Page 65 of North’s Claim

“Two days,” Soul says quietly from the doorway.

Two days.

My forehead presses to her arm. I don’t care who’s in the room. Don’t care that my brothers are watching me break open. My shoulders shake, my jaw clenches until it aches, but I still pull her closer, careful not to jostle the tubes and wires.

“I’m here now, Firefly,” I whisper, but it’s more for me than for her.

My hand finds hers, what’s left of it under all that gauze, and I feel the weight of what she did like it’s been poured into my bones. She came for me when she shouldn’t have. She fought for me when every rule says she should’ve stayed the hell away.

She’s reckless, dangerous, and mine.

I push my tears back. Soul shifts closer.

“What about Myka?” I ask, voice low enough it’s almost a growl.

“In our cage,” a grim smile touching his mouth. “Cutter stitched him. Kept him breathing. Figured you’d want him alive.”

Alive.

Good.

Because I’m not done with that bastard. Not by a long shot.

I keep my eyes on Nyxa, brushing a loose strand of hair away from her bandaged neck. “Yeah,” I murmur. “I want him alive.”

And when I’m finished with him, he’ll wish I hadn’t.

Chapter 23

North

The only time I leave the hospital is to beat Myka to a pulp.

I don’t remember the ride back to the clubhouse.

Prospects bring Myka to the back room of the clubhouse bound, bleeding, and barely standing. Good. I don’t want him comfortable. I want him scared enough to understand that whatever happened after I went down, whatever he took from her while I couldn’t move, he’s going to pay for it with pieces of himself. They hung him the way he did with me.

He lifts his head when I step in. My fist hits his mouth hard enough to split it open, and the sound of it cracks through the room like a shot. His head snaps back, blood spraying over his chin, but it isn’t enough. Nothing about him bleeding feels like enough.

So I hit him again.

And again.

Until my knuckles tear and the concrete beneath us is spotted red. Until his breathing turns wet. Until his knees buckle and the chains are the only reason he stays upright. I take him apart with my fists because there are no answers in him that will make the hospital disappear, no excuse that will put color back in Nyxa’s face, no amount of begging that will undo the sight of her lying there while machines counted the seconds for her.

When he starts to sag, I grab him by the throat and force his head up. “No,” I laugh. “You don’t get to leave before I’m done.”

His eyes roll, glassy and unfocused, but fear still finds its way into them. That’s the first thing that feels right.

I want him afraid.

I want him trapped inside his own body the way I was trapped inside mine, unconscious while the woman I love was hurt. I want every breath to cost him. I want him to understand that death would be the kindest thing I could give him, and I’m not feeling kind.

By the time Cutter steps in, Myka is a broken shape hanging from the chains, blood dripping from his mouth, his nose, the split skin over his brow. My hands are ruined. My shirt is stained. My chest is still full of the kind of rage that doesn’t burn out.

Cutter checks him and exhales through his nose. “He’s close.”

I stare at what’s left of Myka. “Then bring him back.”