Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Lucas

My head is fucking killing me. That’s what wakes me up from a dead sleep. I roll over on the bed with a moan, and pull another pillow under my head, burying my face in it.

The scent of gardenia fills my lungs, and I push my face deeper into the feather pillow. That scent is like a jolt to my consciousness.

Wyn.

Fuck.

Memories from last night come rushing back, and I bolt upright. The last thing I remember is her beautiful face hovering above me as my body started slowly sinking into a vat of invisible quicksand. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move my limbs as she straddled me, taking control. Normally, I might be down with that kind of shit, but not having control of my faculties was unsettling.

The bitch drugged me.

To be fair, I’d drugged her first, but that’s beside the point.

This is why Wyn is dangerous. I was lured in by the heaven of her pussy and like a fucking simp, I let my guard down. Now she’s gone.

Fortunately, she’s predictable, and I can guess where she went.

I grab my phone off the nightstand. “Let’s see where you are, my pretty little cunt.”

After I was assigned as Wyn’s shadow, I installed a couple of hidden cameras in her apartment. On my phone, I select the camera app and instantly, an error pops up, “unable to connect to camera 1, camera 2, and camera 3.”

“ Fuck ,” I yell, throwing my phone back down on the nightstand. It hits the hardwood with a heavy thud, and I know without seeing that the screen is now cracked.

Fuuuck.

Grabbing my clothes off the floor, I tug them on with clipped, angry movements. I don’t like being blind when it comes to Wyn. I want to know where she is and who the fuck she’s with always .

I could text her and ask her, but I know for a fact she’ll just tell me to go fuck myself. So my only option now is to hunt her down and bring her back to Rush House kicking and screaming.

I’m just shoving my cracked phone into my back pocket when there’s a knock on my bedroom door. “Yo!” As I cross the room, I step on something soft and cold. Glancing down, I see it’s a white flower. Where the fuck did that come from? Kicking the flower aside, I pull the door open. It’s Jackson. “What is it?” I ask brusquely.

Jackson looks me over with concern, crossing his arms over his massive chest. “You good?”

“Yeah, dude,” I say in a hurry. “I don't really have time to chat. I’m on my way out.”

Jackson nods. “Yeah, well, uh, you’re gonna wanna stick around for this.”

Jezus. “For what?”

“We found August Pendleton. He’s down in the basement.”

Tilting my head back, I pull a hand over my face. Fuck. “Can you guys handle it? I’ll be back when I can.”

“This guy is fucking combative , dude. He’s got a death wish or something. We really need you down there.”

I push out a breath slowly to tamp down the rage that’s swirling like a tsunami in my chest. I need to go after Wyn. That’s all I want right now—to see her face, to know where she is. To punish her for being so damn insolent.

But Jackson is right, I’m the leader of this fucked-up society, so I should be down in the basement with my brothers, handling this Shadow and Ash shit.

“Yeah, okay,” I say with a nod. “I’ll be down in a sec.”

When Jackson leaves, I throw my boots on and go downstairs to the living room. Several Burning Crown members are hanging out, playing pool. It’s morning, so it’s weird that they’re still here. Jackson usually kicks people out during the early morning hours, but I guess he was distracted by the guy in our basement.

I search the dozen or so people in the room, my gaze catching on Lindsay, who’s sitting on the couch, staring down at her phone.

“Yo, Linds,” I say, flicking my chin at her. “Has anyone seen Wyn this morning?”

She glances up quickly, her eyes wide like she wasn’t expecting to be called out. “Oh, uh, no, I don’t think so. Everything okay?”

I point at the others in the room. “Grab a few people and head over to Wyn’s place. I need her back here.”

“Uh, okay.”

I hold out my hand. “Give me your phone.”

Lindsay walks over and hands it to me. I program my phone number into her phone, then text her Wyn’s address. I hand it back to her. “Text me the second you have eyes on her.”

“O-okay.”

I don’t even wait to see who Lindsay chooses to go with her, because I’m already halfway down the hallway. As I move toward the kitchen, the faint sound of anguished groans echo off the wood-paneled walls, drifting up from the belly of the house.

I clench my jaw, the promise of violence making my mouth water. No one is in the kitchen, and I quickly unlock the basement door and then shut it behind me. The groans are louder now, punctuated by a slew of curses.

When I get to the basement Panic Room, Jackson is standing to the side, arms crossed over his chest as he watches Christian throw a punch at a guy tied to a chair.

I step deeper into the room. “Is this the guy?” I say, flicking my chin at the dude in the chair. Blood gushes from his face and his hands are zip-tied behind him. He looks up at me through two swollen eyes.

Damn. Even if I had seen this guy around, I wouldn’t recognize him now.

Christian steps back and glances at me, re-rolling up his shirtsleeves with bloody hands. “Yup, that’s our guy. August Pendleton from Smoke and Ash.”

“ Shadow and Ash,” the guy corrects through gritted teeth, the words barely understandable. His face is pretty busted, so his jaw is probably broken.

