"I'll be fine." I pull the sheets around myself. "Go."
He crosses to me, tilts my chin up, and presses his forehead against mine. Through the bond I feel the war inside him—the need to protect his town pulling against the need to stay with his pregnant mate. His thumb traces my jaw.
"Lock the bedroom door. Diesel's right downstairs. I'll be back as soon as the fire's handled."
He kisses me—firm and fast, his tusks grazing my chin—and then he's gone. The roar of his bike joins two others in the compound, and the sound fades into the night until the clubhouse falls quiet.
I lie back and press my hand to my belly, reaching for the bond. Knox burns at the edge of my awareness, a bright point moving away from me through the dark. The baby flutters beneath my palm—too early for real movement, but the bond tells me what my body can't yet feel.
I should try to sleep. Instead I stare at the ceiling and listen to the clubhouse settle around me.
The guest room door opens down the hall. Bare feet on hardwood. A soft knock.
"Sarah? I heard bikes. What's going on?"
Jessica. She arrived this afternoon with a duffel bag over one shoulder and a six-pack of IPA I can't drink anymore, standing in the clubhouse doorway with her blonde pixie cut grown out just enough to prove she hasn't had time for a haircut in weeks. My best friend. The woman who followed me to Nightfall Cove.
Jess is five-four, all lean muscle from years of military fitness she never dropped after her discharge. Tattoos sleeve both forearms, intricate black-and-gray work that covers the scars she doesn't talk about. She spent four years as a combat medic in places she won't name, came home with a nursing degree and a flinch response she manages through sheer will.
I open the bedroom door and she leans against the frame, arms crossed.
"Fire at the school," I tell her. "Knox and the brothers went to help the fire crew."
"And he left us here with the golden retriever downstairs." She glances toward the hall. "Solid plan."
"Diesel's on watch."
"I said what I said." But she grins, and the tension in my shoulders loosens. Jess has that effect on me. She's had it since freshman orientation, when she dropped into the seat beside me and said,You look like you need a friend who won't take your bullshit. I'm Jessica.
"Come on," she says. "I'm not sleeping through this. Let's go make Diesel some coffee."
We find Diesel in the great room, pacing a circuit between the front windows and the bar. His baseball bat rests against the wall within arm's reach, and he straightens when he sees us, trying to look like he has everything under control.
"Ladies. Knox asked me to hold the fort. Everything's secure."
"At ease, soldier." Jess heads for the kitchen, laughing. "I'm making coffee. Anyone want?"
The three of us settle into the quiet routine of waiting. Jess takes the couch with her phone, scrolling through something, her version of light reading. Diesel resumes his circuit of the windows. I curl into Knox's armchair with a blanket around my shoulders, reaching for the bond every few minutes to track Knox's location. He's across town now, his focus sharp and outward, the low hum of exertion telling me he's working hard.
Suddenly the power dies.
Every light in the clubhouse cuts at once, plunging us into darkness. The coffee maker gurgles to a stop and goes silent. Then the emergency lights kick on—dim red strips along the baseboards, turning the great room crimson.
Diesel stops pacing. "That's not the storm grid. The generator's out back—someone cut the line."
The words land in my stomach like ice water. The fire. The brothers gone. The clubhouse nearly empty.
It's not a coincidence. It's a trap.
"Someone's out there." Diesel presses himself against the wall beside the front window, peering through the edge of the glass. "Movement by the tree line."
Through the bond I feel Knox register my spike of fear. His focus fractures—shifts from the fire to me. I feel the exactmoment he understands, because his fury detonates so hot the connection between us vibrates with it. He's already coming.
But he's across town. Ten minutes at least.
Glass explodes somewhere down the hall. Diesel grabs his bat and moves toward the sound. He makes it a few steps before something strikes him from the broken window frame. His body seizes, every muscle locking rigid. He drops, the bat clattering across the floor, thin wires trailing from his chest to something outside.
Taser. He hits the ground hard.
