Chapter Eleven
RAZE
Later That Night
The brothers assemble for church with their usual efficiency, heavy boots on stone floors, leather cuts bearing patches that mark rank and territory, conversations dying as they take their seats around the massive oak table that’s witnessed centuries of decisions both brilliant and catastrophic.
I enter last, with Roxy chained to my wrist by links that gleam dull silver in the overhead lights. Not iron this time, just steel strong enough to make a point without burning her skin raw.
Every eye in the room tracks our entrance, questions forming behind gazes that range from curious to hostile, depending on which brother and how they feel about humans witnessing club business.
Scar’s expression holds amusement that makes me want to freeze him solid.
Wreck’s hollow eyes study her with the kind of hunger that suggests he’s still feeding on residual fear despite my explicit orders to leave her alone.
Flux shifts restlessly in his chair, amber eyes calculating threat assessment and potential usefulness in rapid succession.
“Brothers.” I take my seat at the head of the table, Roxy standing at my right side like some strange combination of prisoner and honored guest. “Before we begin regular business, I want to make something clear. The human stays under my protection. Anyone who harms her answers to me personally. Understood?”
Murmurs of acknowledgment ripple through the room, none of them enthusiastic but all accepting the reality that my word carries enough weight to make arguments about supernatural law feel academic at best.
“Now…” I gesture for reports to begin, “… Wreck. Territory disputes.”
The wendigo unfolds from his chair, his movements seeming to dislocate joints before resettling them in configurations that shouldn’t work. His voice carries the hollow resonance of something speaking from far away when he delivers his assessment.
“The fae gang is pushing Eastern borders again. Three incidents this week. They’re testing our response times, seeing how far they can encroach before we push back with actual force instead of warnings.
” His eyes gleam with anticipation that even hardened brothers find uncomfortable.
“I vote we make an example. Something memorable enough that they stop testing and start respecting.”
“Noted.” I keep my tone neutral, filing the recommendation away for later consideration. “Flux. Financial report.”
The treasurer stands, spreading ledgers across the table with practiced efficiency while his form shifts slightly, unconscious magic bleeding through human facade to reveal hints of the shapeshifter beneath.
“Fight ring pulled in two point three million this month. Best quarter we’ve had in five years.
The supernatural betting community is growing, word spreading that our matches are fair, brutal, and always deliver on promised violence. ”
Numbers flow as he details revenue streams, money-laundering operations, and the careful balance between legitimate business and the empire that funds everything we do.
I watch Roxy from the corner of my eye, tracking her reaction to hearing exactly how deep our criminal operations run, how much blood and darkness fund the civilization we’ve built in these mountains.
She doesn’t flinch.
She doesn’t gasp or make moral judgments about fight rings and cursed artifact smuggling.
Just listens with the same focused attention she applies to the ledgers I’ve had her organizing, absorbing information with the pragmatic acceptance of someone who understands that survival sometimes requires accepting truths too brutal for comfortable contemplation.
“Coil.” I nod toward the Enforcer. “Shipment status.”
The basilisk shifter’s eyes flash gold as he delivers his report with characteristic precision.
“Cursed daggers cleared customs last night. Twenty pieces, each carrying enough dark magic to level city blocks if used improperly. We’ve got buyers lined up in three states, all vetted, all willing to pay premium prices for weapons that can’t be traced back to conventional sources. ”
“And the legislation?” Maul interjects, drawing attention to the documents spread before him. “The new Supernatural Artifact Regulations congress is debating. If they pass, our smuggling routes get significantly more complicated.”
Flux leans forward, studying the paperwork with a furrowed brow. “The provisions about cross-border transport seem solid. No obvious loopholes we can exploit without—”
“Wait.” Roxy’s voice cuts through the discussion like a blade, clear and certain despite the dozens of supernatural beings who could tear her apart for the audacity of interrupting church.
“There’s an error in section twelve. The language about interstate commerce exemptions.
They’ve written it assuming all artifacts move through commercial channels, but the exemption for ‘Goods of Historical Significance’ could apply to anything we classify as antique, regardless of magical properties. ”
Silence crashes down over the table as every brother turns to stare at her with expressions ranging from shock to barely contained fury that a prisoner, a human, just spoke during sacred club business without permission.
But I’m staring at the documents, my mind already racing through implications of what she just pointed out, and holy fuck, she’s right.
The loophole is there, hidden in legislative language dense enough that most readers would miss it, but exploitable enough to drive our entire smuggling operation through if we’re careful about classifications.
“Fuck me… she’s right,” Flux breathes out the words like a revelation, his fingers tracing the section she identified. “Antique classifications bypass seventy percent of the new regulations. We need proper documentation, which isn’t hard to forge when you’ve got magic on your side.”
Maul lets out a low whistle, respect bleeding through his initial shock. “That’s… actually brilliant. And she caught it faster than any of us did, despite having zero context about why these regulations matter to our operations.”
“Told you she was useful.” Scar’s voice carries smug satisfaction that makes me want to throw ice at his face. “Smart, competent, and apparently capable of helping us navigate legal complications we’d have stumbled into blindly without her input.”
