Page 8 of Breaking His Exile

Fuck.

Just… fuck.

He’d known they were SoS when they walked in from their cuts, but the fucking president of the club? Every patch-holder in the state would know his face and his truck by morning. The club would come for him. Not a question of if, but when.

His hands tightened on the wheel until the leather creaked. That old animal urge to destroy something—the one he’d spent eight years in the woods starving out—roared to life inside his chest.

She shrank back against the window, as far away from him as she could get in the close confines of the cab.

Dammit, he didn’t want her to be afraid of him. So he couldn’t let the monster out. He had to swallow it back and loosen his grip on the wheel. “Why are they after you?”

She looked out the black windshield and was silent for a long beat. “Because I know things I’m not supposed to know. I’ve been on the run for the last month.”

He didn’t push. Because, hell, he didn’t want to know. He was already in too deep for his liking.

“This isn’t the first time they caught up, but it probably would’ve been the last if it weren’t for you.” She touched her ribs and winced. “So thank you. If you could just take me to River⁠—”

She stopped.

Tilly’s head came up off the seat back. The dog whined and nosed hard at Rainey’s shoulder.

He glanced over. Her skin had gone gray in the dashboard light. Sweat sheened her forehead, and her breathing had changed—shallow, rapid. She kept going like that, she would hyperventilate and pass out.

“Breathe,” he told her.

Tilly whined again, softer, and pushed her nose against Rainey’s jaw.

“Rainey.”

She didn’t answer. Her hand was still pressed to her ribs and her shoulders had come up around her ears, and she was staring at the dark between the trees like it might have something to tell her.

“Rainey. Look at me.”

She turned. Her eyes were too wide, the whites showing all the way around, and her pupils had blown black in the dash light. The shaking had gotten worse—the kind that came from inside her now, the adrenaline finally worn off and nothing left behind it.

“I can’t—” She pulled a breath that stopped halfway. “I can’t⁠—”

“You can.” He kept his voice flat. No warmth in it, no softness. Softness was a trap right now—it invited her to collapse, and collapsing was a luxury neither of them had. “You’re breathing too high. Drop it down. Through your nose, out through your mouth. Slow.”

She tried. The exhale came out ragged.

“Again.”

She pulled another one. This one went a little further before it caught. He watched her ribs move under the fabric of her shirt.

“Again.”

“Fuck you,” she said, but she did it, and her breath came out steadier.

“There it is.” He kept his own breathing going in an easy rhythm for her to follow. “Keep swearing at me. Means you’ve got the air.”

A sound came out of her that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t ended in a sharp, pained inhale.

“Your ribs. They did that to you?”

“Yes. Caught up with me in Nevada a few days ago at a rest stop bathroom. I only got away because a bus of tourists pulled in. Rux grabbing me tonight just aggravated it.”

“You need a hospital?”