Warlord (Anathema Book 1)

by Grayson, Lana

  “You’re Blade’s girl?”

  “I want thirteen hundred for the guitar. That’s fair.”

  The clerk cackled, and the colors on his face swirled. A chill curled around my spine.

  “Thirteen hundred then.” He took the guitar and counted out the money. “Blade always did drive a hard bargain.”

  “I guess.”

  He bound the bills with a rubber band and pushed the stack to me. “Great doing business with Anathema again.”

  I didn’t want to correct him. The hair on my neck rose. I hated leaving the instrument in the clutches of someone more likely to use it for firewood than composition, but something wasn’t right. It didn’t take the daughter of Anathema’s former Vice-President to realize this was no place for anyone without a weapon.

  I took the money and ran. Another deal done. Business as usual for Anathema. They paid the dues to get in, and they paid with their life to get out. No in-between, no easy escape, and no pity for those who didn’t belong.

  And now? Freedom. The club would be a memory, the money a mistake, and my family’s paranoid rules just a quark of a childhood lost, forgotten, and healing.

  My brothers could live for the patch sewed onto their vests. They could ride the bikes and intimidate the diner patrons and inject themselves with whatever drugs they needed to ease their conscience.

  But I was done.

  And it felt incredible.

  Unfortunately, being done meant seeing them again. And I was a lot braver in my own head than I was face-to-face with my brothers.

  I hadn’t been to the bar in years. Not since the party when Dad gave it to Keep and the name changed from The Imp to Pixie. We hadn’t stayed long. Dad didn’t want his daughter present at the true MC party.

  That was his excuse to go home anyway.

  I tried not to think about it.

  The guys used to joke Pixie was the reason the town built train tracks to designate good and bad sides. Leather ruled the streets near Anathema’s headquarters. The exhaust of industry padded wallets and more secrets housed within the empty warehouses than wholesale stock.

  Pixie blended into the dark and dank of the street. It didn’t even have a sign out front, only the emblem of the naked fairy kneeling over the entry. I parked and earned the snicker of the lone prospect guarding the door.

  “No, sweetheart.” He pointed to the car. “This ain’t a place for you. Not unless you’re sellin’ something to make it worth our while.”

  I auditioned in a black sweater with a sensible skirt. Not the usual attire that graced Anathema’s hangouts. The prospect wasn’t an idiot, and he was right. But I knew what to expect inside.

  “I’m looking for Keep and Brew. Are they here?”

  “They might be.”

  I reached for the door. The prospect pressed his hand against the wood before it opened.

  “You’re not their type.”

  Ew. I heard enough about my brothers’ exploits without the prospect painting a picture for my benefit. I shook my head.

  “I just need to talk to them.”

  “Sure. Talk to them.” He grinned. “When you’re done, come back and talk to me too.”

  The prospect’s patch on his vest wasn’t as intimidating as a top rocker. Knowing the club’s hierarchy, he’d probably be stuck outside all night.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me go ask my brothers. I’m sure they’d love for me to keep you company.”

  He paled. “Your brothers?”

  “Keep and Brew? I won’t be long if you want to wait.”

  His hand popped off the door quick enough to nearly smack me in the face. “Go right in. Sorry I said anything. Just having fun, you know.”

  “Of course you were.”

  The last time I walked willingly into Anathema’s clubhouse, Brew and Keep were just members. Respected, but they weren’t as important as Dad.

  Things changed. Dad, the Vice-President, went to jail for murder. The club split. Wars fought in the streets. What might have weakened Anathema just made it more dangerous. Everyone had something to prove, and they’d earn that respect with bullet casings and ripped patches. And now, my brothers were in the middle of it all. Secretary and Sergeant at Arms. I hated that responsibility and all the devils it summoned—police, ATF, FBI, and every enemy of the club.

  So why was I proud of them for making it?

  Just another way the club twisted all our heads.

  Keep maintained his bar better than his body. He injected horrible drugs in his veins, but his home didn’t reflect that vice. He replaced the tile floors with a lovely hardwood, and he tore down the splintered clapboard walls for a more modern feel. And open. The bar expanded into a seating area, surrounded by billiards tables and dartboards.

  Had it not been filled with a half dozen burly men in leather vests, it might have passed for a nice college hangout. Even the stripper poles, couches in the shadows, and playboy posters on the walls weren’t as bad as what I expected from a biker bar. Far more Whitesnake than Slayer.

