by Violet Blaze
“It's not?” I ask as I stand up, brushing dust and bits of decaying leaves from my elbows. I'm standing in front of the sink of the old house my long dead family left me. The whole place has gone to shit, but nobody cares. In fact, they all like it that way.
I turn around and lean against the old linoleum counters as I stare at my president.
I asked him to send me to Alaska, to one of the other Alpha Wolves chapters in Anchorage last month and he refused. Fucking bastard. I stare at him, my fingers curling around my arms, black painted nails digging into the colorful swirls of my tattoos. There's so much brightness etched into my skin: a mermaid, a hot-air balloon, birds, an upside down cross, demon wings spread across my back. As with everything else in my life, none of it really means anything. I just picked what I liked in the moment and let the artist bleed their work across my flesh. I'm basically covered from the neck down; there's not a lot of space left anymore.
My heart thumps wildly in my chest as I recline back against the debris strewn counters and pretend that everything is okay. Nothing is. It's been a month and I still can't stop thinking about her.
Serenity.
Fucking Serenity.
“Feels like a game to me,” I say casually and Royal growls under his breath, raking his own tattooed fingers through his dark brown hair. He doesn't have half as many as I do; nobody does. “The man is shut up tight as a clam, Royal. Right now, he's winning. My score is zero.” I hiss the last word out and watch as my president shudders. He tries to hide it, but I've seen it before. “I can take this further, but he doesn't know anything else that'll be of use to us.”
Royal stares at me and I know what he's thinking: we're in trouble again.
The club just narrowly escaped the clutches of a brutal drug cartel and an FBI investigation. The last thing we need around here is more drama, but since it looks like Miguel Saldaña won't be helping us out anymore, trouble's likely what we're going to get.
The FBI still has agents in town, sniffing around, just waiting for us to mess up, fuck up, screw up. Our one ace in the hole is a woman named Heather Shelley, a woman that Royal's wife, Lyric, somehow schmoozed into being somewhat of an ally to the club. But allies don't come cheap. This woman, she wants her kidnapped sister back. Or at the very least, she wants intel.
I'm not going to be able to get her either of these things from Miguel.
After several long, tense minutes, Royal speaks, and it's what he speaks about that turns my entire body to ice.
“How's Serenity?” he asks, silver bars of moonlight cutting his face into pieces. I've been here all damn day, up to my elbows in blood and screams. My painting is half finished but already broken; Miguel Saldaña, he won't be one of my masterpieces, not by a long shot.
“Serenity?” I ask and Royal takes a step forward, like he's afraid I might try to fight him, like he's getting ready for it. I suppose I did hold a crossbow up to his throat last month, when we were on a run and I mentioned Alaska for the first time. Still, I want to go, leave, get the hell away from that girl. “What about her?”
“Oh, for the love of Christ, Saint,” Royal snaps, getting emotional again, running his hand over the dark scruff on the bottom of his face. “Don't play fucking stupid with me. Every time she looks at you, the world stands still. You know it's only a matter of time until Jack notices something is up.”
“Something is up?” I say, a strange lilt to my voice. I wonder briefly if finally, after all these years, I'm about to lose it. Snap. Let all of the darkness inside of me out, unleash it on the world like a horde of demons from hell. “Nothing is up with Serenity,” I say and Royal snorts, his cut rustling as he digs out a cigarette and lights up.
“Sure. Nothing but your bloody cock that one time.”
Royal's the only one that knows what happened between Serenity and me, because I told him. For the first and only time in my life, I felt like I needed to tell somebody something. Maybe that was a mistake?
Bloody.
It's just an expression for him, like saying fuck or something. But that word … I think of the slight slick of redness on my cock, the sheets. Serenity was a virgin, and for whatever reason, she wanted me to fuck her that night. I have no idea why. No idea why I was even interested. That was my third time having sex—ever. And the only time I've ever liked it. Masturbation does nothing for me, either. But Serenity, somehow … she meant something.
