Page 159 of Blood & Throttle
“Well,” she mutters, “that was subtle.”
I don’t smile. I don’t breathe. I stare at the door like I could tear it off the hinges and use it to bash Voss’s skull in.
She steps closer, tilting her chin up. “Hey. I’m okay.”
I’m not. Not even close. My pulse is a war drum and all I can see is the way that bastard grabbed her. Yanked her like she was fucking property. Like she wasn’t mine.
“I’m okay,” she says again, softer now.
That’s when I grab her.
One hard yank and she’s against me, flush to my chest, her breath catching in surprise as I cage her in my arms like I need to feel her alive just to keep from losing it. My hand runs up the back of her hoodie, over the curve of her spine, and under the hem where her skin’s still warm and marked. My name. Fresh ink. My blood on hers. I find the spot on her hip, brush my thumb across the scabbed flesh—gentle, reverent—and press my lips to herforehead.
A slow exhale leaves me, but the fire’s still there, crawling under my skin.
“I should’ve killed him,” I mutter. “Should’ve snapped that motherfucker’s neck for even looking at you.”
Her fingers curl into the front of my waistband. “Yeah, well… you kill him now, we don’t make it to the final district.”
I pull back just enough to look down at her. “Fuck the final district.”
“Riot,” she says firmly. “You can kill him later. Slowly. In creative and painful ways, but right now, we pack. We ride. You win. Then we burn it all down. Together.”
Fuck, I love her.
The storm’s still brewing behind my ribs, but I nod, jaw tight, and drop my forehead to hers for a second before I let her go. My hand lingers on her hip, thumb brushing over the raw, healing flesh where I carved her future into skin. Mine.
Taz lets out a sharp bark beside us, shaking her head like she’s ready for war. Ears pinned back. Muscles tense. She felt the shift too.
Sin gives her a quick scratch and mutters, “Yeah, same.”
She looks back at me, that wicked little smirk tugging at her mouth like she didn’t just stop me from tearing a man’s spine out with my bare hands. “You good?”
Not even close.
But I give her a look that says I will be once this is over. Once he’s dead. Voss wasn’t a target before. But the second he opened his fucking mouth and threatened her life? The second he made her safety sound like a privilege he could just take away? He sealed his fucking fate. Sin might think I’ll play nice. That I’ll wait. That I give a fuck about their rules or their threats. But if that smug bastard so much as breathes her nameagain? I’ll string him up with his own intestines and paint my fucking legacy in the blood that leaks out.
This war?
It’s fucking personal now.
The sky’sthe color of old ash, smeared grey like something forgot to finish the job.
I lean against the side of my bike, smoke curling from the corner of my mouth, eyes sweeping the yard like it's a grave we’re all about to climb into. Sin’s across from me, stuffing my hoodie into her backpack like it personally insulted her. Her hair twisted up in that messy knot I’d kill to get my hands on. She’s in a black tank and low-slung pants, those thighs flexing as she shifts, taunting me, daring anyone else to look, and fuck them if they do.
“This ride’s gonna be a bitch,” Ghost says, slamming the bus door and stretching his arms over his head. “Few days to Deadmoor. Longest haul yet. I hear we’re stopping in Marrow’s End halfway—refueling, patching what needs patching. Maggie said they have us stopping at some run down motel.”
“Marrow’s End?” Sin scoffs. “What is that, a brothel for corpses?”
“It’s a Syndicate zone,” Bishop says flatly, loading a crate into the side hatch. “Used to be a mining district. Now it’s one of the districts where they have their biggest headquarters. Fully Syndicate controlled.”
She snorts. “Lovely.”
She doesn’t sound nervous. But I know better. We all do.
Deadmoor’s where the road ends. The final district.The Syndicate built it like a kill switch—designed to take every last one of us out. Shifting terrain, crumbling roads, rigged explosives, elite enforcers hidden in the dark like wolves. No resets. No rules. Just one finish line.
One fucking survivor.
