by Violet Blaze
“This better not be a fetish, some jailbait fantasy or something.”
“I can assure you, it's not,” I snap and my smile slips right off my face. “Do you think I like having some seventeen year old girl chase after me? Well, she finally caught up to me. I don't know what I'm going to do with her.” I jerk my fingers through my hair and then shove the wet cloth Royal gave me over my face. It comes away caked in blood. “But I …”
I can't finish that sentence; I don't know what to say.
“Figure it out,” Royal barks as he takes Lyric's arm in his and they start to turn away, “and then tell me what you intend to do. Jack has a right proper stick up his arse about this and he's suspicious as hell. He's been around this club a long time, and he's well-liked and he has connections in all six of the other chapters. If he finds out you're fucking his underage daughter …” Royal's turn to run his fingers through his hair. “If you really love her, we'll find a way to keep this quiet until she turns eighteen.”
Royal and Lyric move away from the garage, leaving me blinking in the shadows as I scrub the blood from my face and neck.
Love?
Am in love?
No. I don't think I'm capable of that sort of emotion.
But need? That I understand perfectly well.
After work, I leave the compound on my bike and head to the mayor's office.
I have no idea what I'm going to do when I get there, where I'm going to take Serenity, but it doesn't matter. I have to see her.
Fuck.
That girl's really pulled one over me. She acts like she knows exactly what she's doing; I hope she's right about that. The monster, the beast, the demons inside of me, we have no idea what we're doing. The only thing I know is that my resolve is crumbling; I can't stay away.
By the time I pull up outside the green and white Victorian by the sea, Serenity's waiting outside, dressed in a completely different outfit from before—tight, tight jeans and a black motorcycle jacket, her red-streaked blonde hair tied up at the back of her head.
My reaction is instantaneous and overwhelming, this surge of bright energy that takes over me completely, like a dam's been destroyed, sending a flood racing through the valley of my chest.
I don't get off the bike, just pause in front of her and lift my helmet off my head, passing it over silently. Our fingers brush and heat arcs through me, straight down into my core, hardening my cock inside my jeans. Serenity puts the helmet on and climbs up behind me, wrapping her arms around my middle, pressing our bodies close.
Touch, touch, touch.
I haven't been touched this much since … since forever. Maybe my grandparents or my mother or my brother touched me a long time ago, but I can't be sure. My memories of them are weak at best, absent more often than not. Maybe that's why I'm such a fucked-up human being?
Without a single word passing between us, I take off. At first, I have no idea where I'm going. Both the monster and the animal want to take Serenity back to my place. I force the man inside of me to make a different decision, taking us over to Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse and parking my bike in the small lot.
Serenity slides off the back first, removing her helmet as I swing my leg over and stay sitting, turning to face her fully.
The sight of her … it fucking astounds me in all my incarnations.
“What are we doing here?” she asks, sounding surprised.
“I have no idea,” I say as I study her face, remembering that day two years ago when she'd pretended not to know my name, so she could come up and talk to me, her lips painted red, shiny and full. It was the first time I'd seen any hint of light in the dark shadows of my life. That's why I offered to teach her to ride, just so I could see where that light was coming from and why. I had no idea that two years later, it would turn into this. “You say you know me so well, so why don't you tell me?”
“Are you afraid of me?” she asks, and if I were capable of laughter, that's what I'd do. Instead, I make myself smile. It's the most I can manage considering the turmoil inside of me. Serenity is … that pull I felt this morning is intensifying, coalescing inside my chest. It could be dangerous. If I unleash myself on her, I don't know what I'll do.
“Afraid of you?” I echo and then I stand up, listening to the breeze as it whispers over my skin.
“Not mortally afraid, not like that,” she says, breathing out and handing the helmet over. I toss it over the handlebars on the bike and turn back to stare at her. I can't seem to stop staring at her. “But are you afraid of what will happen if we're alone?”