Too bad I could never have her. Even if I wanted her—which I'm not sure that I do—I wouldn't let myself. My touch is poison, and my kiss is darkness. Whatever I would do to her, it wouldn't be good. She'd walk into my arms pure and whole and bright, and she'd leave empty and ruined. That much, I'm certain of.
“If you're that concerned about the situation,” I ask, standing up and moving across the debris strewn floor of the kitchen, circling around behind my president and pausing to listen at the open door to the pantry. Inside here, buried in the floor, is a trapdoor. A ladder leans down to a wine cellar long abandoned, and a secret door that leads into the basement room where Miguel is staying. None of this is registered in the city plans—it was used during prohibition to smuggle alcohol—so even if this place were to be raided, it's unlikely to be found. “Then why not send me away?”
I listen for a moment at the trapdoor; I've left it all open so Miguel can hear us talking, albeit faintly. I want him to know that we're discussing his end as easily as we might discuss the weather. From downstairs, I hear nothing, not even the faded whimper of sobs.
“We need you here,” Royal says when what he really means is there's nobody else to do this job. Nobody else that wants to spend hours in a quiet basement room tearing a man's teeth out of his skull for information. It's just me; I'm the only one. “And we need this place clean, just in case. It's a miracle we've gone this long without a knock on the door. Give Miguel my regards, yeah?”
Royal starts toward the front door, heading back to his bike, his old lady, a warm bed.
Good for him.
At least one of us should be able to enjoy the night. All that's waiting for me when I leave here is a small, cold house on the edge of town, an empty bed, and the constant threat of my own thoughts.
The first time I saw light in darkness was when I met Serenity Westbrook. In an official capacity anyway. She'd been around the Alpha Wolves Compound—a cluster of legitimate businesses run by the club as cover for our illegitimate ones—before, when she was younger, but I'd never bothered to pay her much attention.
It was that one day, about two years ago, when I'd walked down the redwood steps of the deck and saw her sitting on one of the benches, her blonde hair streaked with purple. It was billowing in the wind around her face and she reached up casually, pulling several loose strands from the shiny, sticky red surface of her lips. Her makeup was thick and dark, her shirt midriff, a cluster of belly button rings glinting from her navel.
When she glanced over at me, her smile tilted to the side, turning her face into a sun.
I'd never seen anything in my life that I'd considered beautiful before.
This was it.
Serenity stood up from the bench in a pair of tight jeans, the denim clinging to long, shapely legs, and she sauntered over to me.
“They call you Glacier, right?” she'd asked, and I'd had no idea how to answer. This girl, she'd been around the compound enough to know who I was. So what was she doing then? Flirting? Playing coy? I hadn't been sure.
My lips had curled up into a smile automatically. I'd trained myself to do that. Keeping my mouth in a perpetual line hadn't done me any good before.
“Everyone but the president—and he only calls me Saint when he's pissed off.”
“Saint?” Serenity said, dancing back a few steps in a pair of tall purple heels. “I like that. Saint.” I couldn't help but watch the way her white teeth flashed against her red rouged lips when she said my name. “Saint.” Serenity gave me a once-over like I'd seen a thousand women do before her.
But this time, something was different.
For the first time in my life, I gave a shit.
I was right.
As soon as I get to school the next day, they nail me. It starts early, right when I walk in the doors. The two girls are just there all of a sudden, slamming me back into the bank of lockers. My arms come up to defend my face, just barely managing to deflect another blow from Nevaeh.
“You think you can get out of this because you know the mayor?” she spits as I shove forward with both arms, dislodging Bristol's grip on my shoulder, sending Nevaeh stumbling away. “Do you fuck her husband, too? Or are groupies not good enough for the president of a gang?”
“I'll give you one warning,” I tell them both, looking from Nevaeh to Bristol. The bitch has lost her guilty face, staring at me like she really does believe all of this bull about me and Cooper. It had to be her, I think and then, I fucking hate high school drama. If I thought the real world would be any better, I'd have dropped out by now. “Don't talk about the club—or me—like that.”
