Claimed by the Reapers MC

10.Tonight

I didn't knock.

Kael had said "my room" like it was a fact, not an invitation. And I'd answered "tonight" like I meant it. Standing outside his door hesitating would have been a lie, and Kael Voss despised liars more than he despised weakness.

So I pushed the door open and walked in.

He was waiting.

Boots off. Cut on the chair. Sitting on the edge of the bed with his forearms on his knees and his head slightly bowed. He looked like a man preparing for something that required stillness, not speed. When he lifted his head, his silver eyes found mine and held them.

"You're five minutes early."

"You're counting?"

"I always count." He stood. The room got smaller — not because of his size, but because of his density. Everything about Kael Voss was compressed, coiled, waiting. "Close the door."

I did. Then I locked it.

Something moved behind his eyes — approval, hunger, both. He crossed the room in three slow strides and stopped close enough that the heat from his body pressed against my skin before his hands did.

"Last chance," he said. "If you walk out now, nothing changes. You're still patched. Still protected. Still one of us." His thumb found the hollow of my throat, right over the pulse. "If you stay, everything changes. You're mine. Not the club's. Mine. And I don't share what's mine."

"Then I guess we have a problem."

"Why's that?"

"Because I'm not yours. I'm not anyone's." I lifted my chin. "You want me, you earn it."

The silence that followed was absolute. Kael's thumb stilled on my throat. His jaw tightened — the same tension I'd seen in Church, in the clearing, in every moment before he made a decision that couldn't be unmade.

Then he smiled.

Not a grin. Not amusement. Barely a movement at all — just the corner of his mouth lifting, just enough to show teeth. It was the most terrifying expression I'd ever seen on a human face, because it was the first real one he'd given me.

"Earn it," he repeated. "Alright."

His mouth was on mine before I could take my next breath.

This wasn't the garage. The garage had been a man testing water with his fingertips. This was a man diving in, fully clothed, not caring if he drowned.

His hand moved from my throat to the back of my neck. His other hand found my hip and pulled me against him hard enough that I could feel exactly how much he'd been counting the minutes. I gasped against his mouth and he took the sound, swallowed it, used it as permission to go deeper.

Kael kissed like he fought — relentless, precise, taking ground inch by inch and holding it. There was no fumbling. No hesitation. His fingers traced the hem of my sweater and then slid underneath, palm flat against the bare skin of my lower back, and I arched into him without meaning to.

"Still earning it?" His voice was rough against my ear.

"Getting there."

He made a sound — low, dark, not quite a laugh — and pulled my sweater over my head in one motion.

His eyes moved over me. Not clinically — the way Ghost would have looked. Not hungrily — the way Wolf would have. Kael looked at me like I was territory he was claiming, memorizing, mapping for future reference. His finger traced the strap of my bra, the hollow between my collarbones, the curve of my breast. Slow. Deliberate. Like he was reading me in braille.

"You're shaking."

"Your point?"

"My point is you're not running." His thumb circled one n****e through the fabric. "That's what I'm earning."

He bent his head and replaced his thumb with his mouth. The sensation shot through me — heat, wet, teeth grazing just hard enough to make my knees threaten to buckle. His arm tightened around my waist, keeping me upright, keeping me against him.

I grabbed his shirt and pulled. He let me take it off. Let me see what the leather and the reputation had been hiding — the phoenix tattoo on his ribs, rising from ash. Scars scattered across his chest and shoulders like a map of everything he'd survived. The body of a man who'd turned himself into a weapon and then somehow, impossibly, found someone who wasn't afraid of being cut.

"That's new," I said, touching the phoenix.

"Got it the day I founded the club. Five men, one garage, no future." His hand covered mine on his ribs. "It was a promise. Burn everything that came before. Build something that can't burn again."

"What if it does burn?"

His eyes met mine. "Then I burn with it."

I pulled his mouth back to mine before he could say anything else.

This time the kiss was different — less strategy, more need. He walked me backwards until my shoulders hit the wall, and the cold concrete against my bare skin was a shock that made me gasp. He used the sound to deepen the kiss, one hand braced against the wall beside my head, the other working the button of my jeans.

