Chapter 40
Becki
The night swallows me the second Royal lets me go.
Not because he wants to lose me.
Because he knows I’m the only one who can draw whatever monster-masked bastard is hunting girls out.
I’m like chum thrown to a shark.
He tries to hide it. Tries hard to break my heart with his lies. But as I took the bait, I became the bait. I saw the biker follow me. Saw the truth in his tight jaw before he stepped back behind the tree line, gun low, breath sharp.
Because he hates guns.
He hates this.
He hates letting me walk into the dark alone.
Maybe it’s just a lie I tell myself. Or maybe he’ll prove me right.
I pull my hood lower as I approach the old church. The same one we ran from. The same one that breathed wrong. The steeple leans like it’s listening for me. The moon is thin and mean. My boots crunch on broken glass scattered across the porch.
Inside, mold, rot, and old prayers that never reached the sky hit me just like the first time.
“Royal,” I whisper under my breath, even though I know he’s close. Watching. Waiting. Tracking.
He’s stalked me before. And as I don’t see any sign of him, I pray he’s out there.
I take three more steps. That is when the air changes. A shadow separates itself from the wall.
A shape.
A man.
“Becki.”
The voice hits my spine before the name does. A voice from my nightmares.
Martin?
I don’t even get a breath in before something rough slams over my head. A sack. Rope. The scent of gasoline and sweat hits my nose. My scream chokes in the fabric.
The world pitches sideways.
My feet leave the floor.
I kick, claw, twist. Someone laughs. Not Royal. This one is wet, low, eager. I am tossed over a shoulder like a sack of feed.
“Shouldn’t walk alone,” a man I can only imagine as Martin from my vision mutters, voice way too close to my ear. “Your daddy taught you better.”
He carries me out the back, into gravel. My heart slams the inside of my chest. Royal is coming, I know he is. I force my fingers out of the ropes enough to claw skin. If I die, he will smell Martin on me.
A door creaks open. Metal. Industrial.
A warehouse.
I’m thrown to the floor. Pain cracks through my hip. The hood stays on. Boots shuffle. Voices mutter.
Then the hood rips off.
My eyes adjust. A single hanging bulb buzzes overhead. And tied to a support beam, bruised and furious, is Joey.
Royal’s girlfriend.
Or ex.
Or something in between.
Her blonde hair is matted dark. Her lip is split. But her blue eyes sharpen when she sees me.
“Oh fantastic,” she says, sarcasm cutting through the pain. “They brought the preacher’s spawn to keep me company. What did you do, sweetheart, whine too loud at the clubhouse?”
I stare.
She glares.
We both grasp we are in deep shit.
The man kneels beside me, his face hidden by shadows. His breath is sour with whiskey.
“Reverend always said you were special,” he murmurs. “But said the Leaper wanted pure blood.”
“Joey ain’t pure either,” I spit, sounding insulted. “They call her Joey Donut, for fucks’ sake.”
“Yeah, we’re both fucking whores. Let us go,” she wails.
He turns toward her, but I still can’t see his face. “I’m just supposed to get ya scared enough. Soft enough. Ready. The Leaper will decide.”
I spit at him. It hits his cheek.
He backhands me so hard my vision sparks white.
“Touch me again,” I snarl. “And Royal will carve your face off.”
The man’s teeth flash hot in the dark, cracked tooth shining. “Royal ain’t here.”
“He will be.”
His grin falters.
Good.
He drags me across the floor. Rope winds around my wrists. He ties me to a beam opposite Joey. The space between us is maybe ten feet, but it feels like a war zone.
Martin, maybe, maybe not, mutters something about purity, wings, ritual.
Then he leaves. The door slams, echoing. Silence crawls in.
Joey stares at me. I stare back.
“You look like shit,” she says.
“So do you. And you stink.”
She almost smiles. Almost.
We sit there breathing like two feral cats trapped in the same cage.
Finally, she sighs. “How long you been his?” she asks.
The question hits me like a bottle. “I’m not.”
She snorts. “Girl, please. You said he’s coming. Don’t get my hopes up.”
My face burns. “He has you.”
She laughs. Pain laces the sound. “Had. Past tense. Fucker blocked me.”
I swallow. Hard.
Joey smirks at my expression. “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”
“I’m not jealous,” I lie. “I’m confused.”
“Same thing.”
The ropes burn my skin as I shift. “You still love him?”
She stiffens. Looks away. “It’s messy.”
Sighing, I quiet. We both look away until she speaks again.
“You still after Prez?” she asks, just filling the time. “Still love him?”
I shrug best I can under the ropes. Not an answer. Not that I’d give her one.
We go quiet. Then the bulb flickers. A shadow crosses the space.
Joey’s head snaps up. “You hear that?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
The silence grows too big. Too heavy. Someone is here.
My stomach drops.