“We should walk,” I say absently, because I feel like I need to move, to release some of this pent up energy inside. Without waiting for a reply, I start down the path, past the red and white lighthouse and over to the wooden steps built into the hillside. They snake their way down through thick dense foliage, a green wall on either side of the path. There's not a lot of daylight left, but that doesn't matter to me. I've never been afraid of the dark. To be afraid of it, you have to be afraid of the things that live in it. The dark, it's always the place where I've made myself at home.
Serenity trails behind me for a while on the narrow path; there's not enough room for us to walk side by side. For whatever reason, that bothers me. I want to look at her face, so at the next landing, I pause and step aside, assuming she'll sit down on the bench.
She doesn't.
She just stands there and lets the wind whip her ponytail around, the dying sun peeking its way through the foliage around us, limning the side of her face in fading gold. The look suits her; she's as bright as the North Star in my eyes, the only guiding light in darkness. The question is: will my shadows overwhelm and smother her brightness?
“Can I ask you a question?”
“You can ask me anything,” I say, and I'm surprised to find that I actually mean that. Hmm. I lift a hand up and slide my fingers through my hair. Serenity follows the motion, waiting until I drop my hand to my side again before she speaks.
“What did you mean … that you hadn't had sex in six years?”
“What do you think I meant?” I ask, reaching up my right hand and cupping the side of her face. The action surprises me so much that I pull back and grit my teeth slightly.
“You … Just blow jobs or something?”
“Just nothing at all.”
I stand there and wait to see if Serenity's expression changes, if she looks at me like I'm a freak as well as a monster.
“Nothing at all …” she ventures, her brow furrowing a little.
I can't help it; something about that expression, it draws me forward.
I step up to Serenity, draw my fingertips down the leather sleeve of her jacket and watch her quiver beneath my touch. My eyes narrow and I lean in, breathing in that scent of hers, letting it fill up all the dark places inside. That snake inside my chest strikes and I feel this rattle beneath my ribs, this wild thumping that heats my blood. It's similar to what I feel when I work my knives, my hammers, my pliers. Similar to what I feel when I heft my crossbow in my hands and take a shot, when I chase and when I capture my prey. But it's stronger, too, and the flavor is all new to me.
I drop my mouth down to Serenity's neck—somehow I'm just drawn to her. When I hadn't touched her, when she'd given me no opening, no reason to try, it was easier to resist. Now that she's given me permission, that I've given myself permission, it feels impossible to resist.
My lips kiss her thundering pulse and my breath feathers against her skin.
“No kissing,” I tell her and she shudders when I drop my hands to her hips. “No blow jobs, no fucking. Before you, I had sex twice in my life.”
“Twice?” An echo, a strange note in her voice.
“Two times, two different girls. Both awful. I regret them both. I was a monster and I got no pleasure out of it.”
“But that redhead—”
“You've awakened something in me, Serenity. Just the sight of you is enough to make me hard. I
thought I'd see if I could use it on someone else. I was seconds from pushing her away when you walked in; nothing happened. I didn't want it to happen.”
I pause as she leans into me … and wraps her arms around my midsection.
My entire body goes rigid and I freeze in place. Is she … hugging me? It's almost funny. I almost laugh. I'm too uncomfortable to do anything, so I just stand there and wait. The monster, though, he seems to soothe and that, it's a fucking miracle.
“Everyone needs touch, Saint. It's part of being human.”
“Maybe I'm not human then?” I ask as she squeezes me, presses our bodies together with the rustle of leather on leather. I hear footsteps in the distance and jerk back, pushing her away from me and waiting as an elderly couple appears on the steps, climbing up with a dog leading the way in front of them.
“Good evening,” the man says, tipping a gray wool fedora in our direction. I smile, my mask sliding right into place across my frozen features.
“Evening,” I say with mild pleasantness, leaving the expression in place until they pass by and disappear up the hill. In the distance, the ocean crashes against the beach, a steady backdrop of noise to accompany the golden-gray of the dying sun.