  “Sweet mother Mary and Joseph!” A gruff voice strained by age and cigarettes chortled from the bar. “It can’t be!”

  The bar stool squeaked as a lumbering man rolled from the plush leather and held his arms out. I blushed. At least some of Pixie hadn’t changed.

  “Is that little Rose Bud?” Caleb “Scotch” Jones captured me in a hug. “I can’t believe it. You’re all grown up now!”

  Scotch squeezed me a little too hard, but I didn’t complain. I owed my surrogate uncle and godfather a hug. Probably more than one since the last time I saw him, during Dad’s sentencing.

  “It’s been a while.” I silently counted the missed holidays. “About three years?”

  “And about fifty pounds.” Scotch patted his stomach and held me at arm’s length. “Look at you. A proper lady now! So what the hell are you doing here?”

  I blushed. “Just a little business.”

  “That is the last thing a pretty lady like you should be doing. Your brothers know you’re here?”

  The door slammed. Keep’s profanity echoed through the bar.

  “Rose? What the fuck!”

  I shrugged at Scotch. “No?”

  “You got a pair of balls on you, girl.” He slapped my shoulder as Keep set his sights on me. The cut squeezed tight over Scotch’s chest, the VP patch re-pinned on the leather after returning from retirement. “You’re definitely Blade’s daughter, that’s for sure.”

  Keep’s shout for Brew wasn’t a friendly announcement of my arrival. He pointed me to a table. The handful of members at the bar bolted, sneaking away before getting caught in Brew’s path.

  “Your phone broken?” Keep slammed a chair down beside me. “Pixie is not a place for a visit. Not for a girl like you.”

  I swallowed. Keep might have looked out of place in the diner, but Pixie suited him. The shaved head, the cut, the scowl. I never knew my brothers as children, they were already men when I was born. But I saw pictures. Remembered how Mom talked about them. Her sweet little boys didn’t grow up into gentle men. I twisted my hands in my lap, and my stomach flipped as Brew barreled through the back door.

  “Oh, this is gonna be good,” Keep said. “Real good.”

  The plan went much better in my head.

  “You want to get passed around like some sort of whore?” Brew leaned over the table. “Or you lookin’ to collapse some veins like your brother?”

  “N—no.”

  Keep grimaced, but his voice softened. “Things changed, Bud. It’s not safe around here anymore. We don’t want you getting hurt.”

  I smiled. “Is this where you say you’re not angry, you’re just disappointed?”

  Brew snorted. “No. We’re fucking pissed. You don’t know half of the shit that’s been going on.”

  And I didn’t want to know. “This will only take a minute. Then I’ll leave. I promise.”

  My brothers leaned away, and I could breathe again.


  Cold and efficient. I tried to keep it as impersonal as possible, imagining the men sitting across from me—intimidating me—as little more than patches on vests and not the brothers who loved their little sister. My lip trembled before I spoke.

  I tossed the money between them. Keep and Brew stared at the envelope.

  “I’m sorry I asked for your help. It was a moment of weakness. I’m returning your money.”

  Brew’s knuckles cracked as he curled a hand into a fist. “Fucking hell, Rose.”

  “I thought about it after you gave it to me. I know you guys mean well. Sometimes. But I have to do this my way.”

  “Your way?” Keep shrugged. “And what way is that?”

  “I want to do it on my own.”

  Brew chuckled. “One of these days you’re gonna get bucked off that high horse. And you won’t like it when your ass smacks the ground down here with the rest of us.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Why don’t you tell us the real reason?” Brew bit back the aggression in his words as best he could. He never was subtle. “Why are you here? All dressed up. Money in hand. So upset you had to come to Pixie to give it to us right now.”

  Keep counted the money. “Today was your audition.”

  My cheeks warmed, but I preferred humiliation to tears. “It was.”

  “And how did that new guitar work out?”

  “I didn’t get the gig.”

  They didn’t say anything. I hated most silences. This one was the worst.

  “This was a mistake. The guitar. The money. Everything. And I have to make that mistake right.”

  Brew laughed. “Stop being so goddamned sanctimonious. You think it’s our fault you didn’t get the gig. You think that the money is somehow tainted because we earned it through Anathema. It’s not good enough for you.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You meant it.”

