Synopsis

Locke

Three is the magic number. I gave them my heart, and they gave me theirs. But the downside of living my best life is that I have everything to lose. And sometimes it’s not the obvious thing that can rip it all away.

It’s fate.

It’s chance.

It’s the worst luck in the world for the soul who least deserves it, and the one cruelty I can’t take.

The one storm we can’t weather.

I’m not a religious man. Not even close. But I’m praying right now.

For her. For him. For me.

Cos there is no us without him, and I won’t survive it if everything we’ve fought for is nothing but a dream.

Content warnings for everything you’d expect from a gripping biker romance.

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Excerpt

Cam: I have her

Orla: Stay with him

Cam: Church. 1 hr. Every1

The first and last messages were four hours apart. I laid a careful hand on Locke’s chest, waking him with a light touch. “Can you ride?”

Locke blinked, awareness fighting exhaustion, before instincts older than our friendship kicked in and he snapped to life. “What’s wrong?”

I helped him sit up, already missing the weight of his sleep-heavy palm from the top of my head. “Cam called us in.”

“Where’s Orla?”

That he somehow knew she wasn’t right here with us scared and reassured me in equal measure. “She’s already with Cam. Willow’s at Rubi’s place with the other kids. Bread day, remember? He’s going to bring them all in Cam’s motor, Mats and Saint guarding.”

Locke absorbed the influx of information and reached for his phone, squinting at the messages he already had from Willow, confirming her movements at the arse crack of dawn on a Sunday morning. “Bread day.” He nodded. “Right.”

“Can you stand?”

He shot me a look. “You fucked my brains out and now you’re asking me that?”

“Just checking you’re really awake.” I forced humour into the words, but the truth was he’d knocked out so hard since last night that he’d had me worried. So worried, I’d let him sleep when I should’ve woken him hours ago when I’d opened my eyes from a catnap to find Orla gone.

But I hadn’t moved. I’d stayed beside him, following my queen’s orders, trusting her while I’d combed my fingers through his hair and listen to him breathe. Forcing myself to stay in the moment. To focus on the fact that he’d been too exhausted last night to get up to snuff the candles out, rather than whatever mischief our woman was up to that had required her to sneak out in the dark.

I gave Locke a minute to put himself together. Then changed my mind and went back to the bedroom. He had jeans on, hanging low on his hips, his marked skin in full view, new scars framing the old.

Choked, I kissed an uninjured patch of skin between his shoulder blades.

Then it was time to go.

We rode out, Locke in front, me keeping watch on him and the road from behind, keeping my attention on his strong thighs, which, despite my inclination to fret over our woman, wasn’t that hard. He was in pain, I knew that, and his head was a fucking mess, but he was still so beautiful to me that even staring at the back of his helmet made my heart skip.

I fucked him last night. Yeah. That too, and there wasn’t enough road on the planet for me to ever come to terms with it.

Rubi beat us to the compound, Cam’s car already empty of the gaggle of girls he’d brought with him, Willow’s Fiat parked at a jaunty angle beside it.

Locke rolled off his bike and tilted his head. “That parking or falling out of the sky?”

“Looks all right to me.” I hung my helmet and dismounted, abandoning my second go at counting the offspring scattered around the yard in favour of searching out a face I’d missed almost as much as Locke’s.

“Nashie!” Willow darted across the yard and jumped on me, swamping me with skinny arms and blonde hair. “Where’ve you been? I missed you.”

“Missed you too, squirt.” I squeezed her tight, dodging the question, before I set her back on her feet and chanced a crafty whisper in her ear. “Give your dad one of those hugs. You know he loves them.”

This kid didn’t need telling twice to shower her dad with affection. I gave them some space and went back to taking stock of who was here. Liliana was studying the wall she’d painted over the summer, Mateo at her side, probably trying to talk her out of whitewashing it and starting again. Hope was with Decoy, which left Ivy . . .

I turned my head, looking for Folk. Found Alexei instead and a frown creased my face. Somehow I’d convinced myself he was with Orla and Cam, or at least on the road hunting Priest, and yet here he was, crouched low in his immaculate clothes, helping Ivy make the world’s smallest snowball with the frost she’d scraped from the fence.

“What’s wrong?” Locke was close enough that I smelt the lemon Fanta Willow had pressed into his hand.

I turned my head and the sea-green gaze I’d missed so much wrapped around me like a heated blanket. “Nothing, I just didn’t expect Alexei to be here without Cam.”

“They aren’t speaking.”

“Who told you that?”

Locke shrugged. “No one. I saw it.”

Damn. If Locke had picked up on the discord between Cam and Alexei, it was only a matter of time before everyone did.

“Now then, now then.” Rubi bustled into our orbit, flour-dusted hair tangled in a messy knot at the nape of his neck. “What’s occurring, Nashie? Why are we all here on this sacred day?”

“How do you already look like Fanny Craddock’s corpse?”

