Half-hidden in brush, tipped hard on its side, chrome scraped, one handlebar bent. Even in the weak light, I knew it didn’t belong to some prep school boy pretending to be outlaw for a night.
This was a serious machine.
Black. Heavy. Mean.
The kind of bike a man loved enough to kill over.
Nate hissed through his teeth. “That Edge’s?”
“Looks like it.”
“Of course it is.”
Of all the nights.
Of all the fires.
Of all the stupid reckless girls in all of New Mexico, it had to be Edge Rourke’s daughter on Edge Rourke’s bike, crashed out in the desert while half of Santa Fe was about to descend on a felony bonfire.
Another siren joined the first.
Closer now.
I swept the penlight past the bike.
More broken brush.
A smear of blood on pale stone.
My chest went tight.
“Destiny,” I called quietly.
Nothing.
I moved faster.
A sound came from ahead.
Small.
Not a word.
Not even a cry.
A moan dragged up from the dark, thin and broken enough to make something ancient and violent wake under my ribs.
I pushed through mesquite and found her curled behind a clump of brush like the desert had tried to hide her and done a piss-poor job.
Hair first.
That was what my light caught.
Thick black hair spilled over dirt and thorns, so dark it turned blue where the stars touched it. Wild. Tangled. Beautiful in a way that didn’t belong in a crash scene. Then the leather jacket. One sleeve torn. One shoulder scraped pale with dust. Blood at her temple. Blood at her lip. Her skin glowed warm even under all that dirt and shock, caramel latte touched by firelight, soft in contrast to the hard world around her.
Her face was delicate.
That was the dangerous part.
