Chapter One
Lily Abrams pulled her shirt over her head before slipping on the chain she always wore around her neck. Most of the time, she didn’t think too much about what was dangling off of it, and sadness slammed into her at the realization. There’d been a time when she couldn’t stop looking at it, but she hardly thought anything of it those days.
Her fingers had a slight tremor to them as she lifted her hand and touched the man’s wedding ring the chain was looped through. The thick golden band was gleaming dully in the light as she traced it, her eyes finding the picture of Brandon on the dresser.
He was standing in a desert, in a far away place, decked out in full Marine gear. His gun was slung to one side, and he was grinning at the camera, his arm wrapped around a mountain of a man, dressed just as he was.
It was the last picture of him ever taken.
“I miss you, Brandon,” she whispered, tears pressing against her eyelids.
Pressing a kiss to her fingertips, she touched them to the glass of the picture frame. Her gaze fell to the other man, and she took a deep, steadying breath as she willed the tears back.
The other man, Noah, had been her late husband’s best friend. They’d never been far from each other when they were deployed, and he’d saved Brandon’s ass so many times during the war. But that last time, only one of them was able to walk away.
Lily hadn’t heard from him again after the funeral. It was like he’d just disappeared, and she’d been too lost in her grief to even wonder where he went.
That was three years ago. Three years. Sometimes, it felt like hardly any time had passed, and sometimes it felt like a hundred years must have gone by. She’d gone through the motions for so long, and it was only in the past year that she began to feel like she was coming out of the fog she was suffocating under.
In the past couple of months, she began feeling like herself again. But the more she regained herself, the more a little voice inside her whispered that her journey of healing wouldn’t be complete until she spoke to Noah.
She hadn’t known him very well. She and Brandon had him over for dinner once a week, and sometimes, they all went out. But he was always so quiet. Not in a standoffish way—just reserved. She’d often wondered how he and Brandon were even friends, because her husband had been outgoing. He never met a stranger and he loved to talk.
He said Noah wasn’t that quiet when it was just them, though. She’d kind of had a complex about it for a while, wondering if he was just so quiet because he didn’t like her.
She still didn’t know if that was true or not. But she knew he’d been hurting when Brandon was killed. She could see it in his eyes at the funeral.
Blowing out a breath, she turned toward her bed and picked up the box sitting on the mattress. It was full of pictures and other things she knew Brandon would have wanted Noah to have. She thought if she could find him, give him the stuff, and make sure he didn’t feel guilty over Brandon’s death, maybe she’d get that last bit of closure she needed.
Tracking him down hadn’t been easy, but she thought she’d finally found him in a little town in Nevada. He was part of a group of people who owned a bar and grill there.
At least, she hoped he was the right Noah. She had no more leads to go on. Either way, her journey was coming to an end. If it wasn’t him, she’d put the box in the back of the closet, just in case she ever heard from him again, and then move on with her life.
She still wasn’t sure how much of a life she could have without Brandon. He’d been everything to her. From the moment they met in middle school, he’d been her world.
But he was gone and she was still there. And as sad as it made her, maybe it was time to let him go. Three years was long enough to hold onto the past. It was time to step out of that time in her life and begin a new future.
It looked different from the one she’d always envisioned for herself, but maybe that was okay.
It had to be. Because this was the way her life was now, and there were no do-overs allowed.
Straightening her spine with determination, she locked the front door and walked to her car, ready to find Noah and end this painful chapter in her life.
Noah Benson stared into his shot glass, the music and noise in the clubhouse fading as he looked at the amber liquid. His lion was pacing in his chest, agitated, missing and mourning for something Noah didn’t understand.
He wanted to understand. No, he needed to. Not knowing what upset his lion was slowly driving him insane.
It’d been like that for as long as he could remember—his cat grieving for something Noah didn’t know about. He felt it, too. Like he was missing a piece of himself. But he hadn’t been able to figure out what it was, and his lion didn’t seem able to tell him.
All his life, he fought against the feeling, because he knew instinctively there was nothing he could do to find out what it was. He managed it fairly decently—at least, until Brandon was killed.