My gaze drops to Serenity, and the smile disappears.
“So,” she starts, reaching up to run her palm over her blonde hair, teasing her fingers through her ponytail, “you don't like sex then?”
“Apparently only with you,” I say, and her cheeks flush red. It wasn't intended to be a compliment, not necessarily. It's just the truth. When I was younger, I had no desire at all to fuck or touch myself, no sexual attraction to another human being of any kind. My brothers, though, they were obsessed with it. It's practically what drives them. Club whores and one-night stands and then later, their old ladies. So I tried it, forced myself to mimic the motions, pick up a girl. It was awful, the whole thing. The more she kissed me, the harder she tried, the more frustrated I became. And then a few years later, just to keep up appearances, I tried it again. It was even worse the second time.
“You like touching me?” Serenity asks, looking for some kind of clarification. Of what, I'm not sure. You were made to be mine. Her words hit me hard and deep, electrified the cold deadness inside of me until it felt like I was awake.
“More than that,” I say, glad that I had enough foresight to bring her here to the beach. If I'd taken her back to my place … “I crave it. It started that night in the dorm and it gets worse everyday.”
“What are we doing here?” she asks, and I know she doesn't just mean our physical location, but everything else, too. “What's happening between us?”
Royal wanted to know what my plan was, well, so does Serenity.
I glance down at our feet, both of us dressed in black leather riding boots with silver buckles. A club daughter, of course that's the type of girl that would eventually crack me in half, a girl who was raised in the MC, brought up in the same environment that nurtures my monster.
I raise my head slowly, lift my chin, study her.
“You chased me, tempted me, caught me. Well, Serenity, you've got me now. What is it that you want from me?”
“Everything,” she says and her voice catches strangely on that one word, “I want everything.”
I stare back at her and although I stay completely still on the outside, inside my whole world shifts.
“Okay,” I say and that's it, all I can do at the moment, “okay, Serenity.”
“Where the hell have you been?” Loren snaps as he pushes his way in my front door and storms past me into the living room, turning a tight 180 next to the outdated white tiles that cover the floor and wall around the old woodstove.
I roll my eyes, a toothbrush stuck between my lips as I turn around and lean my back against the door to close it, staring at Loren as he rakes the fingers of both hands through his hair and stares at me like I'm a crazy person.
I continue brushing my teeth with slow, even strokes. After I got home last night, I had a fucking row of epic proportions with my dad and he declared that I was officially banned from the Wolves compound for the next few days. I wanted to punch him right in his beard last night, I swear.
Last night …
Last night was so weird, I'm not even sure what to think about it. Okay, Serenity. What does that mean anyway? After that, Glacier brought me home on the back of his bike and dropped me off without another word. There's so much going through my head, so many things I need to process. I was looking forward to seeing him today, but since my dad effectively banished me, I thought at least I could get my thoughts together.
And now I have to deal with Loren.
“Seriously, Serenity, you haven't answered a single one of my texts.” I stare into his dark eyes, the color of wet forest earth, and then move into the kitchen, spitting into the sink and knowing my mom would totally flay my ass if she saw me brushing my teeth in here. That shit is for bathrooms. But I know if I go in the narrow bathroom, Loren will follow me and I just don't feel like being penned in a small space with him when he's this agitated. I keep thinking he'll just look at me and know something is different.
I rinse my mouth out with a handful of water and turn off the sink. When I turn around, Loren's watching me, dressed in a pale blue hoodie with the words Trinidad High on the front in white cursive.
“My new phone died; I'm using the old one with the cracked screen now.” As if that's the real reason I've been ignoring him. I gesture at my friend and raise a brow. “You cut class today to come over here?” I ask and Loren shrugs his shoulders like it's no big deal. It kind of is though because his dad is a total militant hard-ass and if he finds out about this, he'll whoop his son with the belt. Yeah. Even at age seventeen, Loren gets beat on the butt when he misbehaves.
