Epilogue
SUSAN
The smell of warm beeswax is baked into my skin.
It never washes out. It lingers in the cuticles of my fingers, settles deep into the fabric of my clothes, and lingers in the air of the honey shed. I scrape the last of the propolis off the edge of the cast-iron uncapping tank. The metal is freezing against my hip, where Alas held me two days ago.
A deliberate boot step thuds against the wooden floorboards behind me.
Alas doesn’t sneak. He doesn’t tread lightly.
He occupies space with the weight of a falling rockslide.
He leans against the doorframe of the shed.
His frame blocks out the fading afternoon sun, casting the room into deep shadow.
He wears a plain black t-shirt and his leather cut.
The bottom rocker on his back still reads Prospect.
In three hours, that word will be gone.
"You're scraping the iron bare," he grunts. His voice is low. It vibrates right through the floorboards and up the soles of my boots.
"I have to get the wax off before it hardens. Otherwise, the frames will stick next season."
He crosses the room in two strides. He doesn’t ask permission.
He wraps his scarred hand around my wrist and pulls my arm away from the tank.
His knuckles swallow my wrist. Dried blood and angry red scratches map across the back of his hand—the violent receipt from the hours he spent in the dark, tearing a legal county easement out of the dirt with his bare hands and a combat knife.
"It's clean," he states. A command, not an observation.
"You don't know the first thing about honey extraction."
"I know when you're stalling."
He drops his chin. His mouth hovers an inch from the soft skin right beneath my jaw.
The bees never sting him. They land on him like he belongs to the earth itself.
I’m starting to understand why. His stillness is bone-deep.
It demands submission just by existing. He bites the tender flesh beneath my jaw, dragging his teeth hard enough to leave a mark.
A sharp gasp punches out of me. My fingers flex against the cold iron of the tank.
"We need to leave in twenty minutes," Alas murmurs against my skin. The vibration of his words sinks straight into my bones. "Unless you want me to lock this door and keep you pressed against this tank until tomorrow morning."
The threat is genuine. The heat rolling off his body proves it.
My jaw locks. The urge to stay right here, hidden in the dim light of the honey shed with the cold howling outside the window, is dangerously strong.
For two years, this farm was a fortress of soul-crushing isolation.
I fought the mountain. I fought the Silver Serpent Syndicate.
I fought the ghost of my grandfather. Asking for help was a weakness.
Letting someone in meant admitting I was losing the war.
Then this volatile, unanchored prospect walked into my hive line, let the Russian hybrids land on his bare knuckles, and refused to leave.
I turn in his grip. I press my hands flat against his chest. The solid, unyielding muscle beneath his shirt is hot. "If you make me late for your own patch ceremony, your club president is going to ride up here and drag you to the bonfire by your boots."
Alas snorts. It’s a harsh, dismissive sound. "Logan can try. He won't make it past the tree line."
"Because you'd fight him."
"Because you'd set Colony D's shock troops on him."
Laughter bubbles out of me, bright and free.
He says it with terrifying military conviction.
His catastrophic naming system for my bees is absurd, yet he refuses to change it.
Drones are kamikazes. The Russian hybrids are shock troops.
The queen is the commanding officer. He operates on terms of war, and somehow, it perfectly anchors the peace on my farm.
"Come on," I say, tugging on the leather of his cut. "Let me wash my hands. You need to go get that Prospect rocker torn off."
He tracks my movements with dark focus as we walk up the grassy incline to the farmhouse.
The windbreak he built stands tall and sturdy against the northern edge of the property, blocking the harsh downdrafts.
Beyond the hives, the south trail stretches into the dense pine forest. It’s empty.
The neon orange surveyor markers are gone.
The splintered wooden stakes are currently sitting in a garbage bag by the burn barrel.
The Syndicate's legal right-of-passage is dead and buried.
He erased the threat. He held the line.
Inside the kitchen, I run the water over my hands. The soap foams, washing away the sticky residue of the honey, but the deep, earthy scent of the wax remains. Alas stands right behind me. He doesn't hover; he simply claims the space behind me, his chest a solid wall against my back.
