Page 19

Eden

It’s easier to cut someone else

than to open yourself up.

I drag my feet, twisting to try and make sure Jayk’s okay, but Lucky harries me until I’m finally inside, like he’s herding a recalcitrant puppy. I bat him away as soon as I clear the doorway. Then I draw short, my pounding heart slowing.

The base of the staircase is crowded with furniture and sprawling mounds of clothes. It’s obnoxious against the open, elegant order of the house—nothing like we left it—but I only give it one puzzled look before I beeline to the taped-up sitting room windows.

I might not be able to eavesdrop, but I can still creepily stare from the sidelines to make sure Jayk’s okay.

On the way, I need to sidestep nearly a half a dozen sleeping bags. I’d wondered where all the tents had gone—Jayk must have moved everyone inside. It’s packed uncomfortably close, but they’ll certainly be more sheltered in here, particularly as the weather starts to turn.

I tweak the gorgeous, heavy curtains to the side and crack open the sliding doors so I can see outside.

As he follows us into the room, I hear Beau call, annoyance thick in his voice, “Wait, this is all my stuff. Why are all my things out here?”

Ignoring him, Jasper steps in behind me, and I try not to shiver over the casual way he notches his chin on the top of my head so he can watch the scene too. Lucky falls in beside us, and he gives me an amused sideways look when I stick my head through the missing window frame.

It doesn’t help much, but at least I can see Jayk now.

The crowd has parted around him in the unfurling darkness, and he’s serious as he talks to them. Unsneering. Unsmirking. Un scowling .

And... the worst of their panicked anger is already fading.

Mary Beth’s shoulders slump, and Jayk shrugs as he talks to her. Sloane squeezes the back of Mary Beth’s neck under her auburn hair, nodding along to whatever he’s saying.

“They’re really listening to him,” Jasper murmurs, a note of confusion in his voice.

Dom leans against the door frame on the other side, and I push open the door so he can see too.

He looks strangely more at peace than I’ve seen him this last week as he watches them.

The harsh frown lines between his brows have relaxed, and I wonder why he looks like this now, when everything is at its worst.

“They trust him,” he says, without looking up.

Ida and Ethel are turned toward Jayk, open. Listening.

They all are.

Not with the fearful awe of peasants for a brutish medieval king. His throne is abandoned behind him, and he’s speaking to them as equals—and they’re responding as the same.

“Eden, I don’t think any of this is yours.” Beau’s confusion travels as he picks through the furniture. He throws something down. “Seriously, why is my shit out here?”

Jayk rolls his eyes, waving Ida off as she pats his cheek, and she throws her head back and laughs. Smiles crack stern faces, and he rubs the back of his neck, glancing our way.

Hope, sweet and warm, slides through me at the affection between them. Jayk is coming into his own here, and it’s beautiful—so, so beautiful—in the middle of all the destruction.

Dom finally pulls back, an odd expression on his face. It’s almost nostalgic, as though he’s seeing something lovely but lost to him.

He lets the curtain drop heavily back into place and turns away.

Painful shards fill my throat at the resignation in him. He’s filled with it, like it’s swelling his very muscles and somehow deflating him all at once.

It’s too bittersweet, too unkind and lovely, that Jayk’s strength rises out of his fall.

“Dom. Sir...” I whisper, taking a step after him.

He looks back for another pensive moment, then turns for the stairs. “I’m going to get some sleep. We should all get up before dawn to help Jayk. He’s going to need it.”

“My lamp! It’s just dumped here!” Beau storms in, holding his hideous shaded lamp. The fringes clatter against the gilding as he shakes it. “Why would anyone just leave it like that? They could have broken it. This is probably a Douglas family heirloom.”

“It most certainly is not ,” Jasper says absently. He’s studying Dom. “You’re surely not indulging this ridiculous leadership run of his? You did hear him with the Reapers. He’s lucky they didn’t open fire on us.”

Lucky’s blond head is still sandwiched between the curtains. “My favorite part was the arm wrestling.”

Jasper walks over to sprawl on one of the elaborate couches, careful not to let his boots touch the upholstery. Though I’m not sure it matters—the dirt and exploded glass after the battle for Bristlebrook did a number on the delicate stitching.

He plucks at a stain on the velvet cushion with distaste. “I believe that was a handshake.”

“It was?” Lucky looks back, surprised. “Huh.”

