Chapter 3
The bell chimes behind the last straggler from the morning rush. I exhale for the first time in two hours.
My reflection catches in the chrome napkin dispenser—hair escaping my ponytail, coffee stain on my apron I don't remember getting, dark circles still shadowing my eyes. But my hands hold steady.
Two weeks in Nightfall Cove. An apartment above Moonshadow Books with creaky floors and windows that rattle when the wind picks up. A job that pays in cash, free coffee, and Betty's mothering. A town where nobody asks questions I can't answer.
I haven't seen Knox since that first night. Finn brought me to Betty's, got me the job. Brought my car back a few days later and refused the money I tried to press into his hands.
Knox himself hasn't shown his face.
The thought drags the memory with it before I can stop it. The guest room at the clubhouse. Rain streaming down the windows. His face above mine as I reached up and touched his tusk like I had any right to.
I still don't know what possessed me. Exhaustion, maybe. The strange safety I felt around him when I should have been terrified. But I'd looked at those iron-capped tusks and needed to know what they felt like under my fingers.
Cool metal first. Then smooth bone, warm from his body heat.
And then everything changed.
His whole body went rigid. His nostrils flared. I saw it in his eyes—a hunger that made my breath catch and my heart kick in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
He grabbed my wrist. Stopping me.
For one heartbeat we stood there, my fingers still on his tusk, his hand wrapped around my arm, and I felt it. A pull. A click in my chest I couldn't explain.
Then he stepped back and left the room without another word.
I haven't seen him since.
He's avoiding me.
I shove the thought down and drag my rag across the counter. I'm good at shoving things down. Five years with Peter taught me that.
"You gonna stare at that counter or wipe it?" Betty's voice carries from the kitchen, warm despite the words.
"Wiping. Definitely wiping."
Betty emerges with a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon, setting it on the counter in front of me. At fifty-five, she moves like a woman half her age, silver-streaked red hair pinned up, practical shoes that have walked a million miles across this floor.
"You skipped breakfast again."
"I had coffee."
"Coffee isn't food, honey." She slides onto the stool across from me, watching me with those sharp green eyes. "You're skin and bones. Eat."
I take a bite to make her happy. Then another, because the eggs taste perfect and I can't remember the last time someone made me breakfast. Peter never—
I stop that thought cold.
"There's that look again." Betty's voice softens. "The one you get when you're a million miles away."
"Bad habit." I manage a smile. "I’m working on it."
She doesn't push. That's the thing about Betty—she asks careful questions, accepts half-answers, fills the silences with kindness instead of pressure. In two weeks, she's learned more about me than anyone in Connecticut knew in five years.
The good parts, anyway. Not the bruises or the lies or the way I learned to sleep with one eye open.
"You're doing good here," Betty says. "Jenny needed the help, and Lord knows I'm too old to work double shifts anymore. The regulars like you."
"Even the ones who stare?"
Her mouth tightens. "Small town. New faces draw attention. Give it time."
I nod and take another bite, but I've noticed the way conversations stop when I walk into the general store. The glances exchanged across the post office counter. Whispers I catch fragments of before they cut off.
Knox's human.
The words drift back from yesterday. Two women at the corner booth who didn't realize I could hear them.
He brought her to the clubhouse himself. First outsider in years.
Heard he's had brothers driving past her place at night.
I'd dropped the coffee pot. Blaming the slick handle. But my hands shook for an hour afterward.
Two weeks of silence. Not a visit, not a message through Betty, not even a glimpse of him on Main Street. But his brothers drive past my apartment after dark, the rumble of their bikes cutting through the quiet.
He's watching over me. From a distance.
I don't understand it.
Liar. The voice in my head sounds tired. You know why he's keeping his distance. You felt it too, that night.
"Finish eating," Betty says, sliding off the stool. "Lunch rush starts at eleven thirty, and Jenny called in—her kid's got the flu."
Noon hits and the diner fills up fast.
