by Violet Blaze
Glacier makes a face.
“Just, please, try to participate in the politics game for once in your damn life,” Royal adds, giving his enforcer a strong look. “I can only make so many miracles happen, and there are fucking two of them standing right here.”
That makes both Lyric and me smile.
“So what do I do now?” I ask, feeling like my world's being completely turned upside down—in both a good and bad way. But when I look at Saint, and I see the bright burn of affection resting behind his icy blue stare, I know that it's worth it. I believe in soul mates, as corny as that sounds. And I know that he's mine; we were destined for this, the two of us.
“It's up to you,” Royal says as I fold my arms across my chest against a sudden breeze; it's cold and salty and tastes like sand on the back of my tongue. “But if I were you, I'd try to make nice with your parents.”
And that … is easier said than done.
Even though I want to head back to Glacier's place later, I decide to take a bullet for the family and go home with Mom. She doesn't talk to me, doesn't even look at me when I ask to go with her. Hell, I almost think she'd have left me behind given the chance. But I hop in the passenger seat of her car before she can stop me and sit in eerie silence the entire drive home.
When we get there, she goes straight into the garage and comes out with several flattened cardboard boxes that she digs out of the back.
“What are you doing?” I ask as she breezes past me and up the stairs. I follow close behind, my heart hammering as I realize where she's going. “Mom?”
Fauna heads straight up to my room and pushes the door in, throwing the flat boxes on the floor and retreating into the hallway to dig an industrial size roll of tape from a utility closet.
“Mom.” I make my voice firm and steady, but she still refuses to even glance in my direction.
“How many times did you fuck him in my house?” she asks suddenly, whirling on me, tears pouring down her face. Anger washes over me in a hot wave, but I know she's not actually mad at me. She's sad and hurt and she thinks I'm being taken advantage of. And now, the club has literally taken the very last of what she had left: me. They say I have to marry Glacier, and that's it. That's law. Fauna has literally no say in what her own child can do. I understand how horrible that probably feels.
“Just once,” I answer honestly, and she slaps me across the face—hard. I take it and grit my teeth, lifting my palm to the sore and throbbing skin. She storms past me and into my room, folding a box into its proper shape and taping up the bottom.
And then, as I stand there gaping, she starts throwing my stuff inside.
“What are you doing?” I ask, feeling this small wave of horror wash over me. This … this is awful. I don't want it to be like this, not at all. “Mom, please stop. You're still recovering—”
“If you're going to be an old lady, then you'll start living like one—in your husband's house.” She's crying as she tosses my things unceremoniously into the box and then closes the top, taping it up with wild, frantic strokes of the tape dispenser.
“Mom, come on, slow down,” I say, but she won't listen to me. This is my punishment, apparently, the pain I'll have to endure to make up for her own. I stand there and watch, my face dry, lips pursed.
“Call him. Tell him to get a truck over here. He can lift your damn furniture.”
She won't say his name—Glacier or Saint.
“Maybe we should talk about this?” I ask as I realize the full scope of what's happening here. I'm … moving into Glacier's place? Permanently? I mean, I guess I didn't really think this part through. If we get married, it makes sense for me to move out. But I'm still a junior in high school, and this, this is weird. “Mom, can we please take a break and talk this out?”
“Call him, goddamn it!” she snaps, and then she starts tearing the blankets off of my bed. “How could you?” she asks as I take a small step back into the hallway. “Disrespect your father like this, make him look like a fool in front of the entire club.”
“That's what you're worried about?” I ask, feeling that anger again, hot and pungent and wild. I turn away before I say something I regret—before she says a bunch of other things we'll both regret. I head down the staircase and pause in the living room, dialing up Glacier's cell.
“Ren,” he says, and his voice is this frost laden purr that makes it a lot easier to process my anger.
