I take a step back. Shiloh has a point, but I can’t bring myself to admit it. Spending more time around my Bride, trying to corral her, will just pave the way for Monroe to provoke me further. I don’t recognize myself when I’m around that woman. “She’s poison.”

“Is she?” Shiloh glares. “She’s an ambitious, terrifying woman. She’s an enemy of the Raider faction and your family. But that’s it. That doesn’t make her poison.”

“My brothers and I were almost killed because of what the Amazons did.” Not just the Amazons, but I’m not handfasted to a Mystic currently. “They would have seen every single member of my family burn.”

“I know what the Amazons are capable of.” Shiloh goes still. “Do you think I could possibly forget?”

No, of course not. We’ve talked about it more than once, how that night of betrayal and ash changed the course of my family’s life forever. We weren’t exactly living the dream life, not under my father’s rule, but at least we had stability. After the night of the coup, we were hunted.

And every single faction in Sabine Valley was responsible. Amazon. Mystics. Even the Raiders in the form of Eli Walsh’s father. It’s since come to light that Eli wasn’t behind the plans that nearly killed me and my brothers in the house fire, that he wasn’t even aware of it, but it’s still hard to let go of eight years of bad blood. I’m working on it, because Abel loves that asshole, but I can barely look at Eli without tasting ash on my tongue.

Shiloh knows what it means to never be able to go home again. Her parents made my father look like he should be accepting Parent of the Year awards. Even without the specific details, I know she was abused and that they’re religious zealots. I try not to think about her past too much, because doing so is shitty for my blood pressure, and she won’t thank me for trying to step in and save the child she used to be.

“I know you didn’t forget,” I say quietly. “But you have to understand how I felt seeing you two in the bar…” I wave my hand at her. “Seeing it now. It feels like you got into bed with the enemy.”

“In bed with the enemy,” she repeats. Shiloh narrows her eyes. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you not fuck Monroe on Lammas night?”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?” She stalks toward me. “So different that you’ve been hiding from her ever since. The only other of your brothers who’s avoiding his Bride is Gabriel, and he’s a baby.”

“He’s twenty-eight. He can be forgiven for not knowing what to do with Fallon.”