Crux Untamed (Hades Hangmen 6)

I stopped that thought dead . . . because I now knew he wasn’t the only one.

Sia. Motherfucking Elysia Willis.

They hadn’t known I’d been listening. Neither of them had known that I hadn’t gone upstairs into the bedroom; instead I had slumped down against the wall in the hallway and listened to every fucking word. I hadn’t been able to leave them alone. Some fucking internal tether held me close.

I listened to Sia cry. To Cowboy promise her things I wasn’t sure I could ever give. I couldn’t give anyone that anymore. I was a fucking bad omen. Whoever was with me would always be ruined. It had always been that way. I gritted my teeth and tried to shake her from my head.

But she wouldn’t go. I licked my lips, still tasting her on them. I’d heard them fall to sleep. I’d heard the soft breathing coming from her mouth. And I’d had to go. She’d been drinking. Cried herself to the point of exhaustion. But something called to me, compelled me to go into that room, a damn magnet pulling me in. The sight of my best friend and her on the couch hit me harder than I’d expected. Because I should have been there with them. I belonged there with them. Every cell in my body told me so. But I couldn’t do it. She’d been through enough. At some point, whatever gris-gris followed me around would get her too. We could never be together. We just didn’t fit.

I had no fucking idea why Cowboy even stuck around. It was only a matter of time before I ruined him too. More than I already had, that is. Fucker was a glutton for punishment.

People thought that times had moved on. That people were more liberal in their views, didn’t give a shit about race or religion or whoever the fuck you loved. But in our fucked-up world, that was bullshit.

I’d seen it.

I’d lived it.

Fuck, I was a product of it.

Her lips had been as soft as I knew they would be. She tasted just as fucking sweet too. I wanted to wrap her in my arms and tell her that this fucking Garcia would never touch her again. But I’d been strong. I’d stood and turned away before the little voice in my head told me to let her in.

But not before I’d seen Cowboy watching me. I didn’t know if the fucker had faked sleep or had woken up when I came through, but I’d seen the look on his face. He wanted it. He wanted me to just get over my secrets, what forever held me back, and be with her.

. . . and Hush, if he would just let me.

“Fuck!” I shouted into the pink sky, head thrown back and fists clenched. I ran my hand over my arms and saw all the evidence I needed for knowing I couldn’t go there with her. And fuck, another thought clouded my mind. Something I knew one day would come. But that I had dreaded with every fiber of my being.

It was time to cut Cowboy loose.

He was my best friend. He was pretty much the only person I had in the whole world. But I was holding him back. He told Sia that she and I were lonely. And fuck, that was true. But I knew he was too. Years of following me around, fucking sluts with me, never on his own . . . because of me.

Cowboy didn’t need threesomes to get off. Christ, half the time I didn’t even know if he enjoyed them. He did them because I didn’t know who the fuck I was without him.

I saw the way he looked at Sia. It was different. He’d never looked at any bitch like that before. Sure, he’d shown interest in others, but never like this. I knew from the minute we met her at Ky’s wedding that she was a game-changer. There’d been a spark between them.

Fuck, she was different for me too.

But I knew he felt some sense of loyalty to me. One that I selfishly knew he would forgo his own happiness for. It was why he was pushing me so much with Sia. Then he’d get to be with the girl of his dreams and still be there for his fucking headcase of a co-dependent best friend.

The sound of a motorcycle rumbled behind me in the distance. I didn’t even turn around. I knew it was Cowboy. He shouldn’t have left Sia all alone. But I’d checked the perimeters over and over in the past few hours. There was nothing out there. She was safe.

After last night, I knew he’d come and find me.

Cowboy brought the second Harley to a stop beside me. I kept my attention forward, on the sun now almost fully in the sky. My hands fucking shook. Shook at the thought of letting Aubin go. Because that’s who he was to me. Aubin Breaux. The kid I met as a teen, the one who stuck by my side when everything went to absolute shit and life knocked me the fuck down.

