Page 47 of Natural-Born Cullers

Heart pounding a little harder with justwhatwas being discussed here, Gray met him halfway. “You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered a little angrily, not at Jack, just having him associated to culler talk. He knew why Jack hadn’t been invited.

“Yeah, like fuck.” Hurt still laced Jack’s eyes, his body, and he wore his garage overalls as welding gloves tried to escape out of his back pocket, suggesting he’d been pulled away from a welding job. The cold outside must have finally let go on her grief because strands of his long black hair pasted to his damp neck, and he shivered from the chill. Only from how Jack looked back at the conference table, his shaking wasn’t just down to the chill. He was pissed off and trying not to run naked and wild with a baseball bat on the tabletop.

“How did you get here?” That was Gray’s next concern.

“Sam.” He still kept his look levelled on the conference table. “Jan called, asking how it was going. Only I had no fucking clue whatitmeant.” A discreet touch from Jack slipped under Gray’s jacket to his hip as Jack turned into him a little, then to Brennan—“What the fuck you doing here, eh? You forgotten basic MC manners and protocol since we left? Because I swear that if a Master Dom is called in for disciplinary action, his Master sub is required by your own fucking guidelines to be here, whether he’s active or not.”

Carr went to say something, but Gray gave her a brief shake of head to warn her off. “Easy, stunner,” he whispered in his ear. “You’d have been notified if thiswerea disciplinary meeting.”

Jack eased away a little, his frown staying on Brennan. “Then what…?” His look came back to Gray.

He removed his touch a moment later and took a step back as he seemed to connect the dots, but then the MC was his life too. He’d read the signs just as quickly. “Are you fucking serious? Culler business?”

“Jack—”

“Routine,” Jack said evenly. “I know it pushes your buttons, Gray, but this is home. Ours. Yours and mine, mukka. Fuck….” Jack swiped a hand over his face. “Everything outside those doors always stayed outside those doors once we closed them. All the fuckups over Cutter, Martin, everything you’ve done, what Martin’s done…. You can’t….” He gave such a heavy sigh. “The cullers tore Light apart, Gray. Tore you apart with Ed and your mother. Don’t… don’t do it to these, please? We’ve all nearly drowned in it, so don’t involve them, okay? I ever walk back through those doors, I just want my Dom here with me, nothing else.”

Only he wouldn’t, would he? Jack wouldn’t walk back through these doors because Gray had been banned as Master Dom from here and….

Gray briefly closed his eyes, then his look found Brennan’s.

Now he saw it. His fuck-up. Again.

Giving a rough sigh, he cupped Jack’s neck and pulled him in close.

“They’re doing itforus, stunner,” he said quietly, and he brushed a kiss at Jack’s cheek. “They can’t risk having me train their Doms with how I fucked up with you. Rightly so, too. Therefore they have to uphold the blacklisting, which automatically bans me from these premises as well, premises and people that have helped shape who we are in the best kind of ways. And they know you won’t step back in here without me. So what do they do instead? They offer to sleep with the culler in their home in order to allow us to stay safe and sane here, stripped back to just a Dom and his sub walking their halls.” He stroked at Jack’s neck. “Despite the dangers to them, their subs, everything I’ve done—they’re still thinking you. They’re still thinking me. They’re still thinking the MC is the best place to stop a culler making a decision without fucking up his sub in the process.”

After a moment, Jack snorted a smile, but a lot of hurt came with it—more the look he’d had under Gray when it came to fears of never walking away from any one of Gray’s private collection suites. And that… that look right there was why they needed the safe playing ground of the MC sometimes. “Bloody soft bastards,” mumbled Jack.

“Yeah.” Gray slipped an arm around Jack’s neck and pulled him in as he flicked a look at Brennan. “The best of, stunner.”

“Jack?” That came off Carr. “It’s so good to see you,” she said gently. “But could you… would you—”

“Fucking sub talking to his Dom here.”

Carr jolted at the shout, but so too did Jack, pulling away from Gray. “Fuck. I’m sorry.” He wiped at his face again. Jack was always so usually… less likely to swear around women, especially a Mistress in the MC. “So, so sorry, ma’am,” he said back to her. “And I mean that so bloody sincerely.” He was still caught in the comedown of Gray’s touch, of getting here, of worry over…forGray, and the silver to his eyes was just a little darker. “I’ll… sorry. Again.” He gave a long exhale, more to calm. “If it’s okay with you, I’m gonna go find Leif, grab a beer whilst you all talk, all right?”

Carr nodded, the hardness in her eyes softening. “He’s in the recreational hall with all of ours. Go take it easy, okay, Jack? We’ll be done with Gray soon. But it would be good to know you’re here, even if it’s just for a beer to start with.”

“Yeah, it would,” Gray said quietly to Jack. Because Jack hadn’t been back here since the café bombing either, not outside of dropping Jan at work. “Have a whiskey or two for me, okay?” said Gray, and he gently patted Jack’s neck, loving every mark of his when it came to the love bites there.

Jack nodded, then returned the cup of neck that Gray had given him. “A beer I can handle. I better make a call to Jan too and see if he can free up some time to join us.”

Gray watched him head over to the door.

“Jack, would you stay around for a while after the meeting? I’d like to check you’re okay,” said Halliday. “And please ask Mike to sit with you and Leif, just to keep obs until then.”

Jack came to a stop and gave a sniff, a look around, more a shiver. Then he went and rested against the conference table, sitting his ass closest to Halliday.

“You know what, French? I’ve got a sudden urge to stick around.” And there it was: the switch came so subtly, barely even noticed, and….

“Martin,” Gray said flatly, more a greeting than anything.

A look came Gray’s way, then it settled into something else entirely as Martin fixed a look back on Halliday.

Martin didn’t know Brennan. He didn’t know Carr, or the MC. But Halliday? Halliday had been the only one Jack had avoided looking at over at the conference table, so the trigger over his voice in a setting Jack wasn’t used to seeing him within, the break in routine? Yeah, Jack’s defences had finally kicked in….

“Good to fuck around with you again, Doc.” Martin pulled his ass up onto the table, then frowned and winced at the movement. “I’d try and work out what Gray’s whoring me out to now and play profiler for him with our other guests here, but to be honest?” He stole Halliday’s glass of water. “I don’t think I’m actually meant to be here. Shame, that, right?”

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