“Can’t fucking imagine,” Rubi deadpanned. “It’s almost like someone told the Halliwell hellion to dump a sack of flour on my head.”

Locke winced. “Sorry about that.”

“Can’t blame the child for being easily led.” Rubi kept his mock glare on me. “But you might want to rethink your top pick for stepdad material because this wanker needs an ASBO—”

“All right, all right.” I cut him off before his rant poured a bucket of awkward on the morning-after glow I wasn’t ready to lose yet. “I don’t know why we’re here. I just got out of bed.”

The truth, and Rubi knew it. He didn’t always call me on the half-baked versions I had to give him sometimes, but I never got a lie past him.

I waited for him to grumble and wander off.

He didn’t, forcing me to give him my full attention.

I sighed. “What?”

“You know what.” Rubi jabbed an inked finger at my chest. “If the accountant’s here, you’re here, and Saint’s round the back praying to the sun or whatever. That means the O’Brian horde is out there un-fucking-supervised.”

The O’Brian horde: Cam. Orla. River.

Damn. The anxiety Rubi was hiding with humour began to make sense. I scrutinised him for signs of the migraines that had plagued him before he’d found the yoga gods. He still got them when he was stressed enough, and he was definitely stressed now. Looked all right, though. At least his eyeballs were pointing in the same direction, which I took as a win.

I went back to counting heads. Circled back a few times to be sure I had the right number.

More than a few. “Folk’s not here. Maybe he’s with them.”

Wishful thinking.

Rubi shook his head. “He’s catching a nap.”

“Embry?”

“Haven’t seen him, but I know he’s here.”

Last I knew, Embry and River had been due to take over from Saint and Mateo guarding Willow. But with Willow here with us, it was a moot point. Which meant everyone who mattered was on the compound except the ones where it all began.

As that reality hit home, Willow came closer and stole her drink back from Locke. She swept her Halliwell gaze over him and her brow ticked up. “You look different. Did you get your haircut?”

Rubi snorted. “He got something all right.”

I bunched my fist to thump him.

He jerked out of my reach and ambled away, but I knew my friend. Knew he’d be back bending my ear in five minutes flat if River didn’t come home soon. And I didn’t blame him. O’Brians equalled fire. No good ever came of them roaming the outside world without a hydrant to temper them.

Was I that hydrant?

Was Rubi?

I’d say so. It was likely why they hadn’t told either of us where the fuck they were going. Which accounted for Orla’s love life, and River’s. But what about Cam?

It was cold in the windy yard. I dug deep for all the subtlety I could muster and communicated to Willow that she should hustle her dad inside.

One of my favourite things about this kid was her nose for subtext. She winked and towed him to the chapel to show him something on her guitar. I watched them until they were safely indoors, then I sought out Alexei again, turning my head in the same moment he turned his. In the same moment Embry jumped from the roof, landing like a cat on a picnic table.

Couldn’t say why, but combined with the look Alexei pegged the good father with, the timing seemed significant, and I knew I needed to lay eyes on Saint before I could say for sure that something was up.

It was outrageous that Saint didn’t magically appear, leaving me at the mercy of Alexei’s penetrating attention and Rubi’s angst as he stomped back to where I still stood by Willow’s car.

“Something ain’t right,” he grumbled.

“You don’t know that. Maybe they went to the cemetery or some shit.” Where their parents were buried, close to my uncle and Rubi’s entire family. Lark. I’d never met the kid, but my heart ached for him all the same.

“Why would they go to the cemetery at arse o’clock on a Sunday?” Rubi had cleared the flour from his hair, a sure sign that he was truly agitated. “In December? And why the fuck wouldn’t they say anything?”

“You don’t know if they didn’t say anything. They might’ve told Saint.”

“Stop being so fucking reasonable—”

“They did not tell Saint.”

I jumped a mile.

Alexei eyeballed me. Somehow, he was now three feet away and joining the conversation. “They did not,” he repeated. “We have no idea where they went, unless Cam chose to bring his siblings into the other matter the two of you have been mishandling by yourselves.”

Rubi darted a rapid glance between us. “What other matter?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” I shot Alexei a glare that he returned with an icy scowl. “And it’s nothing Cam would drag River into, so calm your fucking tits.”

“I am calm,” Rubi lied. “Don’t bullshit me.”

“I’m not. If I was worried about River, you’d know it.”

“You’re not worried about Orla?”

“Why would I be? I know she’s with Cam, and I know she’s safe because he told me. You think he’d call church to say different?”

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One of Five eARC's sets for the Rebel Kings MC Series Books 1 - 7

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Other Titles Within this Series

DEVIL'S DANCE

Rebel Kings MC Series #1

SAINT'S SONG

Rebel Kings MC Series #2

FORGIVE ME FATHER

Rebel Kings MC Series #3

LOVE THY BROTHER

Rebel Kings MC Series #4

RELUCTANT RENEGADE

Rebel Kings MC Series #5

UNHOLY TRINITY

Rebel Kings MC Series #6

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