Page 135

Echo’s eyes widen.

Mine probably fucking do too.

Because it doesn’t stop.

The water climbs higher, twisting around us while hellfire threads through the gaps, neither one putting the other out. They move together instead, circling tighter until the entire side of the clubhouse is caught inside this insane storm of fire, water, and steam.

Echo stares over my shoulder at the destruction happening around us before slowly bringing those beautiful eyes back to mine.

“We really need to stop having sex near buildings.”

A silent laugh tears through my chest.

Fair-fucking-point.

We stay pressed together through the worst of it, both shaking, breathing like we’ve been running for miles. The tremors slowly fade, and the water loses its fury, falling in a sudden, soft curtain a few feet away from us, leaving the ground dark and wet while we remain completely dry.

My forehead drops to her shoulder while her fingers stroke slowly through my hair, gentler now.

Neither of us speaks for a long moment.

Then Echo lets out a quiet, breathless laugh against my neck. “Kinda glad we didn’t go inside now. We would’ve made a real mess!”

I lift my head just enough to look at her.

The answer is written all over my face…

I fucking adore you.

Chapter Twenty-Three

ECHO

The Next Day

Church convenes the next morning, and daylight makes last night’s damage painfully fucking obvious. Scorch marks streak the side of the clubhouse, puddles still cling to the gravel, and the ground where Carnage had me pinned against the wall looks like it lost a fight with a small earthquake.

So that’s fun.

Apparently blowing up a bedroom wasn’t enough. Now we’re destroying the clubhouse from the outside too.

We didn’t exactly get much time to enjoy the aftermath either. Once we’d pulled ourselves together and headed back inside, we found Raze and told him everything I’d seen through Thessaly’s portal—Malgrave, their deal, and his insistence that I be brought to him alive with my throat untouched. Then the part that wiped every trace of amusement off Raze’s face—the Devil working Thessaly just as surely as he’s been working Malgrave.

Raze listened without interrupting, asked me twice if I was certain about what I’d heard, then told us Church was happening first thing in the morning.

Which is why every patched member of the Kings of Anarchy is now crammed around the table while I sit beside Carnage, staring at a room full of supernatural bikers who are waiting for me to explain exactly how fucked we might be.

The long table fills fast. Raze at the head, Scar to his right already picking through everything I’m about to say before I even open my mouth, Sentinel across from me with his wings tucked so tight beneath his cut they might as well not exist. Carnage stands beside me, one hand resting flat against my back like he needs the anchor point more than I do.

I let my eyes close and reach for the sound I’ve been carrying around inside my skull since the clearing ten days ago.

“Okay…” My voice comes out steadier than I expect. “I’ve been listening to him, really listening, not just picking up the loud parts. There are four distinct threads tangled together inside him.”

Raze leans forward, forearms on the table. “Walk us through it.”

“Carnage’s hellfire is the base note. Constant, deep, it doesn’t waver.” I let my palm hover an inch above his knuckles without touching, the way I’ve learned to when I need to isolate one thread instead of getting swept up into all of them. “Sentinel’s Grace is threaded through it, not sitting beside it, woven into it. Like two different colored threads spun into the same length of rope.”

Sentinel’s jaw works. “Stubborn.”