“Fauna is flipping the fuck out,” I say, suddenly desperate to get out of that house before my dad comes home. “I know we didn't talk about this exactly, but she's just sort of made the assumption that I'd be moving in with you.” My heart races and throbs when I say this, and I have to lean back against the orange-brown walls of the living room to catch my breath. I wish I had a spare moment right now to sit down at my computer, to spin the feelings inside my chest into words on a page. I want to write right now; it's almost a compulsion.
“This isn't about what Fauna wants,” he says, and the sound of his voice is so soothing, I close my eyes for a moment to drink it in. “This is about you. What do you want?”
“What do you want?” I counter. “Because this isn't about me; this is about us.”
There's a long pause on the other end of the line, a clinking sound and bright, sharp female laughter. Probably a groupie. I bet he's sitting in the clubhouse bar right now. I have so many memories of walking in there to see my mom and spotting him sitting alone, his blonde hair gleaming under the bar's lights, his tattooed hand wrapped around a tumbler of Scotch.
“I want you with me always, of course.”
I hear a crashing sound and a curse from upstairs and cringe. Whatever she's broken, it was probably something valuable. I don't keep a lot of extra crap around.
“Well, Mom's throwing all my shit into boxes and she says you better get over here now and move my damn furniture.” I put a hand up to my forehead. “Can you come?”
“I can come, and come, and come,” he says and I feel a slight flush take over my body. “I'll be there soon.” And then he hangs up. I think about dialing my friends next, but I don't want to put them in the middle of all this crap, and it's not like I have a ton of shit anyway. Between Glacier and me, we could probably get it all loaded up in a few hours.
I start moving around the house, collecting a few random items and stuffing them in the empty laundry basket I left in the downstairs hall. I pile in my clean laundry from the dryer and leave it next to the front door, turning and heading back for the stairs when I hear the sound of boots on the front steps.
The door opens as I turn around, but it's not Glacier.
No, it's Jack Westbrook.
He pauses in the doorway and stares at me, rain driving in sharp wet sheets behind him.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, his voice as cold and dead as Glacier's worst.
“Um, I live here?” I venture and Dad makes this snorting sound.
“Not anymore you don't,” he says, storming past me and into the kitchen. I follow after him, determined to hash at least some of this out.
“Dad, Mom's upstairs throwing my shit into boxes. She wants me to move into Glacier's place. Is that what you want?” He ignores me, pops the top on a beer and chugs most of it back in one, long continuous swallow. Then he drops his head and looks at me coldly.
“You're gonna be an old lady to an officer of the Alpha Wolves MC. You've got duties now, Serenity. Can't perform those duties if you're living here.”
I grit my teeth and curl my hands into fists.
“Thats so stupid and medieval,” I snap, but Jack ignores me like he always does, like he's done for years. Duties? Puh-lease. I don't owe Glacier a damn thing as far as duties are concerned. But at least I know that he and I are in agreement about that—even if nobody else is.
“Serenity, as far as I'm concerned,” Jack says, turning to look at me with absolutely zero emotion in his face, “you're not my daughter anymore. You are my brother's old lady and
that's that. I will afford you the respect due an officer's wife and nothing more. Head upstairs and pack your room up.”
“Awfully cold, Jack,” Glacier says from the doorway behind me. Goose bumps prickle across my skin—but in a good way. God, I didn't even hear him come up the steps. Apparently neither did Dad.
My father's face shifts from apathetic neutral to dark and violent in an instant.
“The fuck are you doing on my goddamn property?”
Glacier comes up to stand beside me, cut slung over his shoulders, a dark gray wife beater on underneath. He must've changed his shirt at the clubhouse because it looks fresh and clean—and ridiculously sexy.
“I'm here to move my old lady out,” he says with a slight smile. My dad's face crackles and burns with hatred, but he doesn't move from his spot next to the sink, doesn't put down his beer. “Do you have a problem with that? It was your wife's idea, after all.”
“Get your shit and go,” Jack growls out, stalking past us and disappearing back outside. I hear the crash of glass and then the roar of his motorcycle. Within thirty seconds, he's completely gone from sight. When I pause at the open door in the living room, I can't even see his taillights through the rain.
