Chapter 1
Viper
8 Years Ago, August, Age 24
Ghoststravelalongthepath with me, whispering foul prayers at my back. The scent of damp earth and lavender clings to the fall air, taking me back to the year I spent in this hellish place. Each memory rakes along my spine like bony fingers, begging for my attention. But I ignore them, navigating the rocky terrain, focusing on the dark copse of trees ahead. My boot slips on the rocks littering the trail, and his hand lands on my lower back, steadying me. It takes everything not to shove him away.
My body craves him too much.
And right now, I can’t deal with how my nerve endings snap with fiery awareness when he touches me. Much less his wants and needs and insecurities.
“Are you—” Breaker stops speaking as I stalk forward, putting space between us, leaving him and Striker behind.
His hand falls away, and the cool air seeps back in, replacing his warmth and I hate how much I instantly miss his touch. He’s too consuming, chipping away at the stone wall I placed between us. With his dark skin, tight blue Henley, and jeans that hug his perfect ass, he’s difficult to ignore. The constant longing he rouses in me feels perfectly sinful in this place. But that’s not why I’m avoiding him. It’s so I don’t have to see, yet again, the flash of hurt that no doubt crossed his face.
My specialty. Hurting him and moving on.
Keeping my eyes trained on the hilltop, I push on, trying to forget the agony that marked his handsome face in that hotel room a few months ago. When I fucking ripped his heart out. When I denied not just him, but myself, everything I so desperately want. I’m too much of a coward to admit that those lectures from Father burrowed under my skin and planted seeds of disgust.
At myself. At this ache that lives in me to have him.
“I thought they said it was at the top of this hill,” Striker says, following a few steps behind us. The sudden intrusion of his deep voice rips me from my thoughts. “Shouldn’t we see it by now?”
“It’s just up ahead,” I say, continuing up the path, shoulders hunched against the wind. It howls today, just as it did when I lived here all those years ago. Years I don’t want to remember but need to revisit.
“We don’t have much time, Viper,” Breaker says, as he slides in beside me, keeping up with my determined pace.“Fallon and Hunter are expecting us in Inverness soon, and the trip is—”
“No shit,” I snap, then grind my jaw. I don’t have to see his face to know I’ve hurt his feelings. Again. But fuck. I’m sick of tiptoeing around them. Around my own.
“If you prefer to do this alone, we can go back to the car,” Striker says. “You don’t have to be an asshole.”
I huff out a laugh, because we all know I’m an asshole, and turn around, facing Striker. Behind him the path winds down to where our rental car sits at an angle on the side of the dirt road. The long, windy drive to the hilltop was blocked off years ago, so we were forced to go on foot up this steep path to the entrance.
He quirks a brow. Shoving a tendril of hair away from my face, I ignore all the silent questions hanging in the air, and shift my focus to the lush green landscape, dotted with lavender. I take in the scenery, my heart expanding at the raw beauty.
It’s just as I remember it. The low mountain range in the distance, the lake at the foothills reflecting the gray sky, and bloated clouds. The landscape is so dramatically rugged and wild. Scraped of human life except for the small village resting in the middle. It’s so tragically beautiful, you’d never know hope gets eaten in this desolate place.
Fallon rescued me from this hell shrouded in prayers and I never wanted to return. Yet here I am, seeking something I can’t even name.
Breaker nudges my elbow, bringing me out of my thoughts. I glance his way, catching his eyes, but look away.
He yearns too.
“Come on,” I say, continuing up the path and shoving away guilt, but it tugs at the skin on my back like an old scar.
I’m being a dick, I know, but they have no clue what this place was. Or maybe they do, and that’s why they hover like mother hens.
Ever since the day we found those papers in Fallon’s office, the memories of my time here have refused to leave. They claw inside my head, making me antsy. I had thought I had buried them so deep, memories would never visit again, but now that they have awoken, they haunt me.
Like the day Fallon came for me, carrying a kind smile and eyes resembling all the good things from my past.
Like her.
“Hey.” Breaker grips my shoulder, forcing my focus on him.
Again.
When our eyes connect, that familiar heat zaps down my spine. His winter-blue eyes move over my face, assessing. Seeing. They’re like Fallon’s. Eerily so. But unlike Fallon, he’s so good. Breaker radiates purity and warmth. Like home and everything safe, and I can’t even look at him. Not after that night five months ago. When I stole a piece of his innocence in that shitty hotel.