I nod, folding my arms over my chest. “What have you managed to get out of him, so far?”

Christian blows out a breath and shakes his head. “The fact that it’s Shadow and Ash, and not Smoke and Ash,” he jokes.

I stare at my brother flatly. “Seriously? All this and you still haven’t gotten anything out of him?”

Christian shrugs one shoulder. “He’s annoyingly tight-lipped.”

My gaze falls to the guy, who’s scowling at us. He’s muscular, heavily tattooed, wearing a leather jacket with a thick chain link necklace wrapped around his neck twice and secured with a small silver padlock.

I get close to him, bending so my face is at his level. “Why the fuck did you show up as a witness in my cousin’s case?”

And I don’t believe for a second that this guy actually witnessed my cousin’s death. That shit was all over the news—Gabriel’s mom made sure of that—so why not come forward right after it happened? Why wait months?

Plus, according to Ash, August and his Shadow and Ash buddies have some kind of vendetta against the Burning Crown. Am I supposed to believe all that is a coincidence?

Yeah, fuck that.

August glares at me, then spits in my direction, that shit nearly hitting my boot. Raising my fist, I punch him in the jaw, his head whipping to the side sharply. That sickening crack of bone feeds something inside my soul and I smile.

“See?” Christian says. “This asshole is annoying as fuck. He spit on Jackson’s arm earlier.”

My gaze moves to Jackson, and I notice his hands are clean, but his knuckles are raw, which explains why this dude’s face looks like it had a date with a meat cleaver. Jackson spends more time than the rest of us in the basement gym. If you’re smart, you never want to fuck with Jackson.

I push out a breath. I don’t have time for this shit. Even as I stand here, thoughts of Wyn circle inside my head. Where is she? What the fuck was she thinking last night? Because, at the end of the day, she’s my consort now and her ass belongs to me. Running from me isn’t an option.

I address the guy in the chair. “Okay, fine. You won’t tell us what you saw, or why you’re involved in my cousin’s case. Then tell me this, why is Shadow and Ash trying to fuck with the Burning Crown?”

I mean, damn. We’ve gone, what, one-hundred-plus years of not knowing who these guys are? I’d like to keep it that way.

The guy tilts his head back and laughs, blood coating his teeth, making him look demonic. He chuckles and when he speaks, his words are muffled and slurred. “You fucking assholes. You think you can do whatever the fuck you want, and it’s never going to catch up with you.”

I lower back down to his level. “Exactly. That’s the beauty of having a fuck-ton of money and power,” I say. “What I don’t get is what any of our shit has to do with your little gang.”

“Savano,” he laughs.

I blink at him. Savano? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? He says name like I should know what the fuck he’s talking about.

I straighten and glance at my brother, but it’s Jackson who speaks up. “Savano,” he repeats. “Wasn’t that Tyler’s last name?”

August continues to laugh manically. “So you do know.”

“Know what ?” I ask through gritted teeth. I hate that this douche knows something he’s not telling us.

“You made it look like an accident, but we know you killed him.”

Tyler Savano was a member of the Burning Crown, but a few months ago, he committed a capital offense—he tried to force himself on a Sacred Son’s consort. And even when he was warned, he continued to threaten her.

That shit isn’t tolerated around here. One strike, you’re punished. Two strikes, you’re fucked. There is no third strike in the Burning Crown—not when it comes to fucking with our consorts.

“And? What of it?” I say.

I’m not going to justify what we did to Tyler. We have rules in this society. Tyler understood that. Roman had claimed Lux, and Tyler fucked with her anyway. The sentence for that is death, period.

“And…” Austin spits out the blood that’s pooling in his mouth. “Tyler was Saint Savano’s cousin.”

The fuck?

“ Saint Savano?” I repeat, confused. Is that the guy's name, or some fucked up title they’ve given him? “Are you guys monks or something?”

“His name is Saint , but they call him Sin. ” The guy shakes his head and laughs like he’s the only one in on the nonexistent joke. “You wanna know about Shadow and Ash? Ask your cousin. He’ll tell you.”

I only had one cousin, and that was Gabriel.

I glance at Christian and Jackson, but they both just shrug. Fucking perfect. I turn back to August. “Ask my cousin ?” I repeat. This guy has lost his fucking mind. “How am I supposed to ask a dead man anything?”

His head lolls to the side as he continues to laugh under his breath like this entire conversation is the most amusing thing ever. “I’d tell you, but that would spoil all the fun.”

“I think the head trauma is affecting his cognition,” Christian says, arms crossed, staring down at August.

Bending, I bring my face down to his level, careful to stay back a few feet, in case he decides to spit again. “Shadow and Ash can’t take down the Burning Crown,” I say slowly. “So whatever you and your friends have planned, I don’t give a fuck.”

“Oh, don’t worry, you will,” August says with another maniacal laugh. “You guys really fucked yourselves. And Sin won’t stop until you know it.”