Page 126 of Thunder's Reckoning

First, I would reclaim my Flame.

Then Zeke and every man who thought themselves warriors would kneel in ash and blood, and know the truth—

That she was never theirs.

She was always mine.

The ceremonial fire snapped, sparks rising into the chamber air, as though the flame itself answered.

I let the silence settle again, heavy and absolute.

“She will return to me,” I whispered. “And the rest will burn.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

THE SKY ABOVEwas bruised dark with storm clouds,hangin’ so low it felt like the world itself was holdin’ its damn breath. Wind cut through the trees in fits and starts, sharp and restless, but the rain hadn’t come yet. It would. Same as everything else we’d been waitin’ on.

I rode with the weight of a promise heavy across my shoulders and fire coiled tight in my chest. The club moved as one, formation locked, engines rumblin’ low and hungry as we tore down those back roads that twisted through Carolina pines like veins runnin’ straight into hell. Nobody spoke. Didn’tneed to. Words didn’t mean shit now. We were past plans. Past doubts.

This was war.

Ash led in that battered old truck of his, the one that rattled like bones but still ran smooth as sin. He didn’t check no GPS. Man didn’t need to. He carried the path in his blood, same way you carry scars, etched in, permanent. Every turn he took was muscle memory, years of bein’ raised inside that nightmare. We followed him deeper into cuts of the woods so thick you’d swear the world forgot they were there.

That compound? It was built to disappear. Buried behind farmland nobody worked, woods nobody walked, like the earth itself wanted it hidden. A ghost of a place. Untouchable.

We were about to prove otherwise.

The ride stretched long, but time twisted up, folded on itself like it does when you’re ridin’ headfirst into somethin’ bound to shatter. Every twist of my throttle reminded me I was still breathin’, still fightin’. But her? Sable wasn’t breathin’ free. Not while he had her. Not while she was bein’ scrubbed down, veiled, paraded like somethin’ holy when she was mine.

That thought near split me clean in two.

Her voice came back to me then. Soft, bare. The way she’d said my name that night like it meant salvation. Like she believed I could drag her outta fire with nothin’ but my hands and will.

I was gonna be that man.

Or I was gonna die with her name burnin’ on my lips.

We cut the engines just shy of the perimeter, tucked in deep beneath the tree line. Brush curled high, shadows heavy, the air itself changin’—felt wrong, too still, like the earth knew what slept just beyond. The silence after the bikes cut out was jarring, final, like judgment settlin’ down over all of us.

“You good?” Gearhead asked, his voice quiet, eyes steady.

I gave him one nod. “I’m ready to light Gabrial’s world on fire.”

Ash stepped up then, unfoldin’ a worn map with creases deep enough to hold ghosts. He laid it out across the hood of his truck, slidin’ a finger along the lines while a pair of night vision goggles hung heavy ‘round his neck. “Tunnel’s half a mile that way,” he said, keepin’ his voice tight and controlled. “Leads under the east wing. It’s narrow, damp, but it’ll take us into the lower levels. Quiet. Fast. Surgical.”

Devil crossed his arms, jaw locked like granite. “You damn sure you know what the hell you’re doing?”

Ash didn’t so much as blink. “Hundred percent.”

I slid my blade into the sheath strapped to my thigh, checked the pistol at my side, then pulled my cut tight across my shoulders like armor forged in blood. My eyes locked on the tree line, the outline of a place I’d once escaped, a place my bones remembered even if my mind buried it.

“When we breach,” I said, lettin’ the words grind out soft but unshakable, “we don’t hesitate. You see any man standin’ between us and our people, you take ‘em down. Don’t matter what robe they’re wearin’ or what holy bullshit they’re preachin’. You put ‘em down. We get the kids, we get Momma, we get Sable. And Gabrial?” I exhaled slow, steady, every word sharpened to cut. “He don’t walk outta there unless I’m draggin’ his corpse through the dirt.”

The boys nodded. No cheers. No rally cries. Just hard eyes and loaded hands.

That was enough.

These were my brothers. My family. Men who’d bled with me, burned with me, and were ready to walk into hell without a second thought.