Page 11 of Slayin Villain (Royal Bastards MC: Nashville, TN #11)
Ember
There’s something cruel about holding your own secret hostage.
Especially when it’s the kind that could blow two lives to hell.
I stared at the second pregnancy test in my hand, sitting cross-legged on the floor of my bathroom, cold tile against bare thighs. I'd already taken one days ago. But I didn’t trust it. Didn’t trust myself.
The second test?
Same two pink lines. Bold. Loud. Final.
“Shit,” I whispered, voice cracking. “Fucking shit.”
Rome’s name swirled through my head first. Then Villain’s. Then both of them together, tangled in memory and guilt and the kind of heat that left bruises in places you couldn’t show.
And now here I was.
Pregnant.
I didn’t know who the father was.
And worse. I didn’t know who I wanted it to be.
Villain had been distant today. Still showed up at my place, still fucked me like I was oxygen, still kissed me until I forgot my own name. But something had shifted behind his eyes.
He didn’t say much after.
Just laid there, staring at the ceiling like it held answers he didn’t want to say out loud.
I didn’t ask. I knew better.
But when he left that night, I stayed in bed and cried for the first time in a long time. Not loud. Not messy. Just quiet tears and soft sobs that soaked my pillow and made me hate myself for hoping he’d come back.
Two days later, I was back at Royal Road. Dressed down in jeans, boots, and a black band tee, fiddle case in hand even though we weren’t playing that night. It made me feel like myself. Like I had a reason to exist outside of bedsheets and backrooms.
Villain found me in the back lot, leaning against the chain-link fence where the air still smelled like burned rubber.
“You good?” he asked, lighting a cigarette with one hand, the other resting in his jeans pocket like he didn’t trust it not to reach for me.
“Peachy,” I said, not looking at him.
He took a drag, exhaled slow. “You’ve been quiet.”
“You’ve been distant.”
“Didn’t think you’d notice,” he muttered.
“I always notice,” I snapped, turning toward him. “You think I don’t see the way you look through me sometimes? Like you’re already gone?”
He stepped closer. “Rachel still ain’t talking to me.”
“You want her to?”
He didn’t answer. Which was an answer.
“I’m not your second choice, Villain.”
“You’re not,” he said, voice low, rough. “You’re just… different.”
“Different how?”
He stepped into my space. Close. Heat radiating off his skin, his scent already making my head spin.
“You let me be who I am,” he said. “Even when I don’t deserve it.”
I laughed. “Don’t romanticize me. I let you fuck me so I don’t feel like a ghost. That’s not the same as love.”
His eyes darkened. “Maybe not. But it’s more real than what I had with most.”
His hand came up, cupped the side of my face. Gentle. Careful.
“You’re trouble,” he whispered.
“You gonna save me?”
“No.” He leaned down, voice rough against my lips. “You can save me.”
And then he kissed me.
We didn’t make it inside.
He took me against the fence, my leg wrapped around his hip, his hand tangled in my hair, his mouth at my throat. I gasped his name when he slid into me, hard and fast, his teeth grazing my jaw as I broke apart in his arms.
We moved like we were drowning.
Like we didn’t care who saw.
After, he held me for longer than he usually did. His lips resting on my shoulder. Fingers stroking my back.
“You ever think about walking away from all this?” I asked quietly, pressing my face into his neck.
“Sometimes,” he said. “But I’m not built for peace.”
“Neither am I.”
He looked at me then, really looked. “That a warning?”
“No,” I whispered. “That’s a confession.”
Later that night, when he was gone again, I opened the drawer.
The two tests sat there. Side by side. Like silent witnesses.
I picked one up, stared at it, and whispered the truth out loud.
“I think I’m falling for him.”
My reflection didn’t argue.
It just looked scared.
Because secrets like this don’t stay quiet forever.
And when the truth comes out?
Somebody always burns.