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The problem is, I already followed this one here.

“You’ll have the room at the end,” the angel says, his voice carrying that same unbothered calm he wore in the clubroom, like nothing about hauling a stranger through gates guarded by monsters requires him to raise his pulse. He walks the way soldiers walk in old paintings, spine straight, wings folded so tightly beneath his skin I’d never know they existed if I hadn’t already watched them unfurl. “Nobody will bother you. If they do, tell me, and I’ll handle it.”

“Handle it,” I repeat, tasting the shape of the words. “Is that a euphemism?”

The corner of his mouth twitches, the closest thing to a smile I’ve caught out of him since the gates. “Only if it needs to be.”

I stay quiet as we walk, watching him from the corner of my eye. There’s something strange about the way he carries himself, all that power packed into a body that never seems to need to prove it’s there. His shoulders stay loose, his steps easy, but I’ve seen enough dangerous men to know how quickly that could change.

The others outside made it obvious what they were. One look around that clubroom and I knew exactly what would happen if I gave any of them a reason to come at me.

The angel beside me is harder to read.

He’s been polite since he started walking me through the clubhouse, giving me space instead of crowding me, even slowing when I slow. But I felt the power rolling off him the second he stepped close. His power grazes my senses with every step we take, unmistakably celestial and strong enough that some ancient part of me keeps paying attention.

He could hurt me.

Badly.

He hasn’t given me a reason to think he wants to, and somehow, that makes me want to figure him out even more.

The clubhouse itself sprawls in every direction, a maze of common rooms, kitchens, and a garage I catch a glimpse of through a propped door, where bikes are lined up like sleeping animals under work lights. Voices bleed through every wall, overlapping, arguing, laughing, none of it hushed for my benefit, none of it pretending I’m not here. Years of empty motel rooms and highway silence didn’t prepare me for a brotherhood this loud, this tangled into each other, supernatural criminals who apparently never learned to lower their voices even when a stranger with a knife in her boot is walking through their home.

It should terrify me more than it does.

“You know there’s another way out past the kitchen, right?”

I glance at him. “What?”

The corner of his mouth pulls up, but he keeps his eyes ahead as we walk. “Figured I’d save you the trouble. You’ve checked every door and window we’ve passed since we came inside.”

My shoulders stiffen. “I have not.”

“Three doors. Two windows. You looked at that last one long enough to work out whether you’d fit through it.”

Shit.

“Maybe I like windows?”

“Sure.” His mouth twitches again. “Fourth exit’s past the kitchen. In case you’re interested.”

I narrow my eyes at the side of his face. “You always pay this much attention to strangers?”

“Only the ones looking for the fastest way out of my clubhouse.”

“It’s not your clubhouse.”

This time he looks at me, his eyebrow lifting. “You don’t know that.”

Fair-fucking-point.

Heat climbs up the back of my neck. “Occupational habit.”

He smiles at me, and this time it’s warm. “You’re safe here. I know that means nothing coming from a stranger. It’s still true… the name’s Sentinel, by the way. The president who questioned you out there before… he’s Raze. VP is Scar, and the rest… the rest you’ll learn.”

I nod, trying to take all of that in, but he left out the only name I actually wanted.

“The man outside. The one who tried to talk to me.” My throat tightens slightly at the memory of that broken scrape of sound. “What’s his name?”