Tourists passing through, locals grabbing quick bites, a group of construction workers from the highway project. I weave between tables with plates of burgers and refills of coffee, falling into the rhythm of work the way I used to fall into lesson plans.
Teaching feels like another lifetime now.
I'm clearing the corner booth when the argument starts.
Three men at the counter, wearing matching red caps with an embroidered fist logo.
They've been nursing coffees for an hour, loud in a way that sets my teeth on edge.
When the door opened earlier and a young orc mother walked in with her son—maybe seven or eight, green-skinned and nervous—they started muttering.
Now one of them stands, blocking the mother's path to the door.
"Just saying." His voice carries across the diner. "There's a human school across town. Don't know why your kind needs to be at ours."
The mother pulls her son closer. "Excuse me. We need to get past."
"Bet you do." The man doesn't move. His buddies snicker behind their coffee cups. "What's the matter? Can't understand English? Or do orcs only grunt?"
My blood runs cold, then hot.
Don't get involved. You're new here. You don't know these people. Keep your head down, stay small, stay safe—
The boy flinches when the man steps closer, and every instinct I spent years suppressing roars back to life.
"Hey." My voice cuts across the diner. "Leave them alone."
The man turns. Takes in my apron, my ponytail, my five-foot-four frame and smirks.
"This your business, sweetheart?"
"He's a child." I move between them, "and she's a customer. You're blocking the door."
"Humans First got every right to be here." He taps his red cap. "This is our town."
"Then act like it." I hold his eyes and keep my voice level, even though my heart pounds so hard I feel it in my throat. "Because right now you're harassing a mother and her kid in a diner. That's not standing up for anything. That's bullying."
The diner goes quiet. Every eye fixed on us.
The man's face darkens. "You don't know what you're talking about. These monsters—"
"Are people." I keep my voice level. "Customers. A family trying to eat lunch. And if you can't handle that, the door's right behind you."
His expression shifts. His buddies exchange glances. The mother slips past with her son while I hold his attention.
For a long moment, nobody moves.
Then the man steps back. "Whatever." He jerks his chin at his friends. "Let's go. Food here tastes like crap anyway."
They shove past me toward the door. One of them mutters under his breath. The other spits on the floor by my feet.
I don't react. I don't move until they're gone.
My hands start shaking the moment the door swings shut.
"Sarah." Betty appears at my elbow, face pale. "Are you—"
"I'm fine." The words come out automatic. "I'm fine. I just—I need a minute."
I turn toward the kitchen and the bell rings again.
Heavy boots on linoleum. Conversation dying. A presence that fills the doorway like a storm rolling in.
I know who it is before I turn around.
Knox fills the doorway, backlit by pale October sun. His leather vest strains across shoulders wide enough to block the light, silver threading through his black hair, iron-capped tusks catching the fluorescents.
He sees everything. I can tell by the way his jaw hardens. By the way his gaze tracks to the spit on the floor, then back to my face.
He watched through the window.
Knox walks forward without a word. The remaining customers shrink back—not from fear. Respect. The kind of space people make for someone who owns it.
He passes the table where the Humans First men sat. Their abandoned coffee cups rattle when his boots hit the floor. Then he reaches the counter and lowers himself onto a stool like he's got all the time in the world.
"Coffee." His voice scrapes gravel. "Black."
Betty vanishes into the kitchen. I'm left standing here with trembling hands and a racing heart and an orc president who hasn't looked away from my face.
Two weeks. Two weeks of silence, of avoiding me, of sending his brothers to drive past my apartment instead of coming himself. And now he sits at my counter like nothing happened.
I grab the pot and walk over, filling his cup. When I set it down, he reaches for it at the same time I pull back. His fingers graze mine on the handle.
Heat shoots through me—the same jolt I felt that first night when he touched my face, the same pull I felt in the guest room. My breath catches.
Knox's nostrils flare. His grip tightens on the ceramic.
"Didn't take you for someone who picks fights," His voice drops low, meant for me alone.
"Didn't take you for someone who lurks. Or hides."
