Air traps in my lungs. I pull the knife from the deep pocket of Tristan’s oversized hoodie—the one that smells like pine, motor oil, and the ghost of our sweat—and hold it low, hidden against my thigh. The wheel turns. The heavy steel door groans outward.
The scent hits me first—cold winter air, gun oil, and the sharp, metallic copper tang of fresh slaughter. Tristan fills the frame, a literal god of death. He is drenched in it. Crimson smears his tactical vest and paints the hard, jagged lines of his jaw. His knuckles are shredded and raw, blood dripping steadily onto the concrete floor.
He looks like a monster dredged up from the deepest throat of the mountain to claim a blood debt. He looks beautiful.
"Tristan." The name is a broken prayer in my throat.
He doesn't answer with words. He kicks the heavy steel door shut, the boom echoing like a cannon blast, and throws the deadbolt with a final, metallicthunk. Blood-splattered and feral, he stalks through the small space, his mossy eyes black with the lingering high of the kill. He scans the room for threats before finally pinning me to the cot with a gaze so heavy it feels like a physical hand.
His lips twitch, a ghost of a grim smile breaking through the mask of violence as he sees the knife in my hand. "Good girl."
I drop the knife on the cot and try to push off the mattress to reach him. The second my weight shifts toward my right side, the agony is a white-hot explosion in my marrow. My tib-fib fracture screams, and my vision blacks out at the edges.
Tristan moves faster than a man of his size should be able to. He closes the distance in a blur, his massive hands catching me before I can fall. He snatches me up, lifting me off the ground completely, burying his face in the crook of my neck. His grip is bruising. Desperate. He holds me like he’s trying to absorb my very identity into his own.
"You're okay," he growls against my skin. His voice is a rough, tectonic vibration rattling through my chest. "You're okay. I have you."
"I'm okay." I wrap my arms around his broad shoulders, digging my fingers into the wet, sticky slickness of the blood on his vest. I don't pull away. I need the tactile proof that he is solid, that he is here, that he is the predator who kept the world away. "Tristan, the blood... are you hurt?"
"Not mine," he rasps. He pulls back just enough to look at me, his large hands framing my face, smearing crimson onto my cheeks. His thumbs trace my cheekbones, his eyes searching mine with a frantic, starving hunger. "Did they get in? Did you hear anything at the door?"
"No. It was quiet. Savannah stayed with the baby."
He lets out a breath that seems to deflate his entire frame, the adrenaline finally starting to ebb, leaving behind a heavy, crushing exhaustion. He rests his forehead against mine. "It's done. The fireteam on the ridge. The extraction team at the gate. They're gone."
"Dead?"
"All of them," he vows. "I caught the last one trying to circle the perimeter while Shane held the back door. They won't be sending a second team. I made sure of that."
A terrifying sense of peace washes over me. "They wanted the data, Tristan. The survey I was doing on the eastern ridge. I found the primary colony of pine martens. It’s a highly protected habitat. If I publish that report and map the den sites, the multi-million dollar development Ramirez planned for that sector dies instantly. I’m not just a biologist to them; I’m a financial executioner."
Tristan pulls back, his expression turning to granite. "A land deal. They tried to kill you over a fucking land deal."
"It's worth millions."
"I don't care if it's billions," he snarls, his hands tightening on my waist. "They came for you. They targeted what’s mine."
He pulls me closer on the cot, his weight dipping the mattress but never letting me go. He sits, settling me sideways across his lap, mindful of my splinted leg. He strips off his tactical vest, the velcro tearing loudly in the small room. He drops the blood-soaked gear onto the floor, leaving him in a black t-shirt torn at the shoulder, revealing a shallow knife slash already clotting.
"You're bleeding." I reach for the wound.
He catches my hand, pressing a hard, possessive kiss to my palm. His lips are warm—a stark contrast to the violence in his eyes. "I don't feel it. I can't feel anything but you." He shifts, his hand sliding up my thigh, deep under the hem of the hoodie. His touch is heavy, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my hip."When Shane radioed... when he said they had eyes on the loft... I thought I was too late. The noise in my head, Alex. It screamed. It didn't stop until I saw you sitting here."
"I waited," I say, leaning into him. "I knew you were coming."
"I will always come for you." The words are low and dark. "But I’m done hiding you. I’m done keeping you in a loft or a vault like a secret." He tilts my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze. "You understand what happened today? I crossed a line. The club crossed a line. We went to war on our own doorstep."
"I know."
"There's no going back," he grates out, his thumb brushing over my lower lip, pulling it down to reveal the slickness inside. "You can't go back. Not until we find out exactly who signed those checks and I put them in the ground. If you stay here, you belong to the club. You belong to me."
"I thought we established that in the loft," I whisper.
"No," he growls. "In the loft, we were surviving. This is real. This is blood and dirt and a war that isn't over. If you stay, I am claiming you. Fully. Publicly. I’m putting my patch on your back and my ring on your finger, and I am never letting you out of my sight again."
"Claim me, then," I challenge him. "Do it."
A feral growl vibrates in his chest, the sound of a beast finally snapping its leash. Without a word of permission, his mouth crashes against mine. He tastes of iron and salt, his tongue a thick, demanding muscle that rams past my teeth to claim my mouth for his own.
