Page 21 of Ravaged Saints (BloodHawks Duet #1)

She’s walking, but I can tell she’s uncomfortable. She’s stubborn as fuck and refuses to let me carry her.

“So let me get this straight,”

I say, falling into step beside her, and she tilts her head up to meet my gaze. There is dirt smudged across her cheeks, and her hair looks like it just went to war and lost. “I can fuck you from here to Sunday, but I can’t carry you?”

She snickers. “It’s called balance, smart boy.”

I grab a handful of her messy hair, about to tug her closer when something catches my eye behind her. One of our traps lies broken on the ground.

“We’ll talk about that ‘boy’ comment later,”

I warn, stepping past her to inspect it.

The metal is bent, and part of the iron grip is cleanly severed, not broken. Cut, and there is no way an animal did this.

A cold prickle runs down my spine. I stand and scan the dark tree line, but it’s pitch-black. I can’t see shit, so my instinct takes over. I grab Aspen’s hand and pull her with me, my boots hitting the dirt hard.

“What’s wrong?”

She asks; her voice becomes unsteady.

“Nothing, pet. Probably just an animal, and I don’t have a weapon on me.”

I try to hide what’s truly going on, but I can tell by her face she doesn’t believe me, but part of it is true. I don’t have a gun, and we need to get to the base before something, or worse, someone, finds us first.

We get to the base in minutes. I open the gate, and the second we’re inside, I lock the door behind us. “Go take a shower. I need to handle something.”

She doesn’t move, and her piercing emerald eyes lock onto mine, searching. She knows I’m hiding something but is smart enough not to press.

With a small nod, she turns and heads downstairs, and I wait until she’s out of sight before walking into the main room, where Dante is on the bench press with Max and Ryker spotting.

“Where’s Ethan?” I ask.

Dante racks the weights and sits up, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Outside with Bryn.”

He smirks. “How was the hunt?”

I don’t respond, and the look on my face says enough.

Dante frowns. “What?”

“One of the traps is broken on the north side.”

Max and Ryker turn to me instantly.

“An animal?”

Ryker asks, shrugging.

“The steel was cut.”

I move to the closet and grab a gun.

“Fuck,”

Max mutters, already reaching for another. “And Ethan’s out there with Bryn.”

Ryker arms himself, and Dante follows.

“Recon with me. Dante, Max—stay on guard. If anyone but us comes near, shoot to kill.”

They nod, and I pull on my jacket before punching in the code to leave. Ryker is beside me as we enter the night; if someone’s out here, he will find them.

We move through the trees, slow and silent, our footsteps barely rustling the underbrush. When we reach the broken trap, I kneel to inspect it.

“Footprints,”

Ryker murmurs, crouching beside me. “Boots.”

I shift closer, tracing the disturbed dirt with my fingers. Someone was here.

Did they see the base? Did they see me fucking Aspen?

If they did, I’ll rip their goddamn eyes out.

“They aren’t fresh,”

Ryker says, pulling me from my thoughts.

I exhale sharply. “Not sure if that’s a good thing.”

I rise, scanning the dark. “Did they just pass through, or did they see the base and turn back to get more men?”

Ryker stands, his gun raised. “Want to check the area?”

“Yeah. See where the tracks lead, if towards the town or the river.”

He nods, and we slip deeper into the woods.

We still need to find Ethan, but my guess is he went to the river, but the footprints don’t lead that way or toward town. They continue north.

“Maybe they were hunting?”

Ryker whispers, his eyes locked on the darkness ahead.

“Maybe. But we’ll need to make rounds over the next week to be sure.”

The prints lead far enough away that, for now, we’re safe.

“It’s weird,”

Ryker mutters and rolls his shoulders, just as tense as I am. “All these years, and someone just happens to pass by here now? Even before the plague, no one came through this side of the woods.”

He’s right.

That's the main reason we chose this place because no civilians ever made it this far.

The woods are too dense, crawling with wild animals, and if you get lost out here, no GPS can save you.

The fact that someone passed through now, it’s too much of a coincidence.

“Maybe they’re after the girls.”

They’re the only outsiders we’ve come across in years, and even they were almost four hours away when we found them.

“If they came for one of them, it has to be Bryn,”

Ryker points out. “Aspen’s been gone from her old community for years.”

I shake my head. Whoever it is, if they come near, we will kill them.

“Let’s find Ethan and Bryn.”

I move toward the river, Ryker right beside me.

We reach the river, but there’s no sign of them, and my pulse kicks up.

