BIKER QUEEN AND HER HELLBOUND KING

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Grace

I didn't see Kent for the rest of the morning. The chair in my room was cold when I finally rolled out of bed, and the room felt different. I wondered what had happened while I was asleep. My arm felt stiff so I did a few careful stretches before I went downstairs to the kitchen to find something to eat, but I didn't get past the hallway.

Rook was leaning against the wall outside my room. He looked like he had been waiting for me. He didn't have Jinx’s easy grin or Kent’s heavy, magnetic presence. Rook just looked sharp, like a piece of flint that was waiting for a reason to spark.

He was the only rider who didn't seem to like me and made it very known with his cold expression whenever we crossed paths. The other riders, although cautious, were always polite and there was Jinx who was a ray of sunshine every other day. Rook looked like someone who had a bad day everyday and it seemed today, I was the cause.

"You should stay in your room," Rook said when I ignored his brooding presence.

"I'm hungry, Rook. Unless being a Conduit means I suddenly survive on sunlight, I need to eat," I replied, trying to move past him.

He didn't move. He blocked the doorway with a single, deliberate shift of his weight. "You’re a bomb, Grace. That’s all you are.”

"Good morning to you too, Rook."

"I'm not here to exchange pleasantries," he said. "I'm here because Kent won't say this to you and someone has to. You’re a high-yield explosive sitting in the middle of our living room, and the timer is ticking."

Where did all that come from? I hadn't even had an interaction with him besides the introduction so why was he coming at me?

I looked him in the eye, I was tired of being talked about like I was an object, a battery, or a weapon. "Is that what Kent told you?"

"Kent isn't thinking straight where you're concerned," Rook said, his voice dropping dangerously. "He talks about protection and wards, but he’s bringing the wolf right to our doorstep for one girl he barely knows. This town has families, it has people who have spent decades building a sanctuary. And now, because you’re ‘special,’ we’re all targets."

"I didn't ask to stay here," I reminded him. "I am being held here. If you want me gone so badly, go tell Kent to open the ward and let me walk out. I’ll take my chances with the woods."

Rook stepped closer. He was taller than me, and he used that height to crowd my space. "The moment Kent's attachment to you starts affecting his judgment, I will remove the problem myself. The rules say I follow the leader, but my first loyalty is to the people of Velmore. If you become too much of a risk, I’ll take you out of the equation before the Collector even gets a chance to see your face.”

I let the words sit for a second. He wanted a reaction, or he was at least expecting one, some version of fear or argument that he could work with.

Rook looked at me for a long moment and I stared back, refusing to back down. He was built like someone who had never lost a fight, like someone I shouldn't mess with, but I had thrown a glass at Kent's head despite him having the same look in his eyes, Rook was small fry compared to his boss and I had already messed with him so Rook wasn't getting away with this intimidation.

"Is his judgment being affected?" I asked calmly.

Something shifted in his expression, just slightly. "Not yet."

"Then you're warning me about a problem that doesn't exist."

"I'm warning you about a problem that is developing," Rook said. "He sat in your room last night."

I felt that heat in my chest again. It wasn't the uncontrolled explosion I’d felt at the bar, but a steady, cold simmer. I didn't back away. I stepped into his space instead, my chin tilted up.

"He sat in my room because something tested the ward," I said. "That's not attachment, that's strategy. He told me himself that if I'm taken, the world goes to hell. Keeping me alive is a tactical decision."

Rook looked at me for a long moment, probably surprised that I was not backing down, but his expression gave nothing away. "You're smarter than you let on."

"I let on plenty," I said. "I just don't show it to people who haven't earned it."

Something crossed his face that wasn't quite hostility anymore. It wasn't warmth either, but it was different from the flat contempt he had been pointing at me since the night I arrived. He looked, for just a second, faintly interested.

"I'm not your enemy," I said, before he could respond. "I didn't choose to cross that ward, I didn't choose whatever my blood does, and I didn't choose to stay. But I am here, and I'm trying to understand the situation I've been dropped into without a manual. So you can either be useful to me or you can stay out of my way, but threatening me privately while Kent's back is turned is a waste of both our mornings."

The silence stretched out between us, long enough that I started to wonder if I had miscalculated somewhere.

"You broke Kent's compulsion on your first night," Rook said finally. I would say I can't believe Jinx told Rook behind my back, but honestly, I had no trust in him in the first place.

"Apparently."

"No one breaks Kent's compulsion," he said. "Not in the last hundred years."

"Then I'm glad I didn't know that at the time," I replied, irritation lacing my tone, "because I would have been significantly more terrified.” I was really hungry, I hadn't eaten after the whole spiel with Kent the previous day and I had drifted off the moment I returned from the clinic.

"Anyway, If you try to remove me," I said, keeping my voice conversational, "I will make your life significantly unpleasant. I don't know how yet, given that my powers already manifested and I have approximately no control over it, but I'm a fast learner and I hold grudges for a very long time. I know exactly how to make a man’s life significantly unpleasant without ever leaving a mark.” I didn't survive all those years in the foster homes to be frightened by someone like Rook. I had been chased by beasts and controlled by a Hellbound, Rook was nothing compared to everything I've been through.

Rook didn't snarl. He didn't threaten me back. He looked at me for a long second, and for the first time since I’d arrived, the hostility in his expression faded into something else. He looked impressed, like he was finally seeing a person instead of a liability.

"Maybe you aren't just a time bomb after all," he muttered and stepped aside, gesturing toward the hallway. "Get your food. But don't think for a second that I'm not watching."

"I'd be disappointed if you weren't," I said, walking past him.

I let out a slow breath as I walked, not looking back to see if he had left or was following. My hands were shaking, which I was deeply grateful he hadn't seen.

I wasn't sure if I could actually do what I promised, especially since he had magical powers and I hadn't gotten a read on him yet, but I knew one thing for sure. I wasn't going to let these people treat me like a sacrificial lamb.