Chapter 7
Sarah
Within twenty minutes, every patched member of the Feral Sons crowds into the meeting room at the clubhouse.
I hover in the doorway, expecting Knox to wave me toward the great room with the other women, but instead his hand closes around my wrist and he tugs me forward, pulling out the chair beside his.
The brothers file in around the massive table—Garrett folding into his seat with his arms crossed and his horns scraping the low ceiling, Finn dropping into the chair across from us with his easy charm stripped away, all hard edges now.
Rex, Colt, Bruiser, Chain, Diesel. They fill the room with leather and barely leashed violence, and not one of them questions my presence.
Rex spreads a folder across the table. "Peter Mitchell. Old money Connecticut. His father's a judge—retired now, but still connected."
My stomach lurches at the sound of his name in this room, spoken by these men, making everything real in a way it hasn't been until now. I've spent weeks trying to convince myself I'd outrun him, that three thousand miles would be enough. Hearing Rex lay out the facts strips that illusion bare.
"History of domestic complaints," Rex continues.
"Eight of them. All disappeared before they hit court.
Witnesses changed their stories. Evidence went missing.
" Garrett's massive fist tightens on the table and the wood groans beneath his grip.
"He's currently on leave from his finance job at Henderson & Drake.
Last credit card hit at a gas station outside Salt Lake City. Four days ago. Heading west."
The room goes quiet—not uncomfortable silence, but something colder and more deliberate. I look around the table at these men, monsters technically, though the word lost all meaning weeks ago.
Finn breaks the silence first. "So some trust fund piece of shit beats his wife, buys his way out of consequences, and now he's hunting her across the country."
"That about covers it." Rex leans back in his chair, arms crossed. "I've got eyes on his credit. Moment he surfaces again, we'll know."
These men don't tolerate predators. I can see it in the set of their jaws, in the way their hands curl into fists. Whatever else they are—outlaws, monsters, men who operate in the gray spaces between legal and not—they don't tolerate predators. Period.
"What are our options?" Knox's voice carries no inflection.
"Legal route." Colt adjusts his reading glasses. "I've already contacted our lawyer. We can push the restraining order violation, get local law enforcement involved. Create a paper trail that makes it harder for his family's money to disappear things."
"And the less legal options?" Finn asks.
"We handle it ourselves." Garrett's voice rumbles low—he speaks so rarely that when he does, everyone listens. "The human never reaches Nightfall Cove."
Knox's jaw tightens, but he doesn't dismiss it.
I should tell them to stand down, to let the system handle it, to trust the process.
But I've trusted the process too many times.
The process failed me eight times—eight complaints filed, eight investigations opened, eight times Peter's family lawyers made it all go away. I'm done trusting the process.
"I won't let him use me against you."
The words escape before I can stop them, and every head turns toward me.
"This is my problem," I continue, surprised by how steady my voice sounds.
"Peter's dangerous, and if he thinks I'm connected to your club, he'll use that.
His family has resources. Lawyers. Private investigators who know how to make things look like accidents. "
Knox's hand covers mine on the table, his palm engulfing my fingers completely. "You protect me by staying where I can protect you." His voice drops and the brothers lean back, giving us space. "You're moving into my quarters until we know where this bastard is and what he's planning."
I should argue. I should insist I can handle myself, that I've been handling myself for three years of marriage and weeks on the run. But Knox's eyes hold mine and I see it there—not just protectiveness, but fear. The orc president who faces down threats without flinching is afraid of losing me.
"Okay," I breathe.
An hour later my belongings fit easily into Knox's space—one duffel bag and a few books.
I expected to feel trapped, boxed in by another man's walls the way I'd been boxed in by Peter's.
Instead something in my chest loosens as I hang my shirts beside Knox's leather cuts, as I set my toothbrush next to his, as I claim a drawer in his dresser.
Anchored. That's the word. Not trapped, but anchored.
Imogen appears in the doorway with a tea tray and a stack of paperbacks. "Thought you might need provisions."
I accept the cup she offers—chamomile and honey, steam rising between us—and settle onto the edge of the bed. The room smells like Knox, leather and motor oil and something wilder underneath, I find myself breathing it in like it's oxygen.
"Knox Stone," Imogen says, half-smiling as she surveys the room. "Of all the men in this town."
"He's not like anyone I've ever met."
"No." Imogen settles beside me, her fae-touched eyes knowing in a way that makes me wonder exactly how much she sees. "He wouldn't be."
Knox returns after sunset with a white envelope in his hand.
I notice the seal first—ornate, pressed in dark wax, bearing a symbol I don't recognize.
Something old and formal, the kind of seal that belongs on documents signed by kings or priests.
Knox's face shutters the moment he sees me looking, his expression going carefully blank.
