His bark hits my spine but ultimately doesn’t work.
I cut hard around the old supply shed and throw myself at the door. My hands slam against the wood, I grab the handle, heave myself inside, and throw my weight against the door.
The deadbolt clicks just as a massive force hits the other side, making the door shudder in its frame.
He hits it again. A splintering groan rips through the shed. The hinges scream.
I back up, breathing hard in the dark, the smell of old dust and engine oil thickening the air.
Cool head,I tell myself, my hands balling into fists.Wait for it.
The third hit blows the door wide open and moonlight spills across the dirt floor, framing Derek in the doorway. He’s breathing heavily, his chest heaving under his jacket.
“Stupid,” he snarls, stepping inside, lunging and clamping his hands around my wrist.
“Gotcha,” he says, yanking me forward.
But I use the momentum to step into him and drive my knee straight up, burying it right between his legs. Derek lets out a strangled wheeze and folds in half, his grip on my wrist slackening. I use this moment to rip my arm free and crack my open palm across his face.
The slap echoes off the tin roof, and Derek stumbles backward into the shelving unit, clutching his nose, tools rattling against the metal.
I step sideways, circling him, pivoting until I’m the one standing squarely in the open doorway, my back to the night, his back to the dead end.
He groans, wiping a smear of blood off his upper lip. His chest heaves, but a twisted, ugly grin starts to pull at the corners of his mouth. “I like it when you fight,” he rasps, stepping away from the shelves. “It’ll only make breaking you more fun.”
I stay planted in the doorway.
“Well?” he says, spreading his hands. “What are you waiting for? Run again. That’s my kind of kink.”
I tilt my head. A slow, cold wave of calm washes over me as the bond hums louder now, closer.
“Oh,” I say, my voice steady. “I’m not running.”
Behind me, shadows tear open. Three massive shapes step out from the dark, stopping right at my shoulder, blocking the entire doorway.
Derek freezes.
Ash is on my left. Reed is on my right. Bram is standing dead center. I take a slow, deliberate step back, letting the three of them form a solid, impassable wall between me and Derek, and the sheer volume of their combined dominance hits the air, flooding the cramped shed. Cedar. Woodsmoke. Leather. Heavy, dark and furious.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Derek breathes.
He spins on his heel, searching the back wall, and his eyes lock onto the small, window on the left. He lunges through it and hits the ground rolling on the other side.
But I had a feeling he’d take the coward’s way out. So when he scrambles to his feet to run away again, I’m ready—I stick my foot straight out in his path (a page right out of Maren’s playbook).
Derek’s shin hits my leg at full speed and he goes airborne, flying forward and hitting the gravel face-first with a spectacular, crunching thud. He slides to a halt in the dirt. He doesn’t get back up.
I stand over him, nudging his shoulder with my foot.
“Found your weakness,” I say out loud, smiling. “Trips.”
Reed lets out a bark of a laugh, hauling Derek up by the back of his jacket a second later. Then Bram steps in and backhands him with a brutal, cracking slap that shuts Derek’s eyes and makes him go limp for a second. Then, Bram drops him face-down intothe gravel, pinning him to the ground with a knee between his shoulder blades, and sharply clicks a heavy pair of handcuffs tight around his wrists.
“Derek Dickface,” Bram says, his voice a pure, resonant rumble. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney.”
“And,” Reed adds, stepping into Derek’s field of vision with a massive grin on his face. “You have the right to... suck my dick.”
Ash drops his head into his hands. “Jesus, Reed.”
