But then Shiloh steps away and I let my hand drop. She moves past me to the door and opens it. “If you want to keep hiding, that’s your choice. But not all of us have that option. Not all of us want that option. If this is home now, for better or worse. I’m going to make work.”

“With Monroe.” The words are out before I can call them back.

She gives me a long look. “She’s the enemy, but she’s also your Bride for the next eleven months. Have you considered how you could use that to the advantage of the Raider faction?” Shiloh is gone before I can come up with a response. It’s just as well. I’m not sure what I’d even say.

Use Monroe to my advantage?

That orgasm must have gone to Shiloh’s brain, because the woman I know never would have suggested such a thing. The entire reason we came back to Sabine Valley and Abel stepped into the ring on Lammas, the very purpose of our Brides, is to get revenge. Sending Fallon and Monroe back to their respective positions during the day means we have an in with both Amazons and Mystics. A way to get to the very heart of them and rip it out.

The same way they ripped out our hearts eight years ago.

Shiloh doesn’t get it. Even as close as we are, as many times as she’s heard the stories, she doesn’t fucking get it. How could she? She’s not from Sabine Valley. She didn’t wake up in the middle of the night to the scent of smoke on the air. She wasn’t forced to flee a burning building that left forty of our people dead. It was sheer luck that none of my brothers were among them. She didn’t become an orphan that night.

My father was a monster. I was more than old enough at twenty-seven to understand just how fucked he was when it came to running the Raider faction. But he wouldn’t have run it forever, and Abel is not the same kind of monster. No matter what pieces of himself he carved away over the last eight years to keep us and our people protected, he has more than proven he’s fit to lead the Raider faction in the past three weeks.

Things are working out exactly like they’re supposed to. So why the fuck can’t I get my head on straight? Why can’t I escape the feeling of a sword hanging over our heads, just waiting until the right moment to fall and sever us from the world of the living?