Rhett, who’s been silent until now, grins with that particular brand of hellhound enthusiasm that usually precedes terrible ideas. “She’s probably going to die anyway when the witch shows up. Why not let her have some fun helping us commit federal crimes first?”
“Preserving mortal life is sacred,” Bennett’s response comes with enough celestial indignation to make the air shimmer. “Even from idiots like you who think death is the inevitable conclusion to every problem.”
“Both of you, shut it.” Scar appears between them with vampire speed, red eyes gleaming with warning. “The lady is under the president’s protection. Which means both Heaven and Hell can fuck off until he decides otherwise.”
The exchange would be amusing if I weren’t currently processing the reality that Roxy just proved herself invaluable to club operations in front of every brother who’s been questioning why she’s still breathing.
She’s not just useful anymore. This woman is an asset, someone whose skills could save us millions in legal complications and smuggling risks if we can keep her alive long enough to exploit them.
And that creates an entirely new category of problems.
“We should ask the witch if we can keep her!” Flux says the words everyone’s thinking, but nobody else dares to voice.
“Seriously, she’s smart, capable, already knows enough about our operations that killing her serves no purpose except satisfying outdated laws.
If the witch has any flexibility at all—”
“She doesn’t.” My voice cuts through the speculation with glacial finality.
“The laws are absolute. Humans who breach our world don’t get exceptions just because they’re useful, interesting, or capable of finding legal loopholes in federal legislation.
” But even as I say it, my eyes find Roxy’s, and something passes between us that every brother witnesses—heat, yearning, the chemistry that’s been building since that kiss this morning, since I told her about the villages, since she looked at my worst self and called me miserable instead of monstrous.
Desire.
Mutual, undeniable, and absolutely forbidden by every law that governs the supernatural world.
Scar catches it. Of course, he does. Nothing escapes his attention after five centuries of reading people and situations with predatory precision. His smirk widens into something knowing and insufferable as he leans back in his chair.
“Told you she was getting to you, Prez.” The observation lands with the weight of absolute truth, public acknowledgment of what everyone in this room just witnessed passing between the human prisoner chained to my wrist and me. “Question is, what are you going to do about it?”
The brothers wait for my response, tension crackling through the air as they process the implications of their president wanting something he can’t have, of the flame burning brighter because of a human who shouldn’t matter, of laws and desire colliding in ways that will require decisions none of us are prepared to make.
I meet Scar’s knowing gaze with enough ice in my eyes to frost the entire room. “Church is adjourned.” The words carry absolute authority that brooks no argument. “We’ll reconvene when I’ve decided how to handle this situation without destroying everything we’ve built.”
The brothers file out with their usual efficiency, conversations already starting about what just happened, about the human who interrupted sacred business and proved herself valuable enough to consider keeping, about the desire burning between their president and a prisoner who represents everything forbidden.
Scar lingers at the door, red eyes gleaming with centuries of experience watching patterns repeat themselves in endless variations.
“For what it’s worth, Prez? I’ve been alive long enough to know that fighting what you want only makes the wanting worse.
Eventually, you have to decide if the risk is worth it.
” Then he’s gone, leaving me alone with Roxy and the chains connecting us like a physical manifestation of complications I can’t afford but can’t seem to avoid.
She looks up at me, defiance and desire warring in eyes that refuse to pretend the chemistry between us doesn’t exist. “So… what happens now?”
I unlock the chains, setting her free despite every instinct screaming that keeping her close keeping her bound, is the only way to maintain control over a situation that’s already spiraled beyond my ability to contain it.
“Now?” I force the words out through a throat that feels like it’s closing. “Now you go back to your room. And I figure out how to explain to a witch why keeping you alive matters more than following laws that have governed our world since before your species learned to make fire.”
She doesn’t move immediately, just stands there studying me with those all-too-knowing eyes, before finally turning toward the door. But she pauses at the threshold, glancing back with an expression I can’t quite read.
“Raze?”
“Yeah?”
“The flame burns brighter when we’re together. Maybe that means something. Maybe the witch will see it too.”
Hope.
She’s offering me hope wrapped in chemistry, illegal desire, and the desperate belief that contentment might be possible if we’re just brave enough to reach for it.
And as she disappears into the hallway, leaving me alone with the flame that burns gold in its dome, I realize I want to believe her more than I’ve wanted anything in three hundred years of searching for redemption I thought was forever out of reach.
Even if it means risking everything.
Even if it means fighting a witch whose laws are supposed to be absolute.
Even if it means admitting that somewhere between chains, frost burns, and kisses that shouldn’t have happened, I stopped seeing her as a problem to solve and started seeing her as the answer I didn’t know I was looking for.
Dangerous doesn’t begin to cover what she represents.
But as the flame pulses with life it hasn’t shown in decades, I catch myself thinking that maybe, just maybe, dangerous is exactly what I need to finally find the contentment that’s been eluding me since the moment the curse took hold.
And as I flip open the security feed, just to make sure, I watch her make her way back to her room, unescorted.
Completely willing.
No longer a captive but a willing victim.
And that’s when I know I am completely and utterly fucked!