Page 40

Beau

Forget hunger.

Anger will eat you alive.

“Oh, fuck.” Lucky’s anger drops away as he stares at the Reapers closing in on us.

“Get the rifles, Lucky. Now,” Jayk orders, jumping off the porch.

The air is clogged with heat, and, as I follow, I just can’t shake the rage off anymore. All I can see now is more people to spit it at.

“Did you know there were more of them?” Jasper asks Jayk as he follows, alarmed.

Jayk scowls, darting a glance at him. “We’ve been watching them. I’m handling it.”

Jasper slows, staring daggers at his back before he lifts his voice. “That would have been helpful to share, Jaykob. Why did they bring so many men? Did you think?—”

Jayk waves him off, nodding to Ava up on her high platform.

“What are we doing, Jayk?” she calls, lined up beside Mary Beth, alarm pinning her tone.

“Give me a frag in case I need to blow the bridge,” he mutters, nodding at the bridge in the center of the moat.

The one in front of Sawyer.

“Hold,” Jayk shouts as he storms past the platforms. “No one fire a single goddamn shot or I’ll pull your intestines out your asshole and make you skip rope.”

I’m close on his heels, and Dom looms like he’s ready to muzzle me.

Dom, who’s buddying up with Jayk— the asshole stomping all over him.

The asshole who took my room out from under me.

Who threw The Plan 2.0 out the window right beside my favorite shaded lamp—the new Plan that I so graciously included him in, too.

But no, Jayk doesn’t give one flying hoot about any of that. Even when I used Eden’s ass as a notepad and sent her to him dripping and desperate, he wasn’t grateful, though that has to be about the most generous gift one friend can give another.

I’m a great friend. Who does he think he is? Saying I cut people out of my life. Going around and calling me petulant. Unforgiving. Stubborn .

He’s just dead wrong. I’ve never been stubborn a day in my life, and anyone who tells me different is a filthy liar.

Dom eyes me sideways, and I ignore him, my hands shaking with unshed violence.

Eden follows along behind us like a tentative foal, and I rub my fingertips together guiltily.

They’re still coated in her tears.

Damn it, I can’t. This has to stop. I need to figure it out. To.. . to breathe or do something to calm the hell down.

I don’t ever want her tears on my fingers again.

A civilian hands me her rifle as I pass, and I mutter my thanks, but the Reapers aren’t grabbing for their weapons.

They’re unloading tents. Cooking kits. They have fold-out chairs like they’re setting up for a church potluck.

The sweltering sun glints off Jayk’s stupid throne, and my resentment burns .

Yeah.

None of this is calming me down.

As we approach, Sawyer parks his ass in one of the chairs, right in front of the bridge. His wide-brimmed hat shades his eyes, and a grin crawls out from under his mustache. A flannel-wearing Reaper tosses him a hard crust of bread as Cole dumps himself in a neon pink fold-out beside him.

My stomach snarls at the sight, hollow and vicious. After a bare slurp of thin bone broth last night and a lick of Eden’s nail varnish slop this morning, I’m ready to shoot him for the bread alone.

For a moment, I think I see a flash of long, dark hair behind one of the tents, but when I look back, the spot is still.

One by one, Lucky tosses the others their rifles, and we fall into line.

Jayk gestures, and we stop in front of the moat, armed and ready. Only one narrow, heavy bridge separates us from the army of Reapers.

Leaning back in his lawn chair, Cole’s doubtful eyes travel over Jayk’s mostly naked body, scarred and scuffed, his hair still standing up—probably from Eden’s fingers.

A mosquito twitches around my ear.

“You have a problem with clothes, King? ‘Cause I’ve got to say, if anyone was going to come walzin’ out of that house in their sleepy clothes, you wouldn’t be my pick,” Cole drawls as he rifles through his pack, finally tugging out a jar of... is that home-made jam?

My mouth waters.

Jayk shoots him a glower, but he addresses the boss. “Get off our lawn, Sawyer. This isn’t what we talked about. You got a whole fucking forest to cozy up in. You don’t need to block us in.”

Sawyer takes the jam from Cole, then flicks open his pocketknife to scoop out a generous chunk that I’d shred eyeballs to suck down. Eden shifts forward, watching the jam too, and a pang of worry works through my anger.

She better be eating more.

I rub my fingertips together again. I’ll check on her, make sure she’s fed at least.

“Well, shoot. That ain’t very hospitable.” Sawyer tips back the brim of his hat to wink. “How’re you all supposed to get to know us if we set up all the way back there?”

He smears the jam over his corner of bread, and I slap and miss the mosquito.

My temple throbs, my muscles aching with the need to punch, and trap, and shoot. I shake my head, but it doesn’t shake the urge.