His jaw hardens. He knows what I mean.
"Been busy."
"For two weeks."
A flicker in those eyes. "You noticed."
Of course I noticed. I've been looking for you every time the door opens. I've been lying awake listening for motorcycles. I've been replaying that moment in the guest room until I swear I can still feel your tusk under my fingers.
"Your brothers drive past my apartment at night," I say instead. "Hard to miss."
"They're not supposed to be subtle."
"So you can send them, but you can't come yourself?"
The question hangs between us. Knox's expression doesn't change, but I see his hand squeeze the coffee cup.
"Someone's looking for you, Sarah." His voice drops lower. "Strangers asking questions in the next town over. Your name. Your car. What direction you were headed." He meets my eyes. "We're handling it."
My blood turns to ice. The diner tilts. Peter. It has to be Peter.
I grip the counter to keep myself upright, my knuckles going white. He found me. Three thousand miles and he found me. I'm already calculating—how fast can I pack, how much cash do I have left, where else can I go—
"Hey, look at me."
Knox's voice cuts through the spiral. His hand covers mine on the counter, warm and heavy, anchoring me to the spot.
"Breathe."
I didn't realize I'd stopped. I pull in air, shaky, and his grip tightens.
"How do you know?" My voice comes out thin. Wrong.
"I make it my business to know." He doesn't let go of my hand. "You're in my territory now. That means you're under my protection."
I should feel grateful. I should feel relieved that someone is looking out for me.
Instead I feel the pull again—that sense of pieces fitting together.
"Why?" The question comes out smaller than I want. "You don't know me. That night in the guest room, I—" I stop. Swallow. Force myself to continue. "I don't know what came over me. Asking to touch you like that. But when I did, you..." I trail off, not sure how to say it.
Knox sets down his cup. His eyes bore into mine.
"I what?"
"Changed." The word scrapes past my lips. "I saw it. I felt it. And then you left, and you've been avoiding me ever since."
Silence. The diner fades to background noise. I'm aware of my heart pounding, of Knox's gaze locked on my face, of the space between us that feels both too wide and not wide enough.
"You've got a whole life ahead of you," His voice roughens at the edges. "Don't waste it in a forgotten town like this."
He's telling me to leave. To move on. Find somewhere better than this coastal dead-end with its monster bikers and small-town gossip.
"What if I'm not looking for a future?" I meet his eyes. "What if I just needed somewhere to hide?"
He studies me for a long moment. "Then you picked the right place."
The tightness in my chest loosens. A weight I've been carrying for years shifts, lightens.
Knox finishes his coffee. Pulls bills from his pocket—far too much for a single cup—and leaves them on the counter. He stands, and I have to crane my neck to look up at him.
"Dinner. Tomorrow night. The clubhouse."
"Just us?"
"No, Family dinner. All the brothers and some of their women. Everyone eats together on Sundays." He watches my face. "They'll want to meet you."
I should say no. A thousand reasons line up: I don't know these people, I don't understand what's happening between us, the age gap alone should give me pause.
Forty-two. Betty mentioned it in passing, casual gossip she probably didn't expect me to memorize.
Fourteen years older than me.
He could have daughters my age. Does he have daughters my age?
But when I look at Knox Stone, I don't see a father figure. I see someone steady. Someone strong. Someone who looks at me like I matter, like I'm worth protecting, like maybe—just maybe—I'm not as broken as I feel.
"Is that an invitation or an order?"
His mouth curves. The closest thing to a smile I've seen on him since we met. "Eight o'clock. I'll pick you up."
He's out the door before I can answer.
The door swings shut behind him. The diner exhales. I stand at the counter with my heart pounding and his money crumpled in my fist.
Betty appears beside me, that knowing look crinkling the corners of her eyes. "Well," she says. "That was something."
"I didn't say yes." My voice sounds strange to my own ears.
"Honey." Betty pats my arm. "You didn't say no either."
I stare at the door. Outside, the rumble of his bike grows distant.