Beau slams the lamp on a side table, his jaw flexing, but I’m too busy wincing at the memory of the competing scarlet of Jayk’s and Sawyer’s faces to soothe him.

At the base of one of the massive, curling staircases, Dom stops, his hand gripping the gleaming balustrade.

“I think he did a great job,” I offer, then adjust my glasses nervously at the arch look Jasper gives me.

“I do! I actually think he made a few excellent points. He found out what they wanted, and... and he stood his ground while they were trying to bully us.” I frown.

“Or seduce us. I’m still not entirely sure which.

It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Jayk advocated for us, for all the women here, despite what it might cost us.

That matters. To me? To them? That matters a lot. ”

The crowd is starting to break up now, turning toward Bristlebrook.

Beau shoots one last baleful frown at his lamp, then leans against the subtle wallpaper. “We’ve been advocating for them already, Eden. What do you think this whole damn trip was about? Getting resources, protecting ourselves and them. It’s the bare minimum, okay? It doesn’t make him a leader.”

Dom turns abruptly.

Nothing else, just turns... but he steals every eye.

Even silent, even resigned, he’s still their captain. He has the ability to command a room just by breathing. Maybe it’s the perfect posture, or the forbidding breadth of his shoulders, but his presence has a heavy weight.

And right now, there are the makings of a blaze in his eyes, molten embers that could strike a brilliant flare.

“You all need to shut the fuck up.” The words are calm, commanding , but the simmering anger just underneath feels ready to blow.

“Do you have any idea how much work it must have taken to get Bristlebrook into the shape it’s in?

How hard it is to coordinate that many people for the kind of organized response we saw today?

” His gaze cuts the men down, one by one, and his face is chiseled from stone.

“I know you don’t, because none of you lifted a finger to help. ”

I open my mouth, then close it when Dom’s eyes meet mine, teeming with frustration. He hinted at this before over coffee, how overwhelmed he was. I remember him coming to our door and begging Beau for help.

Lucky turns away from the window, stretching. “I mean, he also managed to build a whole-ass throne out of scrap metal; he can’t have been that busy.”

He flinches back at the way Dom glares at him.

Beau blows out a frustrated breath. “Is that what this is about? If you need more support, Dom, we can do that. You don’t need to be stepping down. Don’t get me wrong, Jayk is a handy guy—but this is your show.”

“For fuck’s sake, Beau. Shut up .” Dom’s filthy boots track mud over the vibrant rug as he storms forward.

His eyes are searing; they should scald Beau to the bone.

“You just expect that all this shit just gets done, but it doesn’t.

Jayk organized Bristlebrook—that’s not just mechanics and building, that takes planning.

And the only reason he can organize these civilians like that is because they trust him, just like they trusted him tonight.

” He gestures around the room, clipped and cold.

“They don’t trust me, or any of us. Only Jayk earned that.

And you don’t earn loyalty like that by just being handy . ”

His fingers are curled into fists as he fights for control, and my insides start tearing in two.

I believe in Dom as a leader with everything in me.

He has a mind for strategy, an appetite for risk, resourcefulness, strength, resilience under pressure—and his compassion has grown in leaps and bounds.

But I also believe in Jayk.

No, he doesn’t have the experience yet—or the finesse—but Dom is right. He deserves a team behind him.

Maybe Jayk needs this chance to see who he can be... and maybe Dom needs some time to heal.

I glance around at Beau, then Lucky, then Jasper. “Jayk also gave us our first shot at real food by bringing in the Reapers. He managed more than we did.”

Jasper lounges back on his couch, and his hair falls over his forehead. He looks at me appraisingly. “The idea was good, I’ll grant him that—it’s the execution that leaves something to be desired.”

Dom rubs a hand over his mouth, staring at Jasper, and I’m glad I’m not on the receiving end of that look.

“I— I don’t think that’s entirely fair,” I say hesitantly. “Not exactly. I think.. .”

Jasper brushes an amused finger over his lips as he watches me stumble over my words, and I narrow my eyes. It feels strange to disagree with Jasper, and stranger still to voice it.

He waits for me, dark-eyed and expectant, and I steady myself.

“Jayk pushed the Reapers, and I think they revealed more than they planned to.” I rub my nose under my glasses, thinking, remembering the conversation, the moves like a chessboard.

“There’s something there. The Reapers and the Sinners are at odds.

I’m not sure what to make of it yet, butwe have options, so many more than we had before, and that’s entirely because of Jayk. ”