“I saw you,” he said, thawing the awkward silence that had built around us. I didn’t say anything. I felt Cowboy pull on my arm. He sucked in a pained breath. When I looked over at him, he was holding the red welts from that fucking bronc rein. They were blistered and looked fucking horrendous. “You listening to me?” he asked, shaking off his pain.

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Fuck off, Val. It means everything!”

I clenched my jaw. Then, feeling my stomach drop, I turned to my best friend. “Aubin.” My mouth felt as dry as a damn desert.

“Val—” Cowboy leaned forward, jumping to help me like he always did. But I held up my hand to cut him off.

I took a deep breath. “I think you should try to make a go of it with her.”

Cowboy’s blond eyebrows pulled down in confusion. “That’s what I’ve been saying. She’d be good for us, Val. She—”

I shook my head. “Not me, Aub. You.”

Cowboy’s mouth worked open and shut, his forehead lined. “I don’t get it.”

“You.” I looked back out over the hills. “You should try to make a go of it with her.” I cracked my knuckles, just for something to do with my hands. “She likes you. Shit, anyone can see it.” I ducked my head. “I see the way you look at her too. She’s different for you.”

“For us,” Cowboy argued.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“For fuck’s sake, Val—”

“It doesn’t change how I feel. I won’t see someone else dragged down by me.” This time I did meet his eyes. His face was red. He was pissed, which for Cowboy was a rare occurrence. “I’ve dragged you down too. I know you don’t see it. Think it’s just because you’re my brother. But you ain’t lived right since that night years ago. Gave everyone and everything up. Your future. Your folks. Your horses. Rodeos. You fuck sluts with me because I never used to dare do it alone.” I huffed a self-deprecating laugh. “Hell, you moved from the state you fucking adored to go nomad, then moved to Texas because of me.” I turned on my seat, staring down at the Austin Chapter patch on his cut. “You even told the club—Styx and Ky—that we went nomad because of shit that went down with you, which we both know wasn’t fucking true.”

“Because I knew you didn’t wanna talk about it. After everything you’d been through, I couldn’t let you explain all that shit with the New Orleans chapter—even though we should have, still should. I mean, how much can a brother have piled on him in a fucking lifetime, never mind in the space of a few years?”

“That’s my point, Aub,” I said. Cowboy folded his arms over his chest. “It’s time you did something for you.” He opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off before he could. “We both knew there’d be a time when you found someone.” The pain I felt in my gut at thinking of Sia with Cowboy alone made me feel sick. “You deserve it.”

“And you?” Cowboy asked. “What do you deserve? To be fucking alone?” He huffed in frustration. “I know you say there’re a lot of reasons not to get into anything with Sia. I get why you think it. But one of them, your condition, shouldn’t hold you back like this, Val. Plenty of people have it and live with it just fine.”

“Not in a biker gang. You know club rules. I’d be grounded. Styx wouldn’t let me close to a bike. His poppa made that an ironclad rule years ago.” I shook my head. “Not gonna happen, mon frère. What the fuck would I be without this club?”

“Could be living with me and Sia? I don’t know . . . maybe fucking happy for once in your life?”

“You think people wouldn’t have

a problem with that?”

“Fuck people,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Coldness infused my blood. “That’s what my parents thought, Aub.” I felt him tense as I mentioned them. Because I never fucking talked about them. “Didn’t really work out for them, now did it?” Sympathy flooded his eyes. I fucking hated the pity from Cowboy most of all. “A white guy, a mixed-race sick guy, and a white rancher bitch shacking up ain’t fucking normal in anyone’s book, Aub. Someone somewhere will have a problem with it.” Just that thought set my anger on fire. “And I guarantee, it’ll be me they’ll have the biggest problem with. It always is.”

“We’re fucking Hangmen! No one will say shit to us.”

“Our vice-prez might.”

Cowboy dropped his head in defeat. “I thought . . . I thought after last night . . . after seeing you with her, you’d changed your mind.”