Chapter 26
Nyxa
The hospital smells cling to me all the way back to the charter: antiseptic, metal, and too many days under white lights. But when we pull through the gates, the first thing that hits me is sound. Music blaring, laughter rolling over chrome and gravel, engines revving just for the hell of it.
The hood’s lit up like it’s the Fourth of July.
I didn’t think I’d ever miss this noise. But God, it feels like breathing again.
The smell of gasoline, wood smoke, leather, and spilled beer hits next, thick, warm, and familiar.
North’s hand is low on my back as he walks me forward the crowd outside lining like were waiting for a parade.
Not pushing. Not dragging. Just there, steady, claiming.
Every step pulls us deeper into the noise: boots stomping the beat, rough voices shouting over music, bottles clinking like distant gunfire.
Eva’s on me before I get two steps in. She grabs my shoulders, spins me so fast my cut flares out. “Was about damn time, Prez,” she shouts over the music, shooting North a look that says finally.
Eyes follow the move, respectful but assessing, and for a second I feel the weight of it, like everyone in here knows exactly what this means. The applause erupts hitting the hidden spot deep under my ribs.
When we push through the Clubhouse door, the place is a goddamn warzone of celebration.
It takes little for tables to get crowded with bottles, half-empty pitchers, and enough food to feed a small army.
The floor is already sticky with spilled beer.
Someone’s yelling over a game of pool in the corner, a couple prospects are arm wrestling near the jukebox, and a girl I don’t recognize is trying to keep up with Rook in a shot-for-shot challenge, and she’s losing.
The Candies are already holding court at their table, three drinks ahead of me.
Jules waves me over like I’ve been gone for years.
Jude pats the seat beside him. Eva drops into a chair, still smirking.
North leans down, his lips brushing my ear.
“Go,” he murmurs, his hand sliding away. “I’ll find you in a bit.”
I sink into the chaos. Laughter, perfume, and leather wrap around me as the girls fill me in on everything I’ve missed—club gossip, hookups, fights, and which prospects have actually earned their keep.
Knowing we lost Shard breaks my heart. I know how close he was with Iron.
I exchange a look with him and he tilts the beer in my direction.
Ashley appears halfway through my first beer, sliding into the seat across from me with a smug little smile. “It took you a hell of a time Miss.”
I pull her in a hug, “You came all the way here?”
“That’s what friends do.” Di grins, “North wasn’t that talkative and when he told us you’re coming home we couldn’t miss it.”
“Thank you.” Emotions hit me like an unexpected wave.
“Recover fast, Firefly,” Ashley says like it’s an order.
I narrow my eyes. “Why?”
“Because I need a new choreography. My competition’s coming up, and my current routine’s about as thrilling as lukewarm coffee.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Ashley, I dance. I don’t teach ice skaters. That’s not my lane.”
She leans in, all confidence and sharp edges, and tilts her beer toward me. “Guess you’ll just have to learn.” She winks, and before I can respond, she’s gone, snatched into some conversation with Blue, one of Black Panthers member.
Then North is there, with Zane, Bullet, Iron, Soul, Tornado and Colt flanking him like a wall of leather and steel. The air changes instantly.
Iron raises his beer at me. “How long till you’re back on your feet?”
I squint. “Why?”
He smirks. “Need a part-time bartender at BB. Thought you might be dumb enough to take it.”
I glance at North, waiting for the verdict. He gives me that short nod that means it’s already decided. “You can have it,” he says. “But you’re starting your courses, too. This hood needs a dance school.”
It’s too much, all at once, and my chest feels tight. I lean into him, hiding my face in the leather of his cut.
“Don’t forget,” Denise calls from the next table, grinning, “we’ve also got a wedding to plan.”
North chokes on his beer. The table explodes into laughter, and I lift my head just enough to smirk. “You haven’t even proposed. Must’ve missed that part.”
His grin is pure trouble. “I did when I gave you the cut, Firefly.”
I tilt my chin up and whisper, “Maybe you should ask me again.”
The chair scrapes back and every head turns.
My heart kicks hard against my ribs.
He reaches me, grabs my hand, and pulls me to my feet.
“North,” I say, breathless already.
His eyes drop to my mouth. “You wanted to play.”
A whistle cuts through the room.
“Get it, Prez!”
Someone laughs. Someone else pounds a fist on the table.
