Page 91 of Thunder's Reckoning

When I finally stepped inside, the air shifted. Cooler, calmer. The kind of stillness you only got when the world had surrendered to night. Supper dishes stacked in the sink, faint smell of cornbread lingerin’, lights burnin’ low. I eased the door shut behind me, lettin’ the latch click soft, like even that noise might wake the past.

Sable was already in bed.

She lay curled on her side, the thin blanket tangled around her legs, wearin’ one of my old T-shirts that draped loose over her shoulders. The fabric had gone soft with too many washes, slippin’ just enough to show a strip of bare skin, pale in the lamplight. My throat tightened. I’d seen her in that shirt before, but never like this. Just… her.

The room smelled like her too. Clean soap. Warm skin. That faint vanilla that clung to her no matter where she went. Sweet and strong, a brand that sank deep in a man’s chest and stayed there, burnin’ deep.

I let my back hit the door for a beat, eyes closed, shoulders saggin’ under the weight I hadn’t shaken since I’d swung a leg over the bike hours ago. Every face I’d scanned, every street I’d tracked, every thought of how close danger might be, it all fell off me piece by piece, collectin’ at my boots.

“You okay?” she murmured, her voice soft, lids half-closed but her eyes fixed on me like she’d been waitin’.

I didn’t lie. “I am now.”

My boots thudded against the floor, dull and heavy, before I peeled out of the shirt stickin’ to my back. The mattress dipped under my weight as I slid in behind her, arm circlin’ her waist, draggin’ her flush against me like I’d been starvin’ for the feel of her all damn day. She didn’t resist. Just sighed deep and sank into me, her small hand comin’ to rest on mine.

“You smell like oil and asphalt,” she mumbled, her voice muffled against my chest.

“You smell like heaven,” I shot back without thinkin’, the words rough but true.

That tugged a laugh outta her. Not a pretty, practiced laugh, but the kind that cracked through ribs that still remembered bruises. The kind you fought for. She looked up at me, hand slidin’ up slow, tracing the cut of my jaw with fingertips soft but sure.

Her eyes locked on mine, sharp and uncertain, like she needed proof I was still here. Flesh and bone. Not just a dream that could dissolve the second she blinked.

I didn’t give her the chance to doubt.

I kissed her.

Slow at first, then deeper, need curlin’ low and fierce. Not lust, not the kind that burns fast and fades quicker. This was hunger. Ache. The kind that saidI’m here. I ain’t goin’ anywhere. Not unless you make me.

She met me right there. Fingers slidin’ into my hair, legs tanglin’ around me like she meant to tie me down to this bed, to her, to somethin’ steady.

Heat flared searing through me, body catchin’ fire in a way that was dangerous in its own right. Every wall I built, every shield I carried, crumpled in her hands.

Then my phone buzzed.

I ignored it.

It buzzed again. Then twice more, insistent, like a fist poundin’ on the door of my life.

“Son of a bitch,” I growled, forehead pressin’ to hers, chest heavin’ with the fire she’d lit.

She sighed, fingers droppin’ from my shoulders. Not angry. Not defeated. Just that quiet understanding she wore like a shield. “It’s okay,” she whispered. We both knew it wasn’t.

I rolled and snatched the phone. Devil’s name lit the screen.

My jaw locked so tight it hurt.

“What’s up?” I answered, my voice cold, flat, already shoving the warmth down deep where it couldn’t get in the way.

“Gabrial’s been spotted,” Devil said. No lead-in. No wasted breath.

Every muscle in my body went stiff, heart slammin’ once, hard enough to echo in my ears.

“Jacob tailed him east side,” Devil continued. “Got pictures. Video. Bastard isn’t hiding.”

I shot to my feet, paces short and loud across the floor. The violence in me woke fast, stretchin’ like a wolf that’d been caged too long.

“Club’s mobilizing,” Devil said. “I want you at the bar in twenty. Jacob and Hunter are on their way there to watch Sable and the kids.”