“The aura, Cam? Really?”
His features lightened a touch. “Rubi got into it with Nanna Jean. She remembers thinking this land was cursed.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t believe anything is ever as final as that. And for all the Dog Crows were a fucking stain on the earth, a lot of people around here relied on them—for work, for community. Nash wants to give that back.”
The wind picked up, whistling through the broken space I remembered as being plagued with discontent and evil, the atmosphere nothing like the familial warmth the Kings fostered in their camp. “Nash is not the only big-hearted man you call brother. How do the others feel about it?”
“Depends on the day.” Cam shrugged. “Fighting the Crows cost us in ways I’d never thought to be afraid of, but they gave us three brothers I can’t imagine the future without, so it’s hard to have regrets.”
“Then do what makes you feel good. You all deserve that.”
Cam thought on that for a while, surveying the land around us. “I want better for them,” he said eventually.
“Your club or your family?”
“It’s all the same to me, but I meant Rubi and Nash. They’re wasted on what they do now we’re not fighting a different war every night.”
“Nash will be busy enough when the baby comes.”
“Babies grow. They go to school. Live their own lives. I want more for him than kicking around the garage.”
I did not point out that up to his elbows in oil and engine parts seemed to be the place Nash was happiest when he wasn’t wrapped up with his lovers. Or that even when he was, the old sofa in the garage had many stories to tell. Instead, I turned my face to the sky, pondering why Cam had chosen me to unravel his thoughts with. “Nash does more than work in the garage. I did not see it for a while, but that man is never still.”
“He works to provide, to look after everyone except himself. I want him to find something that makes him happy. Rubi too. That prick was never meant to be a fucking accountant.”
“He should have been a clown.”
I did not mean it as an insult. But Cam had never seen the aid workers dance on the roads to the refugee camps. He did not know how a man like Rubi could’ve made that journey brighter for so many children displaced by war.
He snorted through a lungful of smoke. It turned into a cough that went on a little too long for comfort, drawing my attention away from the sky.
“Smoking is going to kill you.”
Cam scowled. “Tell that to Ranger.”
“I do, but he doesn’t listen. He cannot comprehend I love him enough to care that he lives.”
Cam’s glower softened to an expression that was almost a smile. “Feels fucking weird when you say shit like that. You’re so different to how I thought you’d be.”
“Based on what?”
“Every other gun-wielding cunt I’ve ever come across.”
“We did not all choose this life.”
“I know that. But you and Jakov weren’t people to me for the longest time. You were pieces on a chess board I didn’t really understand, and I regret that now.”
“You shouldn’t.” It began to rain, like it so often did in this part of the world. “Everything is as it should be, no?”
Cam opened his mouth to reply, but a rumble of thunder cut him off. Then his phone blared to life with a loud, obnoxious tune that had him scowling all over again. “How does he fuckingdothat?”
The ringtone, I presumed, as the name on his phone screen was Willow, Locke’s teenage daughter.
Cam took the call, opening his mouth and shutting it again too many times to count as whatever Willow had to say confounded and amused him in equal measure. “Slow the fuck down, sproggo. I haven’t trained in super-speed comprehension... I mean, you’re talking too fast. Uh-huh. No, he left this morning with the others—you didn’t know or you forgot?”
He listened some more. I scanned our surroundings again, hoping that whatever Willow needed from Cam would take us away from this place. My gaze fell on Axel as he jogged out of the garage to rescue some materials from the heavy rain. He had shorter hair than the Kings I was used to and just as much ink on every glimpse of skin I could see. He was tall and strong. Immovable, I could tell. But he still did not feel like a soldier.
