BIKER QUEEN AND HER HELLBOUND KING

CHAPTER TWELVE

Grace

He pulled out the stool closest to him slowly, taking his sweet time before sitting.

“Kent! I swear to whatever it is you believe in, if you don't undo whatever it is you've just done, I will make you regret it.” I screamed even more and he just looked at me, like he was waiting for me to wear myself out before speaking.

"I hate you," I said, the words feeling small and pathetic and he looked amused.

"I've been hated by better people than you, Grace," he casually rested his arm on the counter, his eyes still fixed on me.

“Why are you doing this to me? Why won't you just let me go?” I was crying profusely now. I was so tired of everything.

“I don't want to do this either, Grace, I—”

“Liar!” I screeched, the heat in my chest making it harder and harder to breathe.

"I have no reason to lie to you," he said. He pulled his chair closer, his face inches from mine. The heat was almost unbearable now.

"Do you know why he's called the Collector?” He asked, his breath grazing my face, I tried to move away but I was stuck because of whatever spell he cast on me. “He collects beings. Whether Marked or Unmarked, as long as they were special or carry significantly unique powers, he finds them for his own sick motives.” He continued when I didn't say anything.

“I don't care.” I spat.

“Grace, the Collector has been in this business for longer than I have been alive. He has gotten his hands on Conduits before. Do you want to know what happened to them?"

"Something tells me you're going to tell me whether I want to know or not," I said, but my voice had lost some of its heat, I was feeling faint from the pressure building in my chest.

"The last Conduit was nineteen years old," Kent said. "She was found in a village outside of what is now Slevanth. The Collector didn't kill her. He kept her alive for sixty-three years, Grace. Sixty-three years, contained, conscious, and used as a generator for every operation it wanted to run. When she finally died, the Collector lost so much power that four surrounding Marked communities collapsed within a month." He straightened up. "That's what you are to it. Not a person, an energy source.”

I shuddered, grateful that he wasn't in my face anymore.

“You want to know what the Collector does? He doesn't just kill you. He keeps you awake while he drains the power out of your marrow. He turns people like you into hollow shells that can't even remember their own names, and he does it because it's the only way he can stay alive. If he gets his hands on you, the entire world would be in danger, Grace.” He kept hammering on the world this, the world that, what about me? What about what I wanted?

“Then let him take me! To hell with saving the world, why should I care about a world that has given me nothing but pain?” His eyes softened and I wish he didn't. I hated pity more than anything. I wasn't pitiful, there was nothing pitiful about me.

“I am not a saviour, Kent. And you're no protector.” His eyes flared gold at that and the air in the room seemed to cease flowing.

“Get that stupid look off your face and release me”

He stood up and still didn't release me. "I need you to understand something, and I need you to actually hear it this time instead of arguing your way through it." He leaned forward, both hands on the counter, his eyes leveled at mine.

The bar felt very quiet.

"If your message had reached your supervisor," he continued, before I could pull together a response, "she would become a thread. A loose human, a completely unprotected thread that connects back to you. If the Collector traces the signal, it won't start with you. It will start with her."

I stared at the counter. "You could have told me that before. Instead of watching me try."

"Would you have listened?"

I didn't answer.

"Would you have listened, Grace?" he pressed.

"That's not the point," I said, my voice quiet now but still tight. "The point is that you don't tell me anything. You make decisions about my life and hand them to me after the fact like I should just be grateful. That's not protection, Kent. That's control."

Something crossed his face, quick and almost invisible. "You're not wrong," he said, and the admission landed so unexpectedly that I had nothing ready to say back to it. "But being right about that doesn't make you safe. And right now, safety matters more."

He picked up my phone from the counter and handed it back to me. "I'm not taking it. You cannot contact anyone outside the ward. The ward interrupts the connection, so your friend is safe.”

"And if I try to do it anyway?" I reached for the phone and my hand moved, the force from sudden freedom of movement propelled me forward and I almost fell but he caught me.

"Then I pull the wifi entirely and you spend the rest of your time here reading paperbacks," he said, and caught my arm, steadying me back into the chair.

“You're an asshole, Kent” I glared at him, and he turned and walked away.

“I know.” He said, not looking back.

"Do you have cameras in here too? Is that part of the 'protection' package?" I yelled at his back as he got closer to the door.

The frustration boiled over. It wasn't just heat anymore, it was a physical pressure in my chest, a weight that felt like it was trying to burst out of my skin. I watched his back for all of two seconds before the pressure cracked open in my chest and I grabbed the closest glass and threw it at him.

"Bastard!" I screamed as I hurled it at his head with every bit of strength I had.

There was no sound of a glass shattering.

The glass stopped in the air, maybe two feet from him, hanging there in a light that was coming from my own hand. It was bobbing slightly in the golden glow, defying every law of physics I had ever studied. Golden and faint and absolutely terrifying. I looked down at my arm and my veins looked like someone had run copper wire under my skin, lit from the inside, tracing every line from my wrist to my elbow.

My ears were ringing.

Kent turned around slowly. His eyes had gone amber, all the black burned out of them, and he was staring at my hand with an expression I had no word for.

I could feel a pull between the glass and my palm, an invisible string that I was holding without even trying, then the glass lowered itself gently onto the nearest table. The light faded and my veins went dark.

The other riders were inside the bar now, no doubt drawn by the commotion, but the bar was completely silent.

"What," I said, my voice coming out barely above a whisper, "was that."

Kent didn't answer immediately. He walked back towards me, slow and deliberate, and stopped at the edge of the counter. He looked at my hand, then at my face.

"That," he said quietly, "was your first manifestation."

I looked down at my own arm like it belonged to someone else. "I didn't do that on purpose."

"I know."

"I was angry, I just—" I pressed my fingers against my wrist, where the light had been brightest. The skin felt warm. "I didn't choose to do that, Kent."

"Conduit ability doesn't wait for permission," he said. "It reacts. Emotion is the trigger, proximity is the accelerant." He looked at me steadily. "You've been in this town for almost two weeks, surrounded by Marked beings. And you've been next to me."

I looked up at him.

"I'm the most powerful Hellbound alive," he said simply. "That's not pride, Grace. That's the problem. The closer you are to me, the faster your ability develops." He reached across the counter and, for the first time since I'd arrived in Velmore, his hand covered mine. His grip was warm and careful, fingers closing over my knuckles like he was holding something that might shatter. "Which means everything is about to get significantly more complicated.”