Saint tilted his head.What was?
Ranger made that sound again, the one that seemed to come from the depths of his gut. “Don’t make me answer that. Not in front of him.”
He meant me.
I blazed from the ground again.
Again, Saint caught me, and I fought his iron grip on me. “Don’t play fucking games. Was it him? Did he put those scars on Locke?”
Ranger laughed, brittle and without humour. “I could tell you a thousand things about Priest, but trust me, it’s not going to make that jagged broken thing in your chest hurt any less.”
I almost lunged. But the reality of his growled words was a brutal thing. Hisunspokenwords. Ranger wasn’t telling me shit because he thought—because heknewI couldn’t handle it.He knows you love him.
Fuck.
Did Locke?
Tell him.
Damn. How many times did fate have to teach me life was too short to keep my heart to myself?
Saint got in my business, showing his back to Ranger. He hauled me away from the clusterfuck of a conversation and pushed me into the lashing downpour.
I was instantly soaked, the cold rain drenching my clothes, sticking my hair to my face. It didn’t make me feel any better, but the urge to deck Ranger faded as fast as the sun had when we’d left the compound earlier.
Get it together.
I exhaled a stressed breath. This wasn’t me—losing my head on the road, taking my wayward emotions out on my brothers, and it took me back to the real balm for my lairy temper.
Love. It was making me crazy. But I wouldn’t give it up for the world.
I shook Saint off. “I’m good.”
He took me at my word and let me go, inferring the same question to Ranger as he emerged from the trees.
Ranger shrugged and came closer, hands raised in peace. “I get it, brother. You think knowing everything without him having to tell you will somehow make it easier, but it won’t. You might fucking die without ever knowing the worst of it, and you have to be okay with that. Otherwise, you’re just another cunt taking shit from him.”
“I know. I just—” Fuck. Was I really going to tell Ranger how I felt before I told Locke?
Then it dawned on me, for real this time, that Ranger already knew. That he’d seen every break and fracture lancing my heart for exactly what it was. “I need to make this right. He needs to be free—he deserves that more than any of us.”
Ranger nodded, grim determination hardening his gaze. “So we find Priest.”
“What if it’s not him?”
“It is him,” Ranger spat. “I made myself forget his face, but now I know he’s not dead, I can feel that bastard in the air.”
“So we find him,” I concurred.
Saint brought his face an inch from mine. No head tilt needed.And then what?
I bared my teeth. “We kill that fucker twice.”
* * *
As if anything was ever that simple.
If Priest was alive, he had to die.