"You're not wearing a dress," he orders quietly.
"It's thirty-five degrees outside and we’re going to a biker compound. I’m wearing jeans, boots, and my thickest sweater."
"Good." His hand slides over my hip, his thumb pressing possessively into my hip. "I don't want anyone looking at your legs."
"They're going to be looking at you. It's your night."
"They better not look at you," he repeats, serious. The possessive rage in his voice is a low, humming wire. He doesn't care about the club's celebration. He doesn't care about the party. He only cares about the boundary line drawn around my body.
We walk out to his truck. The sun dips below the jagged peaks of the Eastern Ridge, bleeding dark violet and bruised orange across the sky.
The eight-mile stretch of the Ridge Road is a winding corridor of dense, imposing pines.
I used to drive this road with my teeth gritted, constantly checking my rearview mirror for the dark SUVs from Crimson Hollow.
Now, I sit in the passenger seat, relaxed.
Alas drives with one massive hand draped over the top of the steering wheel. His other hand rests flat on my thigh. He doesn't move it for the drive. The heavy heat of his palm sears right through my jeans.
The rutted gravel track leading to the Broken Halos MC compound rattles the truck's suspension.
Three miles north of town, the trees break, revealing the fortress.
Iron gates stand open. Razor wire gleams viciously along the top of the high perimeter fences.
The scale of the place is imposing. A bonfire rages in the center of the dirt courtyard, sending a tower of sparks thirty feet into the black night sky.
The air smells intensely of burning pine, gun oil, old leather, and stale beer.
Alas parks the truck near the edge of the tree line. The second he cuts the engine, the chaotic noise of the compound bleeds through the glass. Deep shouts. Roaring motorcycle engines. The thud of boots on packed dirt.
He gets out, walks around the hood, and opens my door. He doesn't offer his hand to help me down. He catches me by the hips, lifting me clean out of the cab and setting me down on the dirt. The physical dominance of the move sends a sharp, hot spike of adrenaline straight through me.
"Stay close," he commands.
"I'm not going anywhere."
We walk toward the roaring fire. The brotherhood is gathered.
Men in leather cuts form a loose ring around the flames.
Unpatched prospects stand off to the side, coiled energy.
I spot Kevin, Joey, Cage, and River—the newly patched generation.
They stand taller, their cuts pristine, their eyes tracking the perimeter.
An orange tabby is curled against Cage's boot, sound asleep despite the roaring fire and the thunder of engines.
Nobody comments on it. The cat belongs here the same way Cage does—silently, stubbornly, on its own terms.
A familiar voice cuts through the low rumble of the crowd.
"I brought a thermos. Figured you wouldn't drink whatever sludge Valerie brewed up for the boys."
Carol steps out from the shadow of the clubhouse and presses an insulated silver thermos into my hands. The rich smell of dark roasted beans and cinnamon cuts perfectly through the harsh scent of the gun oil and smoke.
"Thank you," I say, wrapping my cold fingers around the warm metal.
Carol's eyes are bright and fierce in the firelight. She offers a sharp, approving nod. "We watch out for each other now," she states simply. "You held the line up north. The club knows it."
She doesn't linger. She doesn't crowd me.
She delivers the message, reinforces the boundary, and steps back toward the clubhouse porch where the other women of the club are gathered.
Lexi, Eve, Fae. They stand together, an impenetrable circle of fierce, protected women.
For two years, I believed I had to face the world alone.
I believed the burden of the bee farm was a solitary cross to bear.
Looking at the women on the porch, looking at the violent men standing guard around the fire, the truth finally sinks in.
I’m not alone anymore. I have an army.
The low chatter of the crowd cuts off. The silence is sudden and complete. The only sound left is the violent crackle of the bonfire and the howling wind screaming through the pines.
Logan Gunnar, the President of the Broken Halos, steps into the center of the dirt circle.
