Chapter 25
Quiet After the Burn
The club house had gone quiet.
Engines cold. Boots off the gravel. The boys crashed where they could, bellies full of whiskey and relief.
Tater sat alone in the shop, a cigarette burning low between his fingers. Ren was asleep in his bed—he’d checked twice, just to make sure. She looked peaceful now. Softer. The dragon quiet under her skin but not gone. It never would be, and maybe that was alright.
He dragged in smoke, exhaled slowly. The rain tapped lazily against the tin roof, steady and even. The storm had finally run out of fight.
He pulled the chain from his belt loop and held it to the light. The metal gleamed dull silver, nicked, and scarred in all the ways life marked a person. He thought about how it had come back to him—blood, rain, fire. Everything that mattered in their world always came through fire.
He set it down again, beside his knife, and rubbed a hand over his face. His body was bone-tired, but his mind wouldn’t stop moving.
Shadow was gone, but that didn’t mean peace. There were always others—the next threat, the next rival, the next storm. That was the life. But what happened tonight wasn’t just club business. It was her.
He’d seen Ren fight before. Hell, he’d seen her burn. But the way she’d stood on that ridge—steady, glowing, unbreakable—something in him had shifted. It wasn’t pride. It wasn’t fear. It was awe.
She’d gone through hell and didn’t just crawl back out, she brought part of it with her and learned to make it listen.
He smiled faintly, shaking his head. “My old lady,” he muttered, almost laughing. “You’re somethin’ else.”
The clock on the wall ticked past two. He stubbed out the cigarette, grabbed his cut from the chair, and slung it over his shoulder. For a minute, he just stood there, staring at the doorway that led to the hall.
Part of him wanted to check on her again, just to be sure. The other part knew better. Ren didn’t need guarding. Not anymore.
Still, when he walked back through the quiet clubhouse and paused at the bedroom door, he couldn’t help himself.
She was turned toward the window, moonlight washing over her face, the faintest shimmer under her skin. Her breathing was steady, peaceful.
Tater leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed.
“You did it, baby girl,” he said softly. “You burned the devil.”
He waited for another beat, watching her chest rise and fall. Then he turned off the light and left the door cracked—just enough to see the faint gold glow that pulsed with her heartbeat.
Outside, the night smelled of rain and ash and something clean. The kind of scent that said maybe, just maybe, the fire hadn’t destroyed everything—just burned away what wasn’t meant to stay.
Tater walked back toward the shop, boots scraping on the concrete, the dragon’s hum still faint in the air behind him.
And for the first time, he wasn’t thinking about revenge, or the next fight, or the next loss.
He was thinking about tomorrow.