I might not like the Alpha Wolves as a whole—sorry, but growing up surrounded by drugs, groupies, violence, and sexism did not turn it into a fantasy for me—but I will also not stand here and listen to this girl talk shit about my family.
“Well look at that,” Nevaeh says with this nasty little smirk on her lips, “looks like the Wolves' little bitch has some fight in her yet.”
Without even realizing that I'm moving, I'm suddenly just there in Nevaeh's face, hitting her as hard as I can in the stomach with a balled up fist. Her breath whooshes from her lungs as I grab her shoulders and slam her into the lockers.
I hate how happy she looks about the whole thing, like this is exactly what she wanted to happen all along. Right before I swing and hit her square in the face, I hear the sound of heels on linoleum. Only this time, it's not Lyric come to save the day. My punch connects with a sickening sound and Nevaeh screams, crumpling to the floor against the lockers as footsteps pound down the hallway. Before I know it, Cooper Mabbitt's pulling me off and throwing me back.
I stumble, but only from surprise, looking up to find Mrs. Ferrera staring wide-eyed in my direction.
“Miss Westbrook,” she breathes, like I'm the lowest of the low, like she never thought she'd see something as awful as me in her lifetime and it shocks her to her core.
I know what's coming; I don't have to stick around and watch it happen.
“I'm out of here,” I say, stepping back and grabbing my bag from the floor, elbowing my way out the front doors as Nevaeh sobs and Cooper picks her up, cradling her bloody face against his big, cheating chest.
My riding boots are loud on the wet pavement as I start off at a slow run and then move into a jog, glad that I wore black leggings today instead of a skirt. It's cold out and all the places on my body that are bare—my face, my neck and chest, my arms—sting like crazy. Doesn't help that it's starting to rain again.
I grit my teeth, jogging several blocks before I round a corner and pull my cell out to call my friend, Rayna. She graduated last year, stuck around here to work at her father's shop. He sells overpriced seashells to tourists and rich people and Rayna, she's not really that ambitious. She likes how quiet it is around here.
“Serenity?” she asks, yawning like I just woke her up or something. That's probably true. Rayna's dad has control issues, and he likes to open the shop by himself. Rayna doesn't usually start her shifts until around noon most days. “What's up?”
“Can you give me a ride?” I ask, but it's at that moment that I see my mother's car coming straight towards me. What the hell? I pause because I know she sees me from the way she swerves and jams the front wheel of her car into the curb, climbing out and staring at me above the wet surface of the roof. “I'll call you back,” I say and hang up without waiting for a reply.
“Serenity?” Mom asks, like she's as surprised to see me as I am to see her. “What are you doing out here?”
I stare back at her for several long moments before randomly shrugging my shoulders.
“The power keeps flickering on and off at the school,” I say, which is a total lie, but has happened before during a storm. There really was one last night, so why not? “They decided to just cancel classes until they can get it fixed.”
Mom's frown is stuck to her face like glue, but at least she looks normal now, less pale.
Mom got shot; Mom got shot; Mom got shot.
And she did, and she almost died. Lyric Rentz-McBride, she saved my mother's life that night in the grocery store parking lot, that night when all of this stuff with a rival club and a cartel came to a head.
That night I lost my virginity.
That night, that night, that night.
Glacier.
I shiver from head to toe.
“Are you going to the compound?” I ask as Mom continues to stare at me. “If you are, I want to come with you.”
Fauna's blonde hair twirls and dances in the wind, her blue eyes narrowed on my face, the wrinkles around her eyes a testament to how hard her life has been, how hard club life always is.
“Get in,” she says, before dropping back inside the car and slamming the door.
With a sigh of relief, I follow after her.
Glacier, Glacier, Glacier.
That's the only thing I can seem to get my mind to focus on, the hot slick of his tongue against my own, the rough angry grasp of his hands, the hard fullness of his cock inside of me.
Glacier.
My monster.
The Alpha Wolves Compound is an interesting place to be during the day—even more interesting at night.
