جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 110

JAX'S POVThey hadn’t just broken my legs, they had done something far worse.I was suspended from the vaulted ceiling of a dripping, subterranean chamber, my wrists were bound tight by heavy iron manacles that bit deep into the raw flesh of my skin. Every muscle in my shoulders was screaming, a white-hot agony that had settled into a dull, thrumming roar hours or maybe days. I couldn't tell because time didn't exist down here. There was only the steady, rhythmic drip-drop of water somewhere in the dark, and the suffocating scent of dried roses and old copper.I wasn't dead. But looking at the dried blood caking my ribs from the ambush on the ridge, I wasn't entirely sure that was a good thing.The last thing I remembered was the gray wolf, that was the loyal beast that had broken through our perimeter to warn us, falling in a heap of teeth and claws as the red-robed bastards ambushed my scouting party. I had fought until my clips were empty and my knife was snapped in half. I tho

LENA'S POVThe blood-written challenge had spread through the Blackthorn compound like wildfire. By noon, every single person in the motorcycle club and the pack knew about it. It was a message written in blood on a piece of torn leather, and it was meant for me.Everyone expected Dante to stop me. He was the President of the Blackthorn MC. He was the one who made the rules, and usually, those rules kept me locked away inside the clubhouse while the men handled the danger. As I walked out into the dusty main yard, the whole club was standing around their parked choppers, whispering and waiting for him to shut me down.But he didn't.Instead, Dante walked right up to me in front of the entire crew. He looked serious, his heavy boots crunching on the gravel. He reached into his leather vest and pulled out a weapon wrapped in a dark cloth. When he uncovered it, the crowd went completely silent.It was a customized, matte-black semi-automatic pistol. It had belonged to one of the fierc

RAVEN'S POVThe roar of twenty heavy motorcycle engines echoed off the steep mountain rocks, a deafening wall of sound that shook the loose gravel beneath our tires. Inside my own helmet, though, the only sound was the steady, heavy rushing of my own breath.I kept my chopper parked right at the very back edge of the pack, a deliberate distance from the rest of the crew.I could feel the heat of their eyes burning into my back. I didn't need to look around to know that nobody behind me trusted a single thing I did. To them, I was a wild card. A ghost who drifted in and out of their clubhouse whenever it suited me.But I didn't care about their suspicion, or the way they held their pistols tighter whenever I shifted gears and my engine backfired. None of that mattered today. The politics of the club didn't mean a thing to me anymore.Because Jax was inside that ruined stone monastery at the bottom of the valley. And Jax was my brother.For a very long time, I had kept that fact a secr

JAX'S POVThe heat in the underground chamber was suffocating and heavy enough to sting my eyes and make my throat burn.The cult members had taken me out of the iron cage, but I wasn't free. I was chained to a massive, circular stone slab in the center of the room. The iron cuffs dug deep into my wrists every time I pulled against them, drawing fresh blood that trickled down my arms.Dozens of robed figures stood in a wide circle around the slab, hiding their faces behind dark hoods. They were swaying side to side, chanting a low melody that vibrated right through the stone floor and into my bones.I braced my boots against the rock, trying to find a leverage point to snap the chains, but my muscles were completely exhausted. I expected the high priest to step forward with a blade to end my life. I expected the cold steel against my throat. After all, their prophecies said my death was the sacrifice.But as the priest approached, he didn't hold a dagger. He held a heavy glass bowl

DANTE'S POVThe underground chamber was ripping itself apart.The massive stone pillars that had held up the weight of the ancient monastery for over a century were cracking under the extreme pressure of the gunfire and the explosions. Deep, booming groans echoed through the stone ceiling above us, and giant chunks of rock and heavy, dusty mortar began to rain down on the battlefield like a rockslide.The whole place was going down, and it was going down fast. The air was getting so thick with dust and smoke that it was becoming impossible to breathe."Fall back! Get to the stairs! Everyone move!" I roared over the noise of the fighting, my deep voice booming through the smoke to reach every rider in the room. I fired a massive, deafening blast from my shotgun, knocking two robed cult members completely off their feet, before pumping the heavy steel slide to chamber another shell.The Blackthorn riders started to retreat, moving backward through the dust, fire, and chaos, but my he