Chapter Six
Healers Bleed Too
Steel
The second Reaper’s voice dies, something inside me goes quiet. Not calm. Not controlled. Quiet.
There’s a big fucking difference.
Calm is breathing through rage until it becomes useful. Control is choosing when to strike and how hard. Quiet is what happens when everything human steps back and leaves the weapon standing in its place.
That’s where I go. Straight into the quiet.
The phone sits in Savage’s hand, screen black, the threat still hanging in the yard like smoke.
‘Tell him healers bleed too.’
Harper is behind me. Too close to danger. Too close to me.
My first instinct is to turn, check her face, and make sure fear hasn’t cracked something I can’t fix. My second instinct is worse. I want to climb on my bike, find Reaper, and carve Harper’s name out of every man who thought it was safe to say it.
Savage watches me. Saint watches me. The whole damn yard watches me. They know what I am. They know what happens when I stop speaking.
“Steel,” Savage says. One word in his President’s voice. I turn my head slowly to find his hard gaze. “Inside.”
“I’m going after him.”
“No.”
The answer hits the yard like a shot, and a few men shift. Not away from Savage, but away from me. Smart move.
I take one step forward. Saint moves at Savage’s side, not between us, he isn’t suicidal, but close enough to remind me that the club has a structure, and I am not above it. Even when I want blood.
Especially then.
“Reaper threatened her,” I say.
Savage’s eyes don’t move. “I heard.”
“He sent a man to her window.”
“And that man left breathing because you chose the message over the corpse.”
“He won’t send one man next time.”
“No,” Savage says. “He won’t. Which is why you’re not riding out blind with your dick in one hand and rage in the other.”
Behind me, Harper makes a strangled sound. It might be fear, or she might be offended by medical professionalism. Hell, it might be her trying not to laugh at the worst possible time. I don’t turn around because if I look at her, I’ll lose the last thread holding me still.
Savage steps closer. “We do this clean. We find the leak. We find who carried the message. Then we burn the right house down.”
My fists curl, and the bandage Harper wrapped around my knuckles pulls tight. That’s what stops me. Not Savage. Not Saint.
Her bandage. White gauze over split skin. Proof that she touched me when she had every reason to back away.
I breathe once. Hard. “Fine,” I say, and the yard exhales.
Fucking cowards.
Saint nods toward the phone in Savage’s hand. “It’s a burner. No trace yet, but I’ll pull what I can.”
“Do it,” Savage says. “Crimson, double the gate. Fury, take two men and sweep the outer roads. Nobody rides alone. Nobody leaves without clearance.”
Orders snap through the compound, men move, and the club becomes a well-oiled machine.
I turn once everyone has moved off to do something. Harper stands near the clubhouse steps, arms wrapped around herself. She isn’t crying, isn’t shaking. Her chin is lifted, mouth pressed into a flat line, eyes too bright under the floodlights.
She’s angry, and that’s good. Anger keeps people upright.
Her gaze drops to my hands. Then lifts back to my face. “You look like you’re deciding where to hide a body,” she says.
“I’m deciding how many bodies need to be hidden.”
Her throat works. That’s too honest, too much. But I won’t lie to her. Not about this. Not about me.
Mama M appears at Harper’s side, one hand touching her elbow. Harper startles, then forces herself still.
“She needs sleep,” Mama M says.
“She needs guards,” I reply.
“She needs both.”
Harper’s eyes flash. “She is standing right here.”
Mama M pats her arm. “You’re too stubborn to admit you’re dead on your feet. That’s all.”
“I am not.”
“You stitched a man, got threatened by phone, and nearly got murdered through a bedroom window in the same night. Sit down before your attitude tips you over.”
Harper opens her mouth to say something, but closes it. I almost smile.
“Room,” I say.
Her glare snaps to me. “Don’t start giving orders again.”
“Room,” I repeat, “please.”
The word tastes strange, and half the yard goes silent again. Saint looks at the ground like he’s praying for strength. Savage’s mouth twitches once, then disappears behind command.
Harper blinks at me like I’ve grown a second head. “That sounded painful,” she says.
“It was.”
Mama M snorts. “Call it progress.”
Harper points at me. “I’m going because I choose to, not because you said please like a caveman learning manners.”
“Yes.”
She hesitates, and that’s the problem with her. She catches every shift. Every inch of ground given. Every bit of restraint I bleed for.
Then she turns and walks inside, and I follow. Of course, I follow.
She makes it three steps before she stops and looks over her shoulder. “Are you escorting me or guarding me?”
“Yes.”
“That was not an either-or question.”
“Yes.”
