The war with the Iron Eagles has barely begun. The real fighting is still to come, and it will be bloody and brutal when it does.But watching my club rally around Luna, seeing them build something together instead of just destroying, I feel something I haven't experienced in years.
Hope.
Not just for survival, but for something better on the other side of this conflict. A future where the Savage Riders are more than just the lesser of two evils in a dying town, where we're building something worth protecting.
Luna catches my eye again across the yard and gives me a small, private smile that makes my chest tight. She's become the unexpected center of this new vision. Not a weakness to protect, but a strength to build around. A queen for a king who never thought he needed one.
The pieces are moving, the war is coming, and this house is just the first step. But for the first time in a long time, I'm fighting for something more than just territory or revenge.
I'm fighting for a future I can actually see myself wanting to live in.
Epilogue - Luna
Three years later
The late afternoon sun filters through the lace curtains of what was once my grandmother's kitchen, casting warm patterns across the worn oak table. I'm balancing Lily on my hip while trying to convince Rose to eat just a few more bites of her dinner. At twenty-three months old, my twin daughters have mastered the art of coordinated chaos. When one sits, the other stands; when one eats, the other refuses; when one sleeps, the other decides it's time for a concert.
"Come on, sweetie," I coax Rose, making airplane noises with the spoon of mashed sweet potatoes. "Just three more bites for Mommy."
Rose looks at me with our blue eyes and King's nose, the only feature the girls inherited from their father, as they got my black hair and heart-shaped face, and clamps her mouth shut.
"You're just as stubborn as your daddy," I tell her with mock sternness.
"I heard that," comes a deep voice from the doorway.
King—Noah to me, though only in our most private moments—fills the doorframe with his imposing presence. At 45, he's somehow even more handsome than when I first met him, the silver now prominent in his dark hair giving him a distinguished look that suits the power he carries.
"Dada!" Lily squeals, nearly launching herself out of my arms in her excitement.
King crosses the kitchen in three strides, taking Lily from me before stealing a kiss that makes my toes curl despite the chaosaround us. That's when I notice his knuckles. Split and bloody, already beginning to swell.
"Another disagreement?" I ask, nodding toward his hands as he settles Lily in the crook of his arm.
"Nothing serious," he assures me, using his free hand to swipe a bit of sweet potato that Rose has smeared across the tray of her high chair. "Just a reminder to some out-of-towners about the rules in Blackwater Falls."
I don't press for details. Not because I don't want to know, but because we long ago established boundaries around what needs to be shared and what doesn't.
The Iron Eagles have been defeated years ago. Vulture finally made his big move and discovered, too late, that underestimating King and the Savage Riders was the last mistake he'd ever make, but there's always someone new testing the waters, someone who thinks they can carve out a piece of our territory.
King has always taken care of these threats before they can become real problems. It's part of the unspoken arrangement that keeps Blackwater Falls safe. The Savage Riders protect what's theirs, and what's theirs has grown to encompass the entire town.
"Let me see those hands after dinner," I tell him, my nurse's instincts kicking in despite my lack of concern about the "how" and "who" of his injuries.
He nods, knowing better than to argue with me about medical care. Three years together have taught us both which battles are worth fighting and which are better surrendered.
"How was your day?" he asks, settling into a chair with Lily still babbling happily in his arms. The sight still amazes mesometimes. This dangerous man, feared across several counties, gently holding our daughter with a tenderness that few outside our family ever get to witness.
"Busy. The clinic had a rush after school. Three cases of flu and a broken arm from the playground." I've been running a new clinic full-time for the past two years, serving as Blackwater Falls' primary healthcare provider after Nick moved to the city. "And the girls decided nap time was optional today."
"Again?" King raises an eyebrow at Rose, who gives him a toothy grin in return. "I thought we had an agreement about that, little one."
Rose giggles and finally accepts the spoonful of sweet potato I've been offering for the last ten minutes.
"Of course she eats for you," I mutter, though there's no real annoyance in it.
Our daughters have had King wrapped around their tiny fingers from the moment they were born. The man who built an MC from nothing, who defeated the Iron Eagles and secured Blackwater Falls as Savage Riders territory for generations to come, is completely defenseless against two twenty-three-month-old girls.
It's now been three years since I stepped off that bus in Blackwater Falls, inheriting a ruined house and walking straight into a territorial war between rival MCs. Three years since I met King at the bus station and he saved me from those would-be robbers. Three years that have transformed not just my life, but the entire town.