The noise explodes around us, rough and shameless, but North doesn’t look away from me.
Not once. He just tugs me toward the stairs like I weigh nothing, like the whole clubhouse can watch and he still doesn’t care because his mind is already upstairs, already behind a locked door, already full of all the ways he plans to remind me.
Heat floods my face, but I can’t stop smiling. Especially when he bends, hooks one arm beneath my thighs, and lifts me off the floor.
The cheering gets louder.
I gasp and grab his shoulders, half laughing, half melting against him as he carries me through the room. My legs lock around his waist on instinct, and his hand tightens against me in warning.
“Careful,” he murmurs against my ear.
That one word ruins me.
By the time we reach the stairs, I’m trembling for reasons that have nothing to do with fear.
I bury my face in his neck, laughing when the brothers start chanting his name, but North stays silent.
His hold on me doesn’t loosen, not even when we reach the hallway and the noise from downstairs fades into a dull, distant roar.
The second his bedroom door shuts behind us, I laugh.
I can’t help it. It spills out of me, breathless and reckless, because I know exactly what I’ve done. I poked the president in front of his brothers. He cages me against the door, one hand braced beside my head, the other catching my jaw with careful, dangerous control. “You want a proposal?”
My pulse stutters and I wet my lips. “Maybe I need a better reminder.”
The room seems to tighten around us.
North leans in, his mouth brushing my ear, and his voice drops into a place that ruins me before he does anything else. “You keep asking for trouble like you forgot I know exactly how to give it to you.”
A shiver slips through me and he catches it.
A breathless laugh slips out of me when North presses me back against the bedroom door, the solid wood catching my spine while the party keeps roaring somewhere beneath us.
“A bit eager, aren’t we?”
He doesn’t smile.
That should be my first warning.
North fills the space in front of me like a storm blocking out the moon, all broad shoulders, dark eyes, and the kind of silence that makes my pulse stumble before he even touches me.
His hand comes up slowly, but there is nothing lazy about the way his fingers close around my jaw.
He tips my face toward his, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth, and the breath I was about to waste on another tease catches in my throat.
“You had plenty to say downstairs,” he murmurs.
My smile flickers, but I hold on to it because I like this too much. I like the danger in his voice. I like knowing I put it there.
“I only said I didn’t remember saying yes.”
His thumb presses against my lower lip, and the look in his eyes turns darker. “Then I’ll make sure you do.”
The words sink through me, hot and heavy, before his mouth takes mine.
There is nothing careful about the kiss.
North claims it like he claims everything: with certainty, with hunger, with a kind of brutal focus that makes the rest of the world fall away and I melt into it even as the reckless part of me refuses to surrender too easily.
So I bite his thumb, then I soothe the mark with my tongue and watch the exact second his control slips.
A sound rolls out of him, low and rough enough to make heat bloom beneath my skin. His hand tightens at my jaw, his body pressing closer until I can feel every inch of his restraint straining against me. “There she is,” he says, voice ruined around the edges.
The praise hits harder than it should but I lift my chin anyway. “Still waiting on that memorable proposal, Prez.”
For a heartbeat, he only stares at me.
Then his hands are on my dress. He takes his time gathering the soft blue fabric in his fists, dragging it up my thighs with deliberate patience while his eyes stay locked on mine.
The dress bunches at my waist, exposing me inch by inch, and the cool air kisses my skin at the same moment his gaze drops.
He sinks to his knees in front of me, and the sight nearly steals the strength from my legs. “Is that what you want?” he asks, his voice rough against my skin. “A proposal?”
My fingers slide into his hair because I need something to hold on to. “Maybe I want a better reminder.”
His mouth brushes the inside of my thigh and every thought in my head goes still. “You’ll get one.”
The first touch of his mouth makes my body jolt, and my fingers tighten in his hair before I can stop myself. North groans like he likes the sting, like he wants proof that I’m losing control too, and then he stops being patient.
He takes his time, and never enough of it is mine.
He builds me slowly, cruelly, learning every place that makes my breath fracture and returning to it until my knees tremble and my confidence turns into something far more desperate.
I try to stay bold but North knows how to take a challenge apart.
He brings me close enough to taste the fall, then pulls back before I can reach it.
My gasp turns into a frustrated sound I would be embarrassed by if his eyes didn’t flash with such dark satisfaction.
“North,” I breathe.