He’s an imposing, terrifying man. The flames cast long, dancing shadows across the lines of his face. Austin Gunnar stands immediately to his right, quiet and lethal.
"Alas," Logan's voice booms over the fire. No microphone needed. It carries the weight of a judge's gavel. "Step up."
Alas doesn't hesitate. He leaves my side. The cold air instantly rushes into the space he leaves behind, but the tether between us remains solid. It pulls tight across the dirt as he walks into the center of the ring. He stands before the President. He’s bigger than Logan.
He’s more dangerous, more scarred, bleeding violence just by breathing.
But he stands still. The impossible stillness that the bees respect.
"You bled in the dirt for this club," Logan says. The words are gritty, stripped of any ceremony or polish. "You held the northern perimeter. You erased the Syndicate's claim with your bare hands. You protected what belongs to you, and by extension, you protected us."
Logan steps forward. He catches the collar of Alas's leather cut. With one violent, wrenching motion, Logan strips the bottom rocker clean off the leather. The word Prospect tears away, leaving a blank, scarred space on the vest.
Logan reaches into his own cut. He pulls out a pristine, black-and-white patch.
"You are the wall," Logan states, slapping the patch hard against Alas's chest. "You don’t break. You don’t yield."
The President steps back. He meets Alas's dead, focused stare.
"WARDEN."
The compound erupts. The shout is deafening. Dozens of men roaring the callsign into the cold mountain air. Fists pound against chests. Motorcycle engines rev in the background, a mechanical, screaming applause. WARDEN.
Alas takes the patch. He grips it in his scarred, bloody hand.
He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t nod to the President. He doesn’t acknowledge the roaring crowd of his brothers.
He turns on his heel.
His stare finds me through the smoke and the flames. The crowd is a chaotic blur of leather and noise, but he cuts through them like a blade. The brothers part instantly. They know better than to stand in his way. They respect the bond that claimed his soul the second he stepped onto my property.
He walks straight to me.
He backs me up until my shoulders hit the cold steel of a rusted-out truck parked on the edge of the dirt lot.
He boxes me in, planting his hands on the metal on either side of my head.
The heat rolling off his body is a furnace.
He smells like the bonfire, fresh leather, and the dark, violent energy of the patch ceremony.
But beneath it all, he still smells like the raw clover honey of my farm.
"Warden," I breathe, my chest rising against his. "Is that what they're calling you now?"
"It's what I am," he states.
"Does that mean you're in charge of the shock troops now?" I ask, the sassy, defensive humor rising instinctively to shield the wave of emotion threatening to break my ribs apart. "Because Colony D doesn’t take orders. Not even from a fully patched biker."
He leans in. The weight of his chest crushes the air from my lungs. His mouth hovers a fraction of an inch from my lips.
"They don't need a warden," he murmurs roughly. "You do."
The banter dies on my lips. The truth in his eyes holds me in place.
There’s no escape from his possessiveness, and for the first time in my life, I have no desire to run.
The weight of my grandfather's legacy, the terror of the Syndicate, the exhaustion of fighting the mountain alone—it all dissolves into the dirt beneath my boots.
He took the burden from me. He built the wall. He tore the threats out of the ground with his bare hands.
"You're coming home with me," Alas commands. His voice is low and vibrating.
"I live there."
"Now I do too."
He doesn't wait for my response. He drops his head and claims my mouth. It’s a punishing kiss.
All teeth and dominant pressure. He bites my lower lip, tasting the cinnamon coffee on my tongue, dominating the space.
The roaring of the club behind us fades into silence.
The only thing that exists is the weight of his hands on my hips and the violent promise in his kiss.
He pulls back, his breathing ragged. His thumb strokes the bruise he left earlier.
"Mine," Alas says quietly. "That's all there is to it."
I look up into the lethal face of the man who walked into my life and refused to let me fight another battle alone. I smell the beeswax deep in my own skin, mixed perfectly with the smoke of his fire.
"Yes," I say simply. "Yours."
The war is over. The perimeter is secure. The monster belongs to me.