Chapter 21

Neve

Iron Fang doesn’t do Christmas Eve quietly.

By eight o’clock, the common room is so full that people are spilling out onto the porch in the cold. Someone has hooked a speaker up to the old jukebox, and it’s playing classic rock loud enough to rattle the windows. There’s a keg by the bar and a long table sagging under Lena’s food: a ham, two turkeys, mountains of rolls, three different kinds of pie. Riders are arguing over the pool table. Somebody’s mate is dancing on a bench. Kids are everywhere, sticky with candy canes, chasing each other between people’s legs.

It’s nothing like the Christmases I had at Ray’s, quiet and small and smelling of cocoa.

It’s nothing like anything I’ve had in eight years.

I’m sitting in the corner by the window, as far from the noise as I can get, wi