“Where the fuck are they?” I murmur.

“Fuck, Reaper.”

Ryker scans the area, gun up, checking the other side of the water where the flow is low, and if they were nearby, we’d see them.

“Let’s head back.”

I set a brutal pace, Ryker following as we take another path, checking for more footprints or cut traps.

An hour later, we approach the back gate, whistling to keep Max or Dante from putting a bullet in our skulls.

“They back yet?”

I ask, yanking the gate open.

“No.”

Dante shakes his head, glancing behind me like Ethan and Bryn might appear out from the trees.

“Bryn?”

Aspen’s small question comes from behind him.

“No, pet,”

I say, sounding steady. “But we’ll find them. Both of them.”

I need to be in control. I am always in fucking control.

Aspen nods, but unshed tears glisten in her lashes, and Max shrugs his jacket off, draping it over her shoulders, and she leans into him. Her face is pale, and her icy blue eyes scan the woods.

I need to find those two. If anything happens to Bryn, Aspen will break. And Ethan… even with his temper, he’s still one of us.

Ryker climbs onto the roof, lying flat, gun trained on the tree line, and the rest of us stay outside, pacing, waiting. No one speaks, and the hours seem to not pass…

“There!”

Ryker shouts from above.

Aspen bolts for the gate but stops short. She doesn’t know the code. Fuck. I need to change that. She needs to know it in case we’re attacked, in case she has to escape or get back inside.

I punch in the code, and she tears through, throwing herself at Bryn so hard they almost go down.

“Where were you?”

Aspen shouts. “There’s someone out there!”

“Out where? What happened?”

Bryn grips her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?”

Aspen snaps. “Where the hell were you? and Ryker went looking for you two!”

Bryn glances at Ethan, whose eyes flick between me, Ryker, and Aspen. “We were by the river,”

he says, calm as ever, and gestures toward the trees. “Further up, where the flow’s higher. I wanted to show Bryn how beautiful it looks at night.”

I study him, taking in his relaxed stance.

“We didn’t know you’d come looking for us,”

Bryn adds, arms still wrapped around Aspen.

Aspen and Bryn collapse into the chairs at the table, their heads bent close. “God, you scared me, Bryn.”

Aspen brushes a strand of hair from Bryn’s face.

I lean against the kitchen wall, eyes scanning everyone.

Max steps beside me. “What is it, Reaper?”

“What if we get attacked?”

I murmur low, meant only for him.

“We defend ourselves.”

Max’s confidence is unwavering.

“And if we can’t? If they take the girls?”

“They won’t.”

His grip on my shoulder is firm. “If anyone comes for us, we’ll see them coming. And we’ll be ready.”

I let out a slow breath. “Fuck, I’m tired.”

Aspen and Bryn head downstairs and see them both entering Aspen’s room.

I notice the way Ethan watches Bryn as she leaves.

They’ve been sleeping in the same room since the girls arrived, but I told her she could have her own, like Aspen, but she refused, saying she felt safer near him.

Fine by me.

Aspen, on the other hand, prefers her space.

She’s been decorating her room with dried flowers and trinkets from the basement, and she sleeps alone most nights.

Even when one of us fucks her, we always leave before morning. It’s our way of giving her space, but… I don’t think she actually enjoys it.

“Man, I’m sorry,”

Ethan says from behind me, and I turn, watching him rub the back of his neck. “I just wanted to do something nice for Bryn.”

I hold his gaze, then nod. “No problem, brother. With the footprints, we thought maybe…”

I trail off.

He’s been different lately. More distant, but fuck, I don’t think Ethan would hurt us. He’s not like the rest of us, always following rules, always toeing the line, and we need to remember that. Still, I don’t like how tonight played out.

“We’ll keep an eye on the trail,”

I say finally.

Ethan nods, and I clasp his shoulder in a quick, firm grip before heading to my room.

I take my shirt off and toss it onto the chair before sitting on the edge of the bed.

Today didn’t end the way I expected.

After fucking Aspen, I thought I’d be holding her all night, but instead, I’m sitting here, on fucking edge, with that gnawing feeling in my gut, the same feeling I had over a decade ago on that mission.

Lying down, I rest my head on the pillow, but my mind won’t fucking shut up, and it drags me back to that day.

It was supposed to be a simple mission, hit a factory somewhere in Romania, kill everyone inside, and take whatever documents we could find.

Roman, our captain, came along, and that should’ve been the first red flag.

We took down the targets, but then we saw a kid, seventeen at most.