“Were you not present in that alley, Serenity? That man had a gun; he could've killed us. And then that guy … who was he?”
“That was Glacier,” I say, testing his name out on my tongue in front of Loren. I cross my arms over my chest, dressed in a baggy white t-shirt and no bra, the sweats I borrowed from Lyric, and nothing else. My hair is ratty and tangled on the top of my head and I've got on zero makeup. Of course this is the moment Loren would choose to ambush me.
“Glacier?” he asks, shaking his head. He's shaved his face clean today, no more scruff. Makes him look a lot younger. “What kind of name is Glacier?”
“It's a nickname. Most of the brothers have nicknames: Dober, Smoky, Sketch.” I shrug again. “It's a part of the culture.”
“Whatever,” Loren says, rubbing his palm against his forehead. “Anyway, what happened after we left? One text to tell me that everything's cool is not enough, Ren.”
“I told you what would happen: my dad and the guys showed up and took care of things.”
“Took care of? What does that even mean?”
“It means this is club business and you should just fucking forget all about it, Loren,” I snap, getting exasperated. We might be childhood friends, but sometimes I feel like he can't read me at all. I just want him to leave right now. My phone pings and I yank it from the pocket of the sweats.
It's a text from an unknown phone number.
Where are you?
My heart starts to race and I swallow hard. Loren notices.
“What?” he asks, getting snippy. “I'm worried sick about you and my texts don't mean shit? Who the hell is that anyway?”
“Doesn't matter,” I say, glancing up, knowing that the text has to be from Glacier. It just has to be. “Don't worry about the other night, okay? It was stupid for us to be there in the first place; we learned our lesson and nobody got hurt.” Nobody that matters got hurt; Glacier killed three men. “Let it go, Loren.”
“You've been totally weird lately and I'll be honest: it's freaking me out a little.” He pauses, glances over at the white curtains with the pale floral print. My mother's weak attempts at homemaking. She'd rather spend her nights spinning drinks
for the boys at the bar, taking the bitch seat on my dad's bike, wearing a property of patch on the back of her jacket. She lives for the life.
I squeeze my phone in a tight fist.
“Are you upset about the kissing thing?” Loren asks as I blink blonde lashes back at him. He starts to move toward me but I hold my hand up, palm out.
“Don't,” I say and Loren pauses, searching my face for some explanation.
“We can take things slow, Ren,” he says, making me want to scream. “I've loved you since I was six.”
Mm. Great. Just great. Loren's timing could not be any worse.
“Loren,” I start, but I have no idea what to say to him. I don't want to hurt him, but I've known since I was fifteen that Glacier was mine. Sure, sure, I sound like a completely crazy person, but that's okay. Doesn't matter. It looks like I might finally get a chance to see if my gut instincts are right. If they're not … I won't think about that part right now. “I'm not interested in you like that.”
“Give me a chance, Ren,” he begs, taking another step forward. My phone pings again and I glance down at it.
I'm out on patrol today; I'll come to you.
My breath rushes out and then Loren's just right there in my face, snatching my phone from my hand.
“What the fuck?!” I yell as he pulls away from me and reads my texts before I can grab it back, hitting him as hard as I can in the shoulder and making him grunt with pain. “Asshole,” I snap as he rubs at his arm and gives me a stupid, wounded look that makes me want to slap him. “What is your problem?”
“On patrol? Are you dating a cop or something?” And then there's this awful moment where it dawns on him and he looks at me in this … this way that he's never looked at me before, the way everyone else at school looks at me. Suddenly, I become tainted in his eyes, drenched in club business and bullshit. “Oh my god. Are you … are you dating some guy in the club?”
“Loren—”
“You said you'd rather die than get involved with them. You said that. You've said that since I first met you, since you were a little kid. But then … recently, you stopped saying that, didn't you?”