Right now, things are in a state of in-between, stuck somewhere between last month's drama and the always uncertain future of a motorcycle club. On the compound proper, there's a coffee shop and café where I work part-time, an auto body shop, a motorcycle repair garage, and a showroom of ostentatious bikes that the club sells to rich dudes at crazy marked up prices.
“Make yourself useful and go help Glinda in the café,” Mom says as she parks in front of the clubhouse and climbs out with a sigh and a grimace, freezing on the edge of her seat with a violent gasp. I kick my messenger bag out of the way and run around the front of the car, pushing her door aside and squatting down to lay a hand across her knee. Her blonde hair, so much like mine, hangs in front of her face as she struggles to pull in breath after agonizing breath.
I hate this so much, I think as tears sting my eyes, and wait for the moment to pass.
“Do you need me to get Dad?” I ask, but Fauna just shakes her head, lifting her chin up and acting like the pain means nothing, like she didn't almost die that night. Shot at. Almost killed. Because she's married to my dad. That's it. My mom isn't a criminal, not a member of the club, just happens to be attached to a person who is.
And that's why I can't have Glacier, no matter how much I want him, even if by some miracle he wants me.
I try to help my mother up, but she shoves my hand away, too proud to accept the help.
“Get your butt to the cafe,” she says and I sigh, watching as she slams the car door and heads up the steps of the deck, into the clubhouse with its heavy wooden doors, a pair of wolf heads carved into them. In all truthfulness, she should be in a bed somewhere, sleeping and trying to recover her strength. Instead, she's here to do inventory, to run the bar in the back of the clubhouse, serve the boys their whiskey and Scotch and beer.
My teeth grit tight as I rise to my feet, running my hands down the front of the tight tank I have on, struggling to catch my breath.
Doesn't work.
As soon as I turn around, I lose it again.
Fuck.
“Saint.”
The word falls across my lips, just tumbles down them and hangs in the cool, misty morning air for a moment as the man in question pauses in the middle of the parking lot to stare at me.
His eyes are the clear blue of a summer swimming hole, but one with hidden currents
and undertows, one that's so beautiful you can't resist, even when you know it'll kill you.
My hands start to tremble at my sides and my body reacts in a way that's both instinctually familiar and completely foreign. Between my legs, I can feel this sudden tightening, this ache that travels up my spine, makes my nipples hurt, turns my tongue to ash.
I can't speak; I'm burning up. All over my body, ghostly fingers flitter, frantic gasps of memory, of Glacier's hands on my body, his weight pressing me into the dorm room mattress.
“Serenity,” he says and his lip curls in this way that I don't understand. Usually, he pretends to be this jovial guy, laughing with the boys, even as they're shivering at his very presence. He used to do that with me, too, pretend to be friendly like that. Now, he's not even trying.
We stand there for a while, just staring at each other.
I can't take my eyes off of his face, the way the wind ruffles the angelic halo of blonde hair on his head. And those eyes … I'm not thirsty, but I can't stop myself from taking such a long drink that I start to drown.
He's dressed in this tight, black tank and jeans dotted with grease from the garage. A red rag hangs out of one front pocket, like a splash of blood against all of the non-color in the sky and sea behind him. His tattoos are a kaleidoscope, tracing down both arms, all the way to his black painted fingernails. I can see even more of them peeking up around his neck, almost distracting enough to make me miss the piercings in his face, the silver ring on either side of his lips, the one in his nose, his brow, both ears covered in silver loops.
My fingers ache to touch him again, ache to have him touch me.
I'm seventeen; he's thirty.
This can never work.
Glacier breaks our stare, turning on the heel of his black leather riding boots and stalking back towards the garage in a brisk stride. My hands curl into fists at my sides, and I feel this … this rage sweep over me that I can't seem to control.
“Hey!” I snap, chasing after him, my own boots splashing through puddles, soaking my leggings as I come around to stand in front of him. Holy shit. The way he looks at me, so cold and so … hot at the same time. My breath rushes out again and I find myself panting and shaking with … something. I can't explain it; it's just there. “Why are you avoiding me?”