I ordered all the guns down, but before I could process it, Roman yanked my weapon from my holster and put a bullet right between the kid’s eyes.

“No witnesses,” he said.

I stood there, fucking stunned, not realizing what had just happened.

When we got back, we were called in, and it turned out we’d killed some important man’s son and stolen classified documents that belonged to our allies.

During the meeting, we all noticed something: no one mentioned Roman.

No one even knew he was there, and our radios had been off the entire time on Roman’s orders.

The mission didn’t exist.

We weren’t supposed to exist.

So, they discharged us.

No pension, no backup. Nothing.

We didn’t rat him out, but it took every ounce of control I had not to go after him and shove a rifle up his fucking ass.

He destroyed us—our unit, our careers—and for what? Money.

I inhale deeply, then exhale, trying to keep my control.

I haven’t thought about that time in years, but ever since that conversation with Aspen, I can’t get it out of my head.

Dante says I blame myself, and of course, I fucking do; it was my unit, and I led them into that mission where they lost everything!

“Fuck,”

I murmur under my breath.

I hope the captain died in the plague. I should’ve killed him myself, and maybe then I’d have some peace of mind.

A knock at the door pulls me back. Thank fuck.

“Come in.”

I sit back up on the side of the bed, running a hand through my hair.

Max walks in, a bottle of whiskey in one hand and two glasses in the other. “Hey, man. Thought you could use this.” He grins.

I nod. The guys know me too well. They know all of this is eating me alive.

“Thanks, brother.”

He pours the amber liquid into the glasses and takes a seat across from me in the black leather chair in the corner of my room.

“You worried about those footprints?”

he asks, taking a sip, his eyes locked on mine. “Or just taking a walk down memory lane?”

I snort. “Something like that.”

He shakes his head. “I thought with all that chasing you did with Aspen—”

“What if there was someone outside?”

I cut him off, shaking my head. “It was fucking reckless, but she drives me fucking feral,”

I grunt, rubbing my jaw.

“She drives us all, brother.”

Max raises his glass with a smirk.

“And you and Ryker?”

I shift the conversation. Talking about Aspen is making my cock throb, and I’d throw her door down and take another piece of her in a heartbeat.

Max exhales sharply. “Fuck, I don’t know.”

“You fucked Aspen. It’s only fair he got with Bryn, right?”

I ask, keeping my tone even. I know how this shit pisses him off.

Max drains his glass in one go before pouring another. “I don’t care that he fucked Bryn. It’s that thing Bryn said, if he would fuck her with Ethan.”

He shakes his head. “Also, I fucked Aspen after,”

he pauses, “I didn’t fuck her, not with my dick, man. I would never have something that intimate with her without telling him first. Fuck, I wanted to have Aspen with him.”

I hear the frustration in his voice.

Max met Ryker in the first year of the unit, but a relationship was damn near impossible back then, and they both knew it, so when we were discharged, I thought they’d finally give it a go.

But instead, Max went back to London, Ryker to Toronto, and that was it until I called them both back to form Bloodhawks.

The second they saw each other, we all knew they weren’t just mates; they weren’t just friends.

There was something more between them.

Love? Maybe.

Max wanted to take things to the next level, but Ryker still struggled.

I know he cares about Max—he’d die for him—but he fights it, and there’s nothing any of us can do to help.

I’ve done what I could. Their rooms are next to each other, and fuck, I even told them they could share if they wanted.

I don’t give a fuck who they’re with.

They’re my brothers, and that’s all that matters, but I wish Ryker could see that.

And now, with what happened with Bryn, I don’t know if this is the breaking point for Max.

“You two need to talk. Maybe get Aspen and fuck her,”

I chuckle, but Max just stares at the wall behind me.

“Good to see I’m not the only overthinker around here.”

Max finally looks at me and huffs a laugh. “Fuck.”

He stands, pacing the room. “Do you think he—”

He stops, shaking his head.

“Loves you?”

I say, watching the way he tenses.

He cringes. “I don’t know, .”

“Then maybe you should just ask him.”

Max snaps his eyes to mine like I just said the most ridiculous shit ever.

“Maybe,”

he murmurs.

The whiskey starts to hit, and I need some sleep because tomorrow I’ll take another walk around the base to make sure nothing else was moved.

Max smirks as he heads for the door. “Thanks for this, Reaper.”

“Anytime, brother.”

As he leaves, I realize we’ve never had this kind of conversation before, and I guess having the girls around has made us a little more… in touch with our fucking feelings.