  “Brew—”

  “Dad’s money fed you. Clothed you. Put you in those fancy music lessons. What’s the difference?”

  “I couldn’t control how Dad got his money. I couldn’t even ask.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I wished the harshness in my brothers’ voices rasped with anger. That my insinuations somehow insulted them. But that wasn’t it at all.

  I hadn’t seen them for nearly six months, but they were still my brothers. Blood. They took care of me, even if they showed it in the wrong ways.

  And I hurt them.

  It just wasn’t fair to any of us.

  “I can’t be a part of this,” I said. “I’m on my own now, and Dad’s in jail. I can finally…get away from it. For good.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Brew asked. “We’re your goddamned family.”

  “Anathema is your family. Not me.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Keep tossed the money onto the table. “That’s not even the right amount.”

  Brew swore. “You’re not helping.”

  I stared at my hands. “I know it isn’t the right amount. I still owe you two hundred dollars.”

  “Jesus Christ, Bud,” Brew said. “You don’t owe us a goddamned dime.”

  “Please, let me pay you.”

  Keep elbowed Brew’s side. “You hearin’ this? Our own little sister. Talking back to us.”

  “I’m hearin’ it. And I’m hopin’ to Christ Almighty I’m fucking hallucinating.”

  I didn’t dare look up from the table. Shame colored my cheeks. It was like I was five years old again, dangling my legs at the dining room table with Mom passed out on the couch and my brothers and father talking business, booze, and women in the kitchen. I tapped my toes on the floor, just to make sure I hadn’t gotten lost in the past.

  My shoes grazed hardwood. It was now or never.

  “I pawned the guitar.”

  My brothers went silent.

  The calm before the storm.

  I tensed, but I had nothing to hold onto except them, and I knew how it would end. I’d get thrown clear, just like the last time I packed on a motorcycle and clung to the driver. Everything with Anathema ended up bruised and dumped on the side of the road. I was probably next.

  “You pawned your guitar?” Keep leapt up. His chair careened behind him and crashed against the pool table. “So now you have no money, no guitar, and you’re pissing off the only fucking family you have left.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll manage.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Brew rubbed his forehead. “You pawned the guitar? Where?”

  I didn’t like the gravel in his voice. “At a…pawn shop?”

  “Which one?”

  “The one we always used.”

  Keep’s profanities echoed throughout the bar, scattering the remaining men who thought they could finish their drink while my brothers interrogated me. Brew stayed quiet. That worried me even more.

  “That’s…” Brew slammed a hand on the table. “The worst thing you could have done.”

  “Why?”

  “That shop has always been a front for Slick Eddie.” Brew frowned when I shrugged. “Eddie joined with Exorcist.”

  My stomach turned. “He did?”

  “And now you just drove your little ass over to his shop, sold your guitar, gave him your name, and stormed directly to Anathema’s clubhouse.”

  “I—”

  “Fucking hell.” Keep curled his hands into fists but he couldn’t stop shaking. “Rose, you might think you’re immune to all this. That you have nothing to do with Anathema, and you can just live your life serving pie to retirees while singing show tunes on the side. But you’re a Darnell. And that means you’ve got to use your goddamned head.”

  “I’m sorry!”

  “Bud.” Brew scowled. “I know you want this music career. And you want to do it by yourself. I can respect that. And you’ll get it one day. But you can’t hide from the real world. I’m not going to have my little sister killed in this war.”

  “I not going to—”

  “You’re done. I don’t want to hear another word.”

  “Brew—”

  “I said shut it!”

  Brew flipped the table, casting it into the nearby booths. I bit my lip to quiet my yelp, but I knew better than to run from the chair.

  My brother didn’t want me killed in a gang war.

  Probably because he meant to kill me himself.

  Fortunately, Brew took a breath, calmed down, and kissed the top of my head.

  “What the hell is going on out here?”

  I didn’t recognize the feminine voice, but my brothers did. And they backed off.

  A beautiful blonde stalked the bar, the clip of her heels mirroring the disapproving scold in her voice. Her three inch stilettos, black leather pants, and revealing corset gained the attention of the room, but she owned more than just their approval. She had their respect.

  I didn’t know any woman who had that power over Anathema. An hourglass figure couldn’t control my brothers, