I’m not wrong about him. I can’t be. People who hurt others can wear masks too. They can fight fires… save towns. Doesn’t mean they’re safe behind closed doors.
I nod to myself, as if that locks the thought in place, but it feels shaky. The crack in my certainty is wider now, but I press my hands over my chest and hold it together. If I’m right, this doesn’t change a thing. If I’m wrong…
I don’t get to finish the thought. Kilian covers the distance in a few long strides, and then he’s right there, standing in front of me, sweat and smoke and all of it, chest still rising and falling hard from the effort.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
8
Kilian
SHE’S WATCHING ME. I can tell. Years of military training do that to a man, wire the back of his neck into a second pair of eyes. I don’t need to turn around to confirm it.
I walk the perimeter one more time, kicking at the blackened earth, checking for any glow still hiding in the soil. Only when I’m satisfied do I let myself turn toward her.
She’s inside the rock alcove. Her blonde hair is falling loose from that clip she always wears. Her hands are shaking. She’s small against those rocks.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I cross my arms over my chest, and it’s not to intimidate her. My hands want to reach out and check that she’s okay, and I can’t let them do that, so I give them something else to do.
When I saw her following me out here, and then the blaze tore through, my hands went cold with dread. They haven’t recovered from that yet. The rest of me hasn’t either.
Her mouth opens to answer, but her gaze slips past me to the burned ground, then returns to my face.
“These fires,” she says finally, her voice steadier than her hands. “They happen a lot out here?”
I drag a hand over my jaw. Easier question than the one I want to ask.
“The natural kind? Not often. But the malicious kind… all the time.”
I glance back at the blackened patch of ground. Outsiders come here in our mountains, bored or pissed, thinking it’s funny to light up the woods and watch the show. They think it’s a joke, the way a fire like this could destroy homes, lives. But we don’t let it happen. The club keeps watch.
The radio on my belt crackles. Ronan’s voice. “Prez, you good? Over.”
I unclip it without breaking eye contact with her. “I’ve got it handled. I’m monitoring for a while. Over.”
“Copy that. On standby. Out.”
I clip it back. She’s still watching me, her brows drawn together in that soft frown that makes her look too damn beautiful.
“I’m a volunteer firefighter,” I say. The words come out before I can question why I’m explaining myself to her. I tell myself it’s to justify what she just heard. “We patrol these paths. Sometimes it’s kids with nothing better to do, sometimes it’s assholes looking to cause trouble. We shut it down before it gets out of hand.”
The wariness in her expression shifts slightly. Curiosity moving in to replace it. “We? You mean your… club? A gang?”
I grunt quietly. Gang. It’s always gang.
“Brotherhood,” I correct. “We were in the military together. They followed me out here after discharge.”
She nods thoughtfully, fingers loosening their grip on the cardigan a fraction. I can see the tension easing from her shoulders.
“Shouldn’t the police handle that? Stopping people with ill intent?”
“Police take twenty minutes to get up here. That fire you just witnessed,”—I motion back—“five minutes from spark to unstoppable. We don’t wait for permission to save what’s ours. We live here. It’s our home.”
Her face softens further, and damn if it doesn’t chip away at the resolve I’ve been clinging to. I drag a breath, releasing it slow, and notice my fists are clenched at my sides. I open them. Force the fingers straight.
“And Sara?” she asks. “How are you her guardian? How are you related?”
I don’t talk about this.