"Tell me to stop," he said against my jaw.

"No."

"Tell me to stop, Avery."

"Make me."

His control cracked. I saw it happen — a fracture in the silver, something wild and hungry breaking through. He lifted me. My legs wrapped around his waist. My back was still against the wall, and Kael was pressed against me with nothing but thin denim between us, and I could feel every inch of what he'd been holding back.

The growl that came from his chest wasn't human.

He carried me to the bed. Laid me down. Followed me onto the grey sheets, his body covering mine, his weight a pressure that should have felt like a cage but somehow felt like the opposite — like being held together, like all the pieces of me that had been scattered since the parking lot were finally in one place.

His mouth found my throat. My collarbone. The space between my breasts. Lower. His hands worked my jeans down, and I lifted my hips to help, and then there was nothing between us but my underwear and his and the sound of rain on the roof and the sound of my heartbeat and the sound of his breathing, rough and uneven, the first time I'd ever heard Kael Voss lose control of anything.

"Look at me."

I did. His silver eyes were dark, pupils blown, jaw tight with the effort of restraint he was barely maintaining.

"You said earn it," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "I've killed for less than what you said to me tonight. I've broken men for looking at me the way you just did." His thumb traced my lower lip. "I'm not going to f**k you. Not tonight. Not because I don't want to — I want to so badly I can't see straight. But when I take you, I'm going to take all of you. Every part. Every sound. Every second. And that takes more time than we have."

I stared at him. "What does that mean?"

Before he could answer, a fist hit the door.

Three sharp knocks. Hard enough to rattle the frame.

"Prez." Jax's voice, stripped of its usual amusement. "Church. Now. All officers."

Kael didn't move. Didn't look away from me. His body was still pressed against mine, heartbeat still racing against my ribs.

"It can wait," he said, loud enough for Jax to hear.

"No. It can't." A pause. "They hit the hospital."

The words landed like ice water. The hospital. St. Catherine's. My ER. My coworkers. Marcus, the first man I'd saved in the parking lot, was still registered there under a fake name.

Kael saw the shift in my face before I said a word.

"Details," he barked.

"Fire in the south wing. Nobody's sure it was them yet, but a Serpent scout was spotted ten blocks away twenty minutes before the alarm went off. Tank's already on his bike. Ghost is prepping medical supplies. Wolf is—"

"I'm coming." Kael was already off the bed, pulling on his shirt, reaching for his cut. The transition was instantaneous — lover to President in the space of a breath. "Get my bike ready."

"Already done." I could hear Jax's grin through the door. "Take your time, brother. I'm sure the nurse uniform can wait."

Kael yanked the door open. Jax was leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed, green eyes glittering with the kind of amusement that meant he knew exactly what he'd interrupted and was enjoying it thoroughly.

His gaze shifted past Kael, found me — still on the bed, still half-undressed, still catching my breath.

"Evening, little nurse." The nickname rolled off his tongue like a threat wrapped in silk. "Don't look so disappointed. I'm sure Prez will finish what he started. Eventually."

"Jax." Kael's voice was ice.

"I'm just saying." Jax pushed off the wall, already walking toward the garage. "She's got four other men in this club who'd be happy to pick up where you left off."

The look Kael gave his back could have stripped paint. But he didn't respond — because Jax wasn't entirely wrong, and everyone in the hallway knew it.

Kael turned back to me. For one second, the mask slipped. Just one second. His hand found my chin, tilted my face up.

"Stay here. Lock the door. Don't open it for anyone but me."

"That's the third time you've told me what to do tonight."

"I know." He kissed me — hard, fast, a promise. "Fourth time's coming when I get back."

Then he was gone. Boots in the hallway. The sound of bikes starting up in the garage. The Reapers rolling out into the rain.

I pulled my clothes back on with shaking hands. Locked the door. Sat on Kael's bed in the dark, listening to the engines fade into the distance.

The hospital was burning. My hospital.

And somewhere in the Oregon night, five men on motorcycles were riding toward a fire someone had set to send a message.

The message was for Kael.

But it was my world that was burning.

(End of Chapter 10)