Chapter 41
Lucy
That night, the rough edge of Jay’s spare bed pressed into my back, but it was the first thing I’d had to stretch out on since the Fangs had taken me, and it was warm.
Jay had given me some of his clothes and I’d chosen a well-worn black Dead Knight’s T-shirt of his to snuggle up in.
The room was dim, lit only by the small lamp on the worn desk and voices carried up from the clubhouse’ main areas.
I stared at the chipped ceiling, thinking about everything.
Caleb, the club, the war that had taken so much.
Then there was Jay. Funny how in the chaos, my thoughts kept drifting to him, the man I’d hated for so long, the man I’d come to lean on, the man I was starting to care about more than I wanted to admit.
I clenched my jaw and rolled my eyes. There was no time for those kinds of thoughts, not when everything could change in an instant.
But, for a moment, lying there alone, I allowed myself to think about what happened next with Jay, the Reaper who came for me when I was at my lowest, when I had nobody else, who risked everything to pull me out of the darkness.
The memory of his hands, his words, the heat of his body pressed against mine flashed in my head, reminders that he didn’t only save me from the world outside but from the loneliness inside too.
At first, I’d hated him. Hated that he was a part of the life that took Caleb away. Hated that he’d treated me like I was grief in a hoodie, fragile and broken. Hated how he broke my heart years ago, but no other man had ever measured up to him, even when I hadn’t had a taste of him.
After the kiss on the porch the night of the fire, and then he saved me, I saw him for what he really was—steady, relentless, and fiercely loyal. A man who never backed down, even when everything inside him screamed to run, even when he could lose everything he had.
There was something raw and natural about the way he moved through danger like it was second nature, like he had been ready for that moment his whole life. But when it came to me, I saw the cracks, the fear he tried to hide behind his fierce, hard edge.
I swallowed, heart twisting. I was falling for him... again.
I hated how much I needed him, how much I wanted him to see me, not as the girl dragged into the mess but as someone worth fighting for. Tomorrow, I would ride with them into Fangs territory and help to take down the bastards who thought they could break me.
I closed my eyes and let the quiet pull me under, holding onto the hope that maybe, after all the chaos, there was still something good waiting for us. Something more than war and loss.