“This is awful,” I say as Glacier comes up behind me, curls his arms around my waist and holds me close. At least his touch is comforting enough that I don't feel like I'm about to break down and sob. “Neither of them will even listen to me.” I snort, touching my hands to Glacier's inked ones as they curl together over my belly. “Not that they ever really did, but … this is all happening so fast.”
“I'm sorry for that,” he tells me, breathing warm against my hair, stirring loose strands with every movement of his lips. “I didn't want it to be like this.”
“No,” I say as I hear more crashing sounds from my room and let out a long sigh, “but this is how it's turned out.” I spin slowly in his arms, hook my fingers together behind his neck, feel my body responding to his touch. “I knew when I went after you that this might happen, and it's okay. If they can't love me through this, maybe they never loved me at all.”
My voice gets harsh and cold, but Glacier doesn't let it phase him, reaching up and brushing some loose hair behind my ear.
“You're the first, only, and last person I'll ever love,” he tells me, and I sincerely believe that.
“I love you, too, Saint.”
I kiss him hard and fast, pull away before my mom spots us and goes ballistic, and move everything I own in this life out through the pouring rain to Royal McBride's red truck.
“You're getting fucking married tomorrow?” Loren asks, looking like I just kicked him in the nuts.
The seven of us—my friends, me … and Glacier—are sitting in the living room of his place which is, I guess, now my place, too. My shit is everywhere: boxes stacked ceiling high, my mattress sitting on the floor with Rayna and Tom sprawled across it, all the art that was on my walls at home in a big pile on the coffee table, the kitchen counter, the floor.
Saint is sprawled out in the single chair, and I'm sitting on his lap, pretending I get absolutely zero thrill out of doing that.
“I'm sorry—no offense, bro,” Loren starts and I cringe internally. Bro and brother are considered honorary terms with the club, something to be earned. Generally, if you call a one-percenter bro outside of club life, they will kick your fucking ass to teach you some respect. But Loren doesn't know any better and Glacier isn't like my dad or Dober or the complete a-hole president of the Portland, Oregon chapter of the Alpha Wolves. He lets the term sail right by, but I make a note to warn Loren about it later; that could save his hide one day. “But this is … I mean, wow. A few weeks ago, Serenity was a virgin who'd never had a boyfriend and now … married? I mean, how is that legal? You're … there's a huge gap between your ages.”
“I have to meet with a counselor first thing in the morning,” I say, already dreading the experience, “to prove I'm of sound mind and that I'm not being pressured into this by, like, a cult or something.”
“Holy crap,” Aletha says, slapping her hands over her mouth. “Where's the ring?”
I pause because holy crap, I haven't exactly thought any of this through. But the club will have blood, and if this is the extraction price they demand so Glacier and I can make this work, I'll do it.
“Lyric's taking me ring shopping later today,” Saint says from behind me, his elbow propped against the arm of the chair, chin resting on his fist. He looks so young when he sits that way, like he's really not so far outside the age range of the rest of the people in this room.
“Seriously?” I ask, because this is the first I'm hearing of this. Loren looks at me like he's about to puke. “When did you set that up?”
“After you went home with Fauna last night,” he says, his voice that friendly drawl he puts on for strangers. It's cute in its own way though, even if it is complete bullshit. My friends seem to like it. Well, all except for Loren anyway, although he is making a concerted effort. After what he saw in that bathroom, I'm surprised he's here at all.
“I don't need a ring,” I tell him, and I'm serious about that. “Really.”
“I know,” he supplies lazily, his blue eyes looking straight into mine. I get caught there for a full minute, like, I want to fall into that gaze and drown. “You can toss it in a drawer and never wear it if you don't want, but at least you'll know it's there if you change your mind.”
I can hardly imagine Saint “Glacier” Nordin in a jewelry store of all places, but in its own way, it's kind of a cute thought. I'd meant to talk to him about this kind of stuff last night, but about halfway through bringing my crap in, I laid on the couch to rest my head and woke up in the morning with Glacier's warm body wrapped around mine.
