BIKER QUEEN AND HER HELLBOUND KING

CHAPTER TEN

Kent

I watched the girl from the balcony of Venom, where the shadows were thickest.

Grace was sitting at a corner table in the main room, her back pressed firmly against the solid oak wall. She had been here for a week now and she still chose the seat that gave her the best view of every exit. It was a habit born of a hard life, one I recognized because I had spent a century doing the same thing. She was picking at a plate of food, her movements careful and restricted, likely because of the wound on her arm that she refused to let Mara look at.

She was a strange addition to my town. Most humans who I let into Velmore either spiraled into hysterics or tried to bargain their way out within the first hour when they realised what they were getting into, Grace did neither. But Grace was not quite human either, so it made sense.

I looked down at the fresh ink on my forearm. It was still slightly raised, the one I'd drawn the night she crossed the ward was completely healed now. She hadn't noticed it even though it was right beside the one she saw me etching. It was a raw reminder of the surge I had felt the moment she crossed the perimeter.

She was a battery, yes, but she was also a fuse. Every time her emotions rose, the air around her vibrated with a frequency that set my teeth on edge. I was sure it affected other Marked beings in the vicinity but they were far too polite to let her know or they simply didn't know what caused their unease. As far as I was concerned, in this town, only Rook and Jinx knew what she was.

I descended the stairs, my boots making no sound on the floorboards. Rook was standing by the bar, his arms crossed over his chest. He didn't turn his head, but I felt his awareness shift toward me. He didn't like her, he didn't trust the way she looked at things, as if she was dissecting the very foundations of our home.

I walked toward her table. She didn't jump when I approached, but I saw her grip tighten on the fork in her hand. She looked up, her eyes narrowing as I pulled out the chair opposite her.

"You're late for your own bar," she said, her voice dry.

"I'm sure you've noticed by now. I don't keep a schedule," I replied and sat down, leaning back to give her space which did nothing to help because the table felt too small for the tension between us.

"Jinx says you're a wall," she said, pushing her plate away.

She was trying again. She had tried every method to make me let her go and I still hadn't relented, but she kept trying.

"He says you built this place to keep the world out. But a wall works both ways, Kent. It keeps people in, too."

"Safety usually comes with a price," I said and picked up her discarded fork. "You're still here because the world outside would strip you down to your atoms just to see how you glow. I'm just the one holding the door shut."

Grace leaned forward, her elbows resting on the table. She looked me straight in the eyes, a move that would have terrified most of the men in this town. "You've told me about the others, about the Marked and the Unmarked. You've told me what I am and the danger I am in. But you've skipped over the most obvious question."

I waited, watching the way the dim light of the bar caught the sharp lines of her face.

"What are you?" she asked, the question was blunt, stripped of any pretense.

I felt the familiar pull in my chest, the dark weight that had been constant for two hundred years. I leaned in, matching her proximity until the scent of her skin filled my senses.

"I'm a Hellbound, Grace," I said, taking a bite of her food.

She didn't move away. She just tilted her head, her scientific mind clearly trying to categorize the word. "I've never heard that term in any mythology. Is it a rank? Species?"

"A subgroup of shifters, in simpler terms." I told her. I felt the control in my chest slip a little, and I knew the amber in my eyes was starting to bleed through the black. "We are the original predators. The ones who stayed behind when the world got soft and the monsters started hiding in the shadows. We didn't hide. We hunted."

“Sounds a lot like demons” she mused and I chuckled, which seemed to have caught her off guard by the surprise written all over her face.

“Is that what you think I am, Grace?” I asked with a teasing tone, “A demon?”

She rolled her eyes and leaned back into her chair, breaking eye contact.

"You're a hunter then," she said instead. "A two-hundred-year-old hunter with a tattoo habit and a town full of followers. That still doesn't explain the tattoos, Kent. Or why you looked like you were in pain when you were marking your arm the other day." I dropped the fork at that. She was still trying to pry about the tattoos.

"I think it's common sense that tattoos hurt when you get them. Also, the tattoos are a ledger, stop prying." I said, my voice dropping to a low growl. “I told you the last one was a warning.”

"A warning for everyone," she repeated my words. "You're being cryptic again, if I'm supposed to be a battery for this place, don't I deserve to know what I'm actually powering?"

"You're not powering the town, Grace," I said, resisting the urge to rub my temples. "You don't even know how to control your powers."

She laughed, a short, sharp sound that had no humor in it. "And that's why I want to run, that's what I'm good at. So why don't you just let me run? If I'm so dangerous to the world, let me be their problem."

"Because if you leave, I have to follow," I said and reached across the table, my hand stopping just inches from hers. I didn't touch her, but I could feel the heat radiating from her skin. "And if I leave this town to follow you, the wards fall. Velmore becomes a graveyard in a matter of hours. Is that something you want on your conscience?"

Grace went very quiet. She looked at my hand, then back up at my face. "Why would you have to follow me? If I'm just a battery, find another one or something. Find someone who actually wants to be here, what's so special about me?" She looked close to tears now, and something in my heart ached at the sight.

"There isn't another one, that's what extinct means," I said calmly, the fire in my voice gone now. "The Collector is tracking your surge because it's unique. You aren't just a source of power, you're the source."

“Protecting you means protecting every Marked being that exists right now. You don't know what the Collector would do to you if you're captured, Grace.” She ran her hands through her hair and turned away from me, wiping her tears so I couldn't see.

"I don't believe in destiny or magical blood," she snapped, her frustration finally bubbling over. The air in the room suddenly felt heavy, her magic was reacting. "There has to be a biological explanation. A chemical reason why my blood is doing whatever it is you think it's doing."

I smiled faintly at that. “Don't you think denial is too late at this point? You've been here for quite some time already.”

“This has to be some kind of cult. Nothing makes sense anymore.” Her chest was heaving as she took deep breaths, I could see the gold sheen on her wrists as her blood began to glow.

“If that's what helps you make sense of it, then so be it. Velmore is a cult and I am its demonic leader, if you will” she huffed a laugh after I said that and sniffed, still trying and failing to hide the fact that she was crying now.

I gave her a napkin, not commenting on her tears.

I stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. I couldn't stay in her orbit any longer without breaking the distance between us. I looked down at her, seeing the fear she tried so hard to hide behind her attitude and turned to leave, but her voice stopped me just as I took a step.

"Kent," she called out. I stopped, but I didn't turn around. "If you're the original predator that stayed behind, what happens when the thing you're hunting is already inside the walls?"

I didn't answer her. I walked out into the cool air of Velmore, my heart hammering a rhythm that felt far too human for a man of my age. I headed toward the perimeter, toward the invisible line that kept the monsters out and my prisoner in.