He's hiding something. Protecting me from something.
Without a word he crosses to the fireplace, and the flames leap as he feeds the envelope to them, seal and all. I watch the paper curl and blacken, watch Knox watch it burn, and the tension in his shoulders tells me everything I need to know about what that letter contained.
"Knox." I rise from the bed. "What was that?"
Silence stretches between us. His shoulders tighten beneath his shirt, muscles bunching like he's bracing for a blow, and for a long moment I think he won't answer.
"My past."
He turns, and the firelight throws shadows across his face. "I need to tell you something," he says, his voice scraping rougher than usual. "Something I haven't told anyone outside the club."
"I'm listening."
Knox sinks onto the bed and I settle beside him, close enough that our shoulders brush.
He stares at his hands for a long moment—those massive scarred hands that have touched me with more gentleness than I ever thought possible—and when he speaks, his voice sounds like it's coming from somewhere far away.
"I was born Prince Kragnar of the Bloodstone Clan.
Heir to an orc warlord. My father ruled three mountain territories, commanded armies and expected me to continue his legacy.
" The name sounds foreign on his lips, like a language he's forgotten how to speak.
"I walked away at twenty-two. Renounced my title.
Came to the human world with nothing but a trust fund I couldn't bring myself to leave behind and the determination to never go back. "
I try to picture it—Knox in armor instead of leather, commanding troops instead of a motorcycle club—but the image won't form. The man beside me belongs here, in this clubhouse, with grease under his nails and brothers at his back. Whatever he was before, this is who he is now.
"Why did you leave?" I ask.
His jaw works. "They wanted to marry me off. Unite the clans through alliance, produce heirs, secure the dynasty. My father chose a bride from a rival territory—a political match. I'd never met her."
"You refused."
"I said no." A flicker of dark humor crosses his face, there and gone. "My father choked me until I nearly passed out, then told me I was no longer his son. I walked out that night and never looked back."
The fire crackles and Knox stares into the flames, lost in memories I can only guess at. I wait, giving him space, the way he's given me space every time I needed it.
"My father's dying now. Has been for months." His voice goes flat. "The clans want me back. The letters have been coming since spring—emissaries, threats disguised as invitations. They need Prince Kragnar to prevent a civil war."
"And that letter tonight?"
"Another summons. Same demand, different phrasing." He turns to me, his dark eyes searching my face. "I left that world to be free. I built something here—something real. The club, this town, this life. I won't go back."
I reach for his hand and his scarred fingers dwarf mine, but he holds on like I'm the only thing keeping him anchored. "I'm not asking you to," I tell him. "But I want to know all of you. Not just Knox Stone. All of it—the prince, the president, and everything in between."
His throat works. "You're not afraid? Of what I was?"
I think about Peter—the charming smile that hid cruelty, the wealth and status that covered rot, everything I married believing I understood only to discover the truth too late. Peter hid his monster behind a human face. Knox wears his openly and treats me like I'm precious.
"I'm afraid of what my ex-husband is," I tell him. "Not of what you are or were."
Knox's hand tightens on mine and something shifts in his expression, a wall he's held for twenty years giving way. "Sarah." My name drops from his mouth, low and rough. "I don't deserve—"
"Yes. You do."
That night, in his bed, Knox takes his time with me.
Just closeness, connection, his hands moving over every curve while his lips trace every inch of skin he can reach.
He presses me into the mattress and holds himself above me, drinking in my face like he's memorizing it, like he's afraid I might disappear if he looks away.
His mouth finds my neck and teeth graze my pulse point, sending heat flooding through me. He sucks a mark into my skin, right where my neck meets my shoulder, and the pressure makes me gasp.
"Knox—"
"You're mine, Sarah." The words vibrate against my throat. "I protect what's mine."
My hand finds his hair, fingers threading through the thick strands. "I'm yours. All of me."
He pulls back to look at me, his dark eyes intent, and something passes between us—an understanding that goes deeper than words.
Then he settles beside me and gathers me against his chest, one arm heavy across my waist, and we fall asleep tangled together with my face pressed to his chest. I breathe in leather and motor oil and something beneath it, pine forests and mountain air, and my last thought before sleep takes me is this: I came here running from a monster. I found a different kind entirely.
I wake at dawn to Knox watching me. Golden light fills the window and his dark eyes hold an expression I've never seen from anyone—not Peter, not my parents, not a single person in my life before this moment.
He looks at me like he'd burn the world to keep me safe, and the weight of that look settles into my chest and stays there.
"Morning," he murmurs.
I stretch against him. "Morning handsome."
His thumb traces my cheekbone while his eyes never leave mine. "Your past. Mine. All of it."
I press my palm over his heart and feel it beating steady and strong beneath my fingers.
I nod and kiss him.