“We protect our own,” Ghost said quietly. Wren’s breath caught at his wording, and Buck noticed. Ghost did too, but neither corrected it. Because deep down, they’d both already decided.
Buck looked toward Ghost slowly. “You serious about this?”
Ghost met his eyes steadily. “About her—yeah.”
“And us?” Buck asked.
Ghost smirked faintly. “Brother, I’ve been halfway in love with you since Thunder Creek. I just figured you were too emotionally repressed to notice.” Wren made a small choking sound beside them, and Buck barked out a startled laugh despite himself before Ghost’s expression turned serious again. “But right now?” he said quietly. “None of that matters more than keeping her breathing.” Buck sobered instantly because Ghost was right. Whatever this thing between them was, or whatever it might become, it wouldn’t survive if the Vultures reached her first.
Buck looked down at Wren and saw the fear she tried to hide from them and the strength underneath it. He looked at the woman who somehow walked into their frozen corner of hell and made both men remember they still had hearts. Mine, something deep inside him growled. Ours, another voice answered immediately.
Buck reached out before thinking and tucked a curl behind Wren’s ear gently. “You trust us?” he asked quietly. Wren looked between both men carefully and then, slowly, she nodded.
Ghost exhaled softly beside him. “Well,” he muttered. “Guess we'd better start a war.”
Wren
Wren couldn’t sleep—not after the conversation she had just overheard with Buck and Ghost. And definitely not after standing between two dangerous men while snow fell around them and hearing both of them admit they wanted her—and each other. Her brain still felt scrambled from it.
She sat cross-legged on the narrow bed upstairs, wrapped in Buck’s flannel, staring at the frost creeping across the window while the clubhouse hummed faintly beneath her. Men moved downstairs. Doors opened and closed. Engines occasionally roared to life outside. The Kings were making war preparations, and somehow tangled up inside all of that was the fact that Buck and Ghost had both looked at her like she already belonged to them.
What was worse was that a part of her liked it. That realization should have sent her running. Instead, heat curled low in her stomach every time she remembered the rough sound of Buck’s voice asking if she trusted them. He had said them—plural, and God, she wanted to bury her head in the sand until she figured out what her next move should be.
“This is insane,” she whispered to herself. She barely knew these men. One was a quiet mountain of control and buried intensity who looked at her like she was something precious and breakable all at once. The other was chaos wrapped in tattoos and sharp smiles, who flirted like breathing came naturally to him, and apparently, they both wanted her—together.
A knock sounded softly against the bedroom door, and Wren nearly jumped out of her skin. “Yeah?” The door opened slowly, and Buck stepped inside first. Ghost followed behind him. Wren’s pulse instantly lost its mind. Oh no. Neither man spoke immediately. Buck leaned against the closed door while Ghost sprawled casually into the desk chair across from the bed like they hadn’t just shattered her entire understanding of relationships downstairs. The tension in the room thickened immediately.
Wren swallowed hard. “Is something wrong?”
“Depends,” Ghost said lightly. “You planning on sneaking out?”
She blinked at him, not sure that she had heard him correctly. “What?”
Buck crossed his arms. “You’ve been awake a while.”
“How would you know that?” she asked.
Ghost grinned. “Sweetheart, Buck’s checked this hallway four times in the last hour.” Buck shot him a glare, and Ghost looked delighted by it. Heat flooded Wren’s cheeks instantly.
“You were checking on me?” she questioned.
Buck looked almost annoyed that she asked. “Yeah.” The simple honesty of it hit harder than it should have.
Wren looked between them carefully. “Okay, what’s really going on?”
Buck’s expression darkened slightly. “We found tracks near the south fence.”
Fear slid cold down her spine immediately. “Human tracks?”
Ghost nodded. “At least two men are watching the compound.”
Her stomach tightened. “They know I’m here.”
Buck pushed away from the door slowly. “Which means we need to discuss security.”
Wren stared at him for a second before realization dawned. “Oh no.” Ghost immediately started laughing, but Buck looked unimpressed.
“It’s not funny,” she insisted.
