held it out for her to see it. “There you go, darlin’, what do you think?”
“I love it,” she whispered. Though she quickly blinked them away, I saw the brief glisten of tears in her eyes.
I’d never admit it, but I had to look away briefly. That was something I’d never have. After all, where the hell was I going to find a woman who would understand that I could shift into a giant wolf and that once a month I had to have myself locked up for the safety of everyone around me?
“Let me get it covered up for you, and then we’ll get ready to get those crawfish started.” He pulled a roll of second skin from the roll-away he kept at the clubhouse and cut off a piece. Then he placed it over her new ink to seal it off.
When he started cleaning up his supplies, Thing One and Thing Three scrambled to get all the stuff to make dinner.
It was Sunday, and the club members always gathered together for dinner.
Thing Two already had the crawfish soaking out on the covered outdoor kitchen we had finished building a couple of months ago.
By now, they should be about clean and ready to go.
Mako sat on the edge of the couch with Lyra tucked tight against his side.
He looked like he’d carved her straight out of his chest and didn’t know how to breathe without her there now.
Lyra’s gaze was distant—still haunted, still raw—but she didn’t flinch when he shifted.
She was learning what she’d become. Learning what it meant to be held by a creature like him and not shatter.
Lily knelt on the cushions behind her, peering at the tattoo at the base of Lyra’s neck, centered over her spine. The kid traced the air above it like she wanted to touch but didn’t dare.
“Be honest… how bad did it hurt?” she asked.
Lyra softly giggled. “It wasn’t a picnic, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” she replied. They continued talking about it, but I tuned them out.
I didn’t need to see it up close to know what it said.
Property of Mako.
Vaguely, I heard them say something about the shape of a shark around it, but that part wasn’t what mattered.
Lily said something under her breath, and Lyra’s smile cracked wide. I could tell it hit Mako like a bullet. His eyes softened in a way that made me want to look away again, but I didn’t. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to watch everything.
That was how you stayed alive.
Across the room, Dexter practically hovered like a damn shadow.
If he could help it, he hadn’t left Lily’s side since Zeus and Thing Three dragged them back from that impossible detour to Fontainebleau State Park.
The kid took a damn sip of water, and Dexter’s hand twitched like he was ready to snatch the cup away and check it for poison.
She shifted on the couch, he adjusted his stance, body angling between her and the door without even thinking about it.
Not possessive.
Not inappropriate. She was just a kid, and he wasn’t a fucking perv. It wasn’t that kind of obsession.
It was more… protective. Perhaps a little too protective. Which made me wonder why.
His eyes tracked every brother that got within ten feet of her. Not because he didn’t trust us—but as if his body didn’t care who we were. Like it reacted on primal instinct.
Like he was guarding something sacred.
Mako clocked it too. The tension in his jaw was unmistakable. The subtle way his gaze flicked to Dexter, then back to Lyra to see if she noticed. Then he shook his head like he was trying to file it away for later. Like he had enough problems already and didn’t have room for another.
We never did.
Things found a way in anyway.
Boomslang’s voice cut through the music and laughter from where he stood near the table, hands braced on the wood like he was holding the clubhouse together with sheer will.
“Listen, everyone… Thane’s dead. That doesn’t mean this is over.
We need to stay vigilant, but we need to live our lives.
Today is for family. Let’s try to enjoy the day. ”
A low chorus of agreement rolled through the brothers. Boots shifted. Glass clinked. Someone muttered what sounded like a curse.
Bait stalked past me with a rag and a bottle of disinfectant, still pissed about having to help Dexter patch up Bugsy again. Bugsy sat propped in a chair, skin still pale under his bruises, jaw clenched like pain was something he’d simply deal with in a mind-over-matter type thing.
Killswitch, hands still ink-stained despite scrubbing them in the bar sink, flicked open a lighter and snapped it shut without lighting anything. He’d quit ages ago from what I’d been told. Nervous habit. He wouldn’t admit it, though.
Zeus leaned against a support beam, arms crossed, eyes hard. A warrior waiting for the next war.
And through it all, despite Boomslang’s words… every single one of us was unsettled.
I felt it, and I knew the others did too. It crawled under my skin, the same way it did when a storm rolled in from the gulf and the air went heavy. But this was more than what was going on with the club. This wasn’t simply weather.
This was the moon.
Fuck, it was close. I could feel it like a hook in my spine, tugging. My Rougarou stirred, stretching, scraping at the inside of my skull like it wanted out now.
Not yet, I told it.
Not here.
Not tonight.
My gaze slid toward the door—as if I could see through the trees to the unassuming shack that was nestled there. Where there was a reinforced door we used when the moon got up to its monthly greedy bullshit. The lockup. The chains. The warded steel.
My brothers at first thought I was crazy. They didn’t understand why I chose to lock myself away every full moon. I made them promise to leave after I was secured. If I had any say, they would never see it. But I did it for a reason.
“Dex,” Boomslang said, shifting gears. “You got anything else on how you did that? Getting the kid out. Disappearing.”
Dexter’s mouth tightened. He looked like he wished he could crawl out of his own skin. “No, Prez. I told you. I don’t… I don’t know.”
His eyes flicked to Lily like he was afraid the answer was written on her face. My gut told me there was something he knew that he either didn’t want to discuss… or was afraid to.
Lily hugged her knees to her chest, making her appear smaller than she was, and stared down at the floorboards. It was like if she didn’t make eye contact with any of us, we couldn’t see the cracks in her. Little did she know, we all had our demons.
Lyra’s hand went to Lily’s ankle, a quiet touch. An anchor.
Mako watched it, and I saw his jaw clench.
Boomslang didn’t press. He was good at reading men. And Dexter looked like a man standing on a fault line.
“Fine,” Boomslang muttered, his voice hard.
“We’ll circle back. For now, we lock down the best we can.
No solos. Two-man minimum. We keep eyes on the perimeter, and we don’t,” his gaze swept the room, landing briefly on each of us, “we don’t assume the devil’s done with us just because we cut off one head. ”
A low chuckle came from somewhere near the pool table. Widowmaker. Mean, dark humor. The kind you used so your nerves didn’t eat you alive. We were all good at that.
“Devil never travels alone,” he drawled.
My wolf agreed. So did my brothers.
Restless, I pushed off the bar. The need to shift was making my skin itch.
Mako’s head tilted, tracking me immediately. Not because he didn’t trust me, but because he did. With me being the SAA, if I moved, it usually meant something.
Then, I gave a little shake of my head. It’s nothing. I nodded once toward the door. Mako’s eyes narrowed like he already knew what I was about to do.
Unfortunately, Boomslang caught it too. “Crypt,” he warned.
I stopped but didn’t turn all the way around. “Need air.”
“Ha! You need a fucking babysitter,” Zeus called, half joking, half not.
With a cocked brow, I flashed him an amused look. “I’m not the one who gets lost.”
“That was one damn time,” Zeus grumbled. A few low laughs broke the tension, quick and rough. Then they died as fast as they came.
Boomslang’s voice softened just enough to be real. “No. Solos. Besides, we’re about to start the food.”
“I’ll be in the bayou,” I reasoned. “Close. I’ll be back in time to eat.”
His stare held mine for a beat, weighing it. Then, as if he could sense the deep restlessness within me, he reluctantly nodded once. “One hour.”