Her mouth tightens, but there’s no heat in it. Not real heat. She’s scared, and I know how fear acts when it has nowhere safe to go. It lashes out, but I can handle whatever she dishes out.
We move down the hallway together, and the clubhouse noise fades behind us. Every door we pass gets checked by my eyes before my body lets her move farther. Corners. Shadows. Windows. Exits.
Harper notices. “You do that all the time?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds exhausting.” She huffs out a tired breath.
“It keeps people alive,” I point out.
“It also keeps you trapped.” That’s much too close to home for me.
I look at her, and she’s watching me now, not the hall. Studying my face like I’m one of her patients and she’s trying to figure out where the bleeding is hidden.
“Don’t,” I say.
“Don’t what?”
“Look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you can fix me.”
She stops outside her room and turns fully. “I don’t think I can fix you.”
“Good.”
“I think you’d bite me if I tried.”
“Probably.”
“And I think you’ve been bleeding internally for so long you forgot it’s not normal.”
Fuck.
That one goes under the ribs. The hallway is empty, but it doesn’t feel empty. Her words fill it. Her eyes fill it. That dangerous, unwanted softness she keeps pointing at me like a weapon.
“You should go inside,” I say.
“That’s called deflection.”
“Yes.”
“At least you admit it.”
“I don’t lie.”
“No,” she says quietly. “You just avoid.”
My jaw tightens.
She opens the door but doesn’t step through. Her room is dim behind her, the lamp casting a soft yellow circle over the bed and the duffel she never fully unpacked. Temporary, she’d called this, but Reaper said her name.
Temporary is dead.
“I’ll be outside the door,” I tell her.
Her brows pull together. “All night?”
“Yes.”
“That’s insane.”
“Yes.”
“And uncomfortable.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not coming in?” The question slips out before she can catch it.
I see the second she realizes what she asked. Her face changes. Not embarrassed exactly, more a wariness. Like her own mouth has betrayed her, and now she has to stand behind the words anyway.
My blood heats. This is dangerous, and the wrong time. Actually, it’s the worst possible fucking time.
“I shouldn’t,” I say.
Her fingers tighten on the doorknob. “That’s not what I asked.”
“No,” I admit.
She looks tired, still angry, still scared, and still the sharpest thing in the room.
And I want.
Not a simple want. Not the kind that can be handled in a dark corner with a willing woman and no names.
This is worse. I want to step inside and close the door.
I want to sit with her until her breathing evens out.
I want to stand between her and nightmares.
I want to put my hands on her and teach her body that mine doesn’t have to mean danger.
I want things I have no business wanting.
“I can’t be what you need tonight,” I say.
Her expression shifts. “What do you think I need?”
“Safe.”
“That’s a place, Steel. Not a person.”
I stare at her. She steps closer, still in the doorway. “And for the record, you’re terrible at safe.”
“I know.”
“You’re violent.” I nod, and she continues. “And bossy.”
“I am.”
“Emotionally constipated.”
I grunt. “Probably.”
“And you terrify me.”
That one I expected, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t cut.
I nod once. “Good.”
“No.” Her voice sharpens. “Not good. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like fear is the only thing you understand.”
But it is, or it was before her.
Harper exhales, rubbing both hands over her face. “I am too tired for this conversation.”
“Then get some sleep.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
The confession is small, quiet, and nothing like her usual bite. And it guts me.
I step back from the door. “I’ll be right here.”
Her eyes search mine. “You really mean that?”
“Yes.”
“All night?”
“Yes.”
“What if Savage calls?”
“He can walk here.”
A laugh slips out of her, but it’s soft and frayed, but real. My chest does something I don’t have a name for.
She studies me for another long second, then steps inside. “Leave the door cracked.”
My pulse kicks once. “You sure?”
“No,” she says. “But do it anyway.”
She disappears into the room, and I leave the door cracked. Then I sit on the floor outside it, back against the wall, knees bent, gun within reach.
I have stood watch outside rooms before. Guarded presidents. Prisoners. Traitors. Club brothers bleeding through long nights while we waited to see if the doctors were better than the bullets. But this is different.
Because through the crack in the door, I can hear Harper moving. Water running in the small sink. A drawer opening. The soft thump of boots hitting the floor, and fabric shifting.
I stare straight ahead. I am not a good man, but I can be disciplined. Inside the room, the bed creaks, then silence follows.
Her voice is softer when she speaks. “Steel?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you mean it?”
“Which part?”
“That nobody says my name unless they’re ready to choke on it.”
My fingers flex around my knee. “Yes.”
“That’s psychotic.”
“Yes, it is.” I can admit that much.
There’s a pause before she speaks again, barely above a whisper, “It also helped.”