Chapter 7
POV: Colt
The house had finally gone quiet enough to hear the clock in the hall.
Three in the morning. The east barn was a black skeleton against the stars, still smoking in places.
Jax had the night watch on the south fence line.
The rest of the men were racked out in the bunkhouse with orders to sleep with their boots on.
I should have been doing the same. Instead I found myself standing in the dark kitchen doorway staring at the shape on the porch swing.
Ember.
She sat with her knees drawn up, one of my old flannel shirts swallowed around her, bare feet tucked under the edge of the cushion.
The bandage on her temple was fresh. The Blackthorn ring still glinted every time she flexed her fingers.
She didn’t look at me when the screen door creaked, but her shoulders tensed like she had known I was coming.
I stepped out and let the door shut soft behind me.
The night air smelled like scorched hay and the metallic bite of spent gunpowder that never quite left after a fight.
Somewhere out in the pasture a horse blew hard through its nose.
Ordinary sounds. None of them settled the restless thing under my ribs.
“You’re supposed to be asleep,” I said.
“So are you.”
I took the other end of the swing. The wood groaned under my weight. We sat in silence long enough for the cold to seep through my jeans. She kept her eyes on the dark stretch of land between the house and the burned barn. I kept mine on her.
“I read the files you left on the desk,” I said eventually. Not a question. “The false routes. The cooked numbers. Someone’s been bleeding both sides for years.”
Her mouth tightened. “I told you it wasn’t solid yet.”
“It’s solid enough.” I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “Talk to me, Fire. No more fragments. No more protecting me from the truth like I’m still fifteen and too green to handle it.”
She was quiet so long I thought she might refuse again. Then she exhaled and the words came out rough.
“The texts,” she said. “Every single one. Birthday. Christmas. The nights you were too drunk to pretend you didn’t care. I read them all. Sometimes more than once. Sometimes I typed replies and deleted them before I could send.
It was the only way I could stay close without putting a target on your back.”
Something in my chest pulled tight enough to hurt. I stared at my hands—the same hands that had held a branding iron at fifteen, that had killed men tonight, that still remembered the exact shape of her waist from a lifetime ago.
“Those texts were the only thing that kept me from going pure monster,” I admitted.
Voice low. Honest in a way I hadn’t been with anyone in years.
“After you left I had two choices. Become the reckoning my father trained, or hold on to the one person who ever made me want to be better than that. I chose the texts. Every damn year. Even when it made me look like a fool.”
She turned her head. In the thin light from the kitchen window I could see the shine in her eyes. Not tears. Something fiercer. The emotional fracture I had watched widen since she woke up in my bed was right there on the surface now.
I reached for her left hand. She didn’t pull away.
The Blackthorn ring felt wrong under my thumb—too heavy, too cold, a claim that didn’t belong.
I worked it off slowly, careful of the swollen skin and the rope burns still raw on her wrist.
She watched me do it without speaking. When the ring finally slid free I closed my fist around it, stood, and walked to the porch rail.
I threw it into the dark as hard as I could. The gold caught the starlight once and disappeared toward the pasture.
“You’re not walking down any aisle that isn’t mine.”
The words came out quiet, but they landed like a brand. I turned back to her. She was still on the swing, bare feet on the wood now, my flannel hanging off one shoulder. The place where the ring had been looked naked. Vulnerable. Mine.
I crossed the porch and stopped in front of her.
Close enough that her knees brushed my thighs.
Close enough to catch the faint scent of my soap on her skin and the deeper note that was just Ember.
My hands found the chain of the swing on either side of her head, caging her in without touching.
The possessive thing in me that had been pacing since I cut her out of those ropes finally stopped and focused.
“Seven years,” I said. “I waited. I drank. I rode every animal that wanted me dead just to feel something that wasn’t the missing of you. And the whole time you were out there reading my words and deciding I was safer hating you.”
I leaned down until our mouths were a breath apart.
“No more. You don’t get to make that call again. You’re here. You’re breathing. And you don’t get to leave this porch until you understand that the only aisle you walk is the one that ends with my name on you.”
Her breath hitched. She didn’t lean in. She also didn’t lean away. The silence between yes and no stretched taut as wire. I could feel the heat of her, the slight tremor in the air where our bodies almost touched. My control was a frayed rope and she was the open flame.
“Colt…” My name on her tongue sounded like both a warning and a plea.
I stayed right there, forehead nearly against hers, letting her feel exactly how little space I was willing to give.
The bruises on her face, the cut on her collarbone, the way her pulse hammered in her throat—every mark made the possession climb higher.
I wanted to carry her inside, lock the door, and remind every inch of her who she had always belonged to. I wanted to hear her say it out loud.
She opened her mouth.
The screen door slammed open hard enough to rattle the frame.
Jax stood there in boots and an unbuttoned shirt, rifle in one hand, phone in the other. His face was set in the particular grim lines he only wore when the trouble had stopped being ranch trouble and turned into something with badges.
“Federal agents at the front gate,” he said. “Three black SUVs. They’ve got a warrant. Ember’s name is on the first page.”
I straightened slowly. Ember’s hand had found the front of my shirt without either of us noticing. Her fingers were curled tight in the fabric like she wasn’t ready to let go even now.
The quiet night was over.
Whatever came next would not be.