Losing one of his best friends, one he’d vowed to protect at all costs, had been a blow he was still struggling through. He’d lost control of his ability to push past the constant uneasiness inside him, and he felt like he’d been spiraling the last few years.
And he didn’t know how to stop it.
“Feeling that missing piece again, huh?”
Glancing over in surprise, his eyebrows rose as he saw Tarun sitting next to him. He hadn’t noticed her sitting down. She nodded at him and he looked down at where his hand was rubbing his chest. Clenching his fist, he dropped his hand to the bar top. He’d been doing that more and more often, without even realizing he was doing it.
“I always do, you know that,” he replied with a shrug.
“But you don’t normally let it show so often. I’ve only been here a couple months, but even I can see that. It’s bothering you more and more, isn’t it?”
Shrugging again, he looked back down into his glass. Whiskey. Maybe he should have made it a double. If he were a human and could actually feel the effects of alcohol, he probably would have. Anything to numb that feeling.
Tarun didn’t say anything else, just sat next to him in companionable silence. His lion eased the frantic pacing, and Noah was able to relax a bit more on his stool. Tarun hadn’t been with the Blood and Bone Enforcers MC long, having just a couple months ago mated Luke.
Noah had known Luke since he was eight, and he was his closest friend. The Enforcers were all close—more like family than friends. But Luke was his best friend, and only Brandon had been as close to him as Luke was. And Brandon hadn’t even known Noah was a shifter.
So many lies he’d told his friend. He hadn’t had a choice, but he always felt guilty about it. Guilt that hadn’t eased when Brandon died in that road side bomb.
In all actuality, Noah should have died, too. If he hadn’t been a shifter, he would have. And maybe it was irrational, but that made him feel even more guilt.
Sadness pierced through his chest, and he forced his thoughts away from his dead friend. He’d been thinking of him more often lately, and he wasn’t sure why. But, as strong and badass as he liked to think he was, he couldn’t handle the reminders of Brandon.
He looked over at Tarun, where she was sitting patiently next to him. He’d felt completely at ease with her from the beginning—enough that he actually told her about the missing piece of himself. No one else knew about that. Not even Luke. She’d quickly become like a little sister to him, and she had his undying loyalty.
Her and Luke both. He’d die for any of his Enforcer family, but those two—there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for them.
The sounds of a fight breaking out in the bar reached him and he couldn’t decide if he was annoyed or grateful for the distraction. Turning on his stool, he spied the humans who were fighting. Judging by the woman crying as she tried to stop them, he was pretty sure it was over her.
He stood to go over and break it up, cursing when the woman got too close and one of the men’s elbow hit her in the face. Fury washed over him as the two men continued fighting, too caught up in their feud to realize they’d physically hurt the woman they were throwing punches over.
“All right, break it up, idiots,” he growled as he reached them. “Can’t you see you’re hurting her?”
One of the men stopped to glance over at the woman, concern on his face, and the other took the opportunity to slam his fist in his gut. Noah grabbed his shoulder to pull him off, and the man turned on him, punching him in his nose.
Cursing at the burst of pain, he knocked the other man to the ground, keeping his shifter strength in check. Fuck, he wanted to beat the shit out of the human—not because he hit him, but for making the woman cry. It was all he could do to keep himself in control.
But the Enforcers had a rule that they never engaged in the fights in the bar. B&B Bar and Grill wasn’t just part of their motorcycle club and a cover for their real jobs. It was their home, and none of them wanted to lose it. They couldn’t do anything seen as suspicious around so many humans, and a shifter didn’t fight the same.
But every fiber of his being wanted to kick the shit out of the human.
The man got up off the floor, glaring daggers as he turned away, and Noah thought that was going to be the end of it. But then, the human turned suddenly and rammed his shoulder into Noah’s chest, knocking him off balance.
His lion growled as he shoved the man back off, and despite knowing the rules, he clenched his fist and began to raise it. Before he could make contact, Blake and Liam appeared, grabbing the human, dragging him backward. Blake shot him a warning look as they walked the man to the door, and Noah roughly yanked off his ballcap before settling it back in place, propping his hands on his hips.
Shit. When did he begin losing his control so easily? It felt like he and Luke switched places—like when Luke found his again, Noah lost his own.