October 19, 2026
(Hades Abyss MC 16)
Date Published: October 23, 2026
Publisher: Changeling Press
Maren -- Treating a gunshot wound could cost me my license -- and career. I did it anyway. Saving a biker’s life was supposed to be one reckless decision. I never expected Patch -- the quiet, controlled man who brought him to me -- to become someone I could depend on. Then I discover someone has been using the veterinary clinic where I work for an illegal operation, putting everything I’ve worked for -- and possibly my life -- at risk. Patch says he’ll handle it. I’m beginning to understand exactly what that promise means. And I’m not sure I want to walk away.
Patch -- For twenty years, I’ve made sure my brothers come home alive. Then Freak takes a bullet, our doctor is gone, and my only option is a vet tech with steady hands and enough courage to risk everything to save him. Maren should have walked away from us afterward. Instead, I keep finding reasons to see her. Protect her. Make her problems mine. And when I discover someone has been using her clinic for something dangerous, there’s no question what happens next.
No one touches what’s mine.
Maren
The overheads in reception were already off. I’d hit the switch twenty minutes ago, same as every night. The front desk phone sat on the counter playing something low and instrumental that I’d stopped hearing half an hour back. The lobby chairs were pushed in. The magazines were stacked. The credit card terminal had been wiped down and the drawer emptied into the safe. Every surface clean. Every light off except the surgical suite.
I hauled the mop bucket through the door with one hand on the handle and the other braced against the frame. The wheels caught on the threshold. I lifted and rolled and it cleared. The bucket sloshed. Bleach and hot water at a ratio I could smell without measuring. Three parts to one. Maybe two and a half. My nose knew better than my measuring cup.
Stitch was asleep on the procedure table. Full extension. Orange belly up, three legs splayed, the missing left hind an absence so familiar I’d stopped noticing the shape of it. His one good ear was folded back against the vinyl. He didn’t open his eyes when I came in. He knew the sound of the wheels. He’d been sleeping there for six years in direct violation of every health code Gerry had ever been cited for and never fixed.
The latch on the supply cabinet needed a thumb on the bottom edge. I found it without looking. The cabinet swung open. I grabbed the bottle of disinfectant spray, set it on the counter, and closed the door with my hip. The spray bottle went into my left scrub pocket. Right pocket held a roll of gauze and a pair of shears.
The sink handle stuck. I jiggled it left, then right, then left again. The water came on cold. I filled Stitch’s ceramic dish to the rim and set it on the floor beside the table leg. He still didn’t move. The water would be there when he woke up. It always was.
The clinic was mine in this hour.
Gerry had left at four-thirty, after sorting out where his keys were. He’d said something about a dinner with his sister in town.
Tessa had clocked out at six sharp, her scrubs swapped for jeans and a sweatshirt. The building settled around me after hours. The fluorescent hum. The faint tick of the hot water heater through the wall. The smell of bleach and fur and the underlying note of something chemical that never quite aired out.
I moved through it without thinking. My hands knew where everything lived. The suture drawer was three inches left of the anesthetic cabinet. The saline bags hung on the far wall hook behind the scale. The crash cart sat where it had sat for six years, its contents arranged by size rather than use because that was how I’d found it and how I’d kept it. I could reach any of it in the dark. I had, twice, during power outages.
The supply levels ran in my head instead of on the clipboard. Two cases of 4-0 suture. Three boxes of exam gloves, large. One case of saline, half-empty. The drug drawer was locked. The key lived on the ring with the keys for the back door and the crash cart.
The lead technician credential hung on the wall behind the front desk.
Framed. My name in block letters. Maren Hale, CVT, Lead Technician. Six years in that frame. Six years in this building, working for a man who left at four-thirty. I could have moved. There were clinics in Springfield paying fifteen thousand more for the same credential. There were teaching hospitals in St. Louis that would have taken my hours and my recommendation letters and put me in a lab coat with somebody else’s name on the door.
I hadn’t moved.
There was a specialty credential I’d been eighty hours short of for two years. Emergency and critical care. The hours were free but getting them was another matter. Not to mention the exam fee, and the two days off work that ‘d need.
My grandmother’s memory care facility cost thirty-two hundred a month. The number hadn’t changed in two years. It wouldn’t change until she died. I wrote the check. Every time. What came after the check was mine. Usually about eight hundred dollars. Sometimes less. Enough for my bills and the occasional pair of scrubs when the elbows wore through.
I wasn’t unhappy.
I had a job I was good at. I had hands that didn’t shake. I had a cat on a procedure table who trusted me enough to sleep through a mop bucket three feet from his head. I had a grandmother who sometimes remembered my name when I visited on Sundays.
The mop handle was warm from my grip. I leaned it against the wall and sprayed the counter with disinfectant. The mist settled. I wiped it down with a paper towel I’d folded twice. The surface came up. No streaks. No residue. I tossed the towel and reached for the light switch.
The surgical suite went dark. Just the exit sign above the door throwing a dull red glow across the floor. Stitch had shifted in his sleep. One paw now draped over the edge of the table. His breathing was slow. Even. He slept like a man who knew exactly where he was.
I stood in the dark for a second. Let the quiet settle. The phone in reception had stopped playing. The building hummed. Somewhere out in the lot, a car passed on the county road. Headlights swept the front window and were gone.
This was enough. For right now, in this hour, with the floors clean and the supplies counted and the cat asleep on the table he wasn’t supposed to be on, it was exactly enough.
About the Author
Harley Wylde is an accomplished author known for her captivating MC Romances. With an unwavering commitment to sensual storytelling, Wylde immerses her readers in an exciting world of fierce men and irresistible women. Her works exude passion, danger, and gritty realism, while still managing to end on a satisfying note each time.
When not crafting her tales, Wylde spends her time brainstorming new plotlines, indulging in a hot cup of Starbucks, or delving into a good book. She has a particular affinity for supernatural horror literature and movies. Visit Wylde's website to learn more about her works and upcoming events, and don't forget to sign up for her newsletter to receive exclusive discounts and other exciting perks.
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