Before I was even fully awake, he was tearing my boots off, peeling my pants down my legs and putting his mouth between my thighs. I came twice before I looked around and realized he'd brought the rest of my stuff in by himself.
“You know,” he says randomly, looking right at me, like he doesn't give a fuck if my friends are there or not, “my father never did get my mother a ring because he preferred to spend his money on smack. I don't think she ever forgave him for that. In fact, it's one of the few memories I have of her, hearing about why she wasn't wearing a ring in her courthouse wedding pictures.”
Ah.
I put my hands on either side of Saint's face and lean in, pressing our mouths together, hearing a ridiculously high-pitched giggle from Aletha who's been kissing boys since she was twelve, and lost her virginity at thirteen. Hypocrite.
I lean back and run a finger across Saint's lower lip as he continues to stare at me.
“So, are we setting this stuff up or not?” Loren asks, sounding pissy again.
“Yeah,” I say, tearing my attention away from Saint with a determined effort. “It's time to spread my menace out across the walls of this place. Oh, and you got the paint, right?”
“I got the paint,” Rayna says, poking at a gallon of black matte paint with her foot. If I'm going to move in here, then I may as well just do it right. Besides, the thought of leaving my black walls behind makes me feel … a little sad. If I paint these though, I can bring some of home along with me.
“Let's power through this and maybe if I stay busy I can stop obsessing about standing in front a superior court judge with my mom and asking him to give me permission to get a fucking marriage license.”
“Ouch,” Otto says, shaking out both his hands. “That's rough. Is that just because you're under eighteen or what?”
“Yep,” I say, standing up from Saint's lap and missing the feel of his body already. He watches me as I move over to the paint and pop the top with one of those little metal things. I touch my fingertip to the wetness and smear some on the back of my knuckles. Same shade as my room. Sensual Velvet. And that's not at all dirty, right?
“We should have a bachelorette party,” Rayna says as the doorbell rings and Sain
t rises to his feet, like all movement is effortless, like he could glide across the ground if he wanted to. When he opens the door, Lyric and Royal are waiting.
My friends stop talking for a minute and stare at the president and the mayor. They make an interesting couple that's for sure—especially since one is five two and dressed in a black pantsuit and the other is six four and dressed in leather and denim.
“Hey,” I say, tucking some hair behind one ear. “You sure you guys wouldn't rather stay and paint? Really, no ring required.”
“I'd love to,” Lyric says with a genuine smile, “but after I make sure these two can handle themselves like proper gentlemen in the jewelry store, I'm out to lunch with an FBI agent. Should be exciting.”
Ah. So today's about more than just ring shopping, it's club business. Should've figured.
Glacier shoves a piece of gum in his mouth and then moves over to give me a frighteningly decadent kiss.
“You still have the nine mil I gave you?” he whispers against my ear, and I nod. He kisses me again. “Call me if you need anything, anything at all.”
He drifts away like a dark ghost, all swirls of color and shape, with dark leather on his back and a crown of gold on his head.
“Best get this bloody shite over with,” I hear Royal murmuring as the door closes and we're left alone in the house.
“Whoa,” Tom says as he ruffles up his pale brunette surfer hair. “That was the mayor?”
“That was the mayor,” I confirm and then pick up a dry roller, “and also a witness for my wedding.”
“This is so fucking weird,” Loren groans as I glance over at him and he stares back at me with a resigned facial expression. “I still can't believe it. Honestly, I'm still in shock. How are you not freaking out about this?”
I shrug my shoulders as Rayna pours some paint into a tray and Otto drags one of the bookcases out from the wall. Aletha starts moving boxes into the bedroom, and I dip my roller in, getting that first smear of black across all of the blank whiteness. Once the paint's dry, I'll hang all my art around the room, decorate Glacier's sad white box of a house and make it my home.