“Jesus Christ. Eden, Jasper? I’m leaving you for jam.” Lucky groans.

“Fickle,” Eden breathes beside him.

“You want jam, pretty lady, just march your fine behind over that bridge. We’ll make sure you’re fed.

” Cole swipes the jam back off Sawyer, and he frowns as he looks Eden over.

The mosquito lands on my ear. “You look like you haven’t had a proper meal in a good while.

” He smiles, slow and suggestive. “These boys not taking care of you right?”

My vision hazes out.

The gun is kicking back before I realize I’ve fired a shot. The jar explodes in his hand, and both men haul up to their feet.

There’s a rush of sudden clicks as the safeties of at least fifty guns are flicked off, and a shuddering grumble behind us answers as the civilians lock into gear.

“Fucking idiot.” Dom snatches the rifle from my hand, giving me a condemning look as he tosses it down, and I give him an alarmed one back, shaking.

My pulse throbs in my neck, my vision coming in spots.

The Reapers shout, and I raise my hands, as Jayk talks them down. They’re trembling.

What did I do?

My heart drums in my ears, and my head spins dizzily as memories flash. My rifle on the ground. Jayk flipping someone off.

Eden’s arresting gray-blue eyes watching me with concern.

Anger still thrums through me in hot, draining bursts—but shaky fear suddenly flashes alongside it as I latch onto those eyes. I love those eyes. I love them bright and sharp. I love them fogged with need. I love them watching me from the next pillow.

What sort of man gets mad—really, truly mad—at the woman he loves?

But I am.

My mama always said, a man who makes his woman cry is no man at all.

But I did .

It’s like admitting it last night broke the dam. There’s so much of this anger in me now, strange and unfamiliar, and I... I don’t know how to handle it. And maybe shoving it all down wasn’t the healthiest way, either, but it had to be better than this .

“Fine, fine. Weapons down, boys,” Sawyer calls back, reluctantly sitting down. “He’s protective. I can understand that.”

Eden lifts her chin, her gaze cutting back to the Reapers. “I’m not interested in anything you have to offer, sir.” Her voice is tart when she adds under her breath, “I have more than enough to satisfy me here.”

“Don’t call him that,” Dom mutters.

The Reapers go back to unpacking, all their tents and pots and pans—the blankets they won’t need in this forsaken weather. Hell, there are three mules laden with food.

The tension around us unwinds... but mine only coils tighter. Heat is frying the early day and sweat beads under my arms. The mosquitos are too loud. My chest is clenching like someone’s taken a bite from it.

What’s happening to me?

“You’re doing fine, Beaumont. Try to breathe. Focus on that,” Jasper murmurs, suddenly beside me. He’s composed and so barely audible, still focused on Sawyer, that no one so much as glances our way.

I tuck my hands in my pockets and step back as I breathe, trying to cool it. I can always cool it—this time might just be a little harder is all. This time...

Fuck, I don’t have it. Not last night with Dom, or this morning with Jayk, and not now.

I almost got us all shot.

Jayk crosses his arms over his chest. “We need to get in and out, Sawyer. You wanna be friends? Move your ass .”

Dom paces along the moat, scanning the Reapers as they set up.

It’s all a blur.

I’m mad.

Sawyer lifts one shoulder. “No can do, King.” He nods at the sole remaining bridge. “We’re behind your pike pit?—”

“Moat.”

“ Pike pit. We’re staying. Any one of you is welcome to join us for breakfast or dinner or anything in between. We’ll be happy to have you.” He kicks a cool box. “Anyone here like sausages?”

“It’s a siege.” Lucky grimaces. “You’re starving us out.”

“It is not a siege.” Sawyer has the grace to look like he means it.

Absently, he takes a bite of his sweet, slathered bread, and my rage spikes again.

“We’re not here to hurt anyone. We justcan’t go home without you is all.

We need your help. Just think of it as.

.. I don’t know. Aggressive friendship. ”

Lucky’s head tilts, a dimple springing to life in his cheek. “Okay, then. Gimme some of that bread, bud.”

Lounging in his pink chair, Cole grins back. “Come over here and share it with me. Show all your pretty friends you can trust us.”

“I’d trust you more if you stopped calling them my pretty friends,” Lucky replies dubiously, and Cole snorts.

“This is an attack,” Jayk snaps, his own anger making him dark. Aggressive.

Damn it, it’s no way to be.

“Easy,” Jasper murmurs to me. “Go back inside if you need to. We can talk soon.”

I shoot him a glare, but there’s no condescension in his quick glance. Only compassion.

Through a garbled mouthful, Sawyer declares, “Now don’t be ly tha. We’re all fronds here.”

Lucky throws him a pointed finger. “Yeah, friends don’t besiege other friends.” He shrugs. “You know, just a little motto I have.”