Before I can warn her, Joey spits blood onto the floor and mutters, “If Royal shows up before that psycho kills us, I’m gonna hit him for letting me get taken in the first place.”
“If Royal shows,” I whisper. “It’s because he followed me.”
Joey’s eyes widen.
“Wait. What do you mean followed you?”
“I was bait,” I confess. “So, we could find you. Save you. What does that say about me?”
Joey stares at me like she’s seeing something new, something dangerous. “He’s in deep. With you.”
The window rattles. A silhouette moves past the glass. My pulse spikes. The door crashes inward.
Metal shrieks. A body slams through it. For a second I think it is the Leaper, wings and all.
But then he steps into the light.
Royal.
Black hoodie. Blood on his hands. Knife already drawn.
His eyes hit me first.
Then Joey.
Then maybe Martin’s behind him, trying to rush him from the shadows.
Royal moves before I can breathe.
Martin lunges.
Royal’s blade flashes.
Martin crashes to the concrete screaming, leg opened from knee to thigh.
Royal kicks his weapon away and hauls him up by his hair.
Joey flinches. I freeze. Getting a good look at his face, my mind goes blank. Not Martin. I don’t recognize him.
Royal’s voice is calm but cold enough to crack steel.
“Where are the others,” he asks. “Who’s helping Crowley. Who took Joey? Who told you to touch Becki.”
He spits blood. “You think I’m scared of you?”
Royal tilts his head. “Not yet.”
He drives the knife into the man’s shoulder. Deep enough to make him scream.
Joey closes her eyes.
I don’t.
I watch Royal break him open with questions, slow and merciless, until the truth spills.
“Old Man Montgomery,” he pants, shaking. “He pays Crowley. Who said the girls needed cleansing. Said Paradise had to be purified. Said the ritual would call the Leaper.”
My stomach drops through the floor. Old Man Montgomery? Sophie’s father. The man my Daddy blackmailed me to blackmail Sophie?
Royal absorbs it like venom.
Then he whispers, “Thank you.”
And cuts the man’s throat.
Joey gasps.
I go still as the waterfall of blood gushes clean out of him. Royal lets the body drop like trash and turns toward us, breath harsh, eyes wild.
But when his gaze finds me, the rage melts.
He crosses to me first. His hands shake as he cuts the ropes. The moment I’m free he cups my jaw, forehead pressing to mine.
“You’re okay,” he whispers. Not asking. Confirming what he’s sure of.
“Yes,” I breathe out anyway.
He moves to Joey next.
She stiffens but doesn’t fight. Doesn’t hit him like she threatened.
Cutting the robes, he frees her, helps her stand when her knees buckle.
Her smile is too bright, and she hugs his neck. “Took you long enough,” she mutters. “B…” She almost calls him baby.
He smirks, flicking his tongue ring, and I see red.
My eyes catch hers, and I make sure mine look crazy.
“Can you walk?” he asks.
She shakes her head, no, businesslike.
Royal scoops her up. We run. Into the night. Into the truck. Royal drives like the devil is chasing us.
Maybe the Demon Leaper is.
The warehouse shrinks behind us, swallowed by fog and dark roads leading back to Hell.
By the time we reach the clubhouse, the Kings are already in church. Voices raised. Angry. Ready for blood.
Royal storms through the doors with me at his side and Joey in his arms.
Legend stands at the front. His eyes widen when he sees the state of us.
Oaks reaches for his gun. Rye curses. Whiskey stops mid-sentence.
The room shifts like tectonic plates cracking.
Legend steps forward. “Royal. We were voting. On you.”
Sitting Joey down to her feet, Royal shoves me behind him.
He growls, “Stop. She stays with me.”
Legend’s eyes cut to me. Something unreadable flickers there. Anger. Resentment. Memory.
Royal squares his shoulders. “She’s mine.”
Silence drops like a hammer.
Oaks whistles under his breath.
Rye mutters, “Hell yeah.”
Whiskey raises his brows, and his glass.
Even Sophie, standing near the back, stiffens before she lets out a breath she’s been holding.
Legend inhales slowly. Then says, “Brother, you can have her.”
I stop breathing.
Royal does too.
But Legend keeps talking, voice low, steady. “You brought back Joey. You brought back answers. And you’re the only one who ever got close enough to crack Crowley’s leash on her. Becki is yours. I ain’t fighting you for her.”
The tension snaps.
Royal grabs my hand.
His knuckles are bloody. His pulse violent. His breath wrecked. He pulls me into his side like a declaration.
Like a vow.
My chest shakes.
My vision blurs.
He claimed me in front of the Kings.
He claimed me like a man ready for war.
And when Legend nods once in approval, something inside my ribs finally stops running. Chasing him.
Royal squeezes my hand harder.
“Come on,” he murmurs. “You’re coming with me.”
I go.
Because after everything tonight, I finally understand something terrifying and true.
I am his.
Royal’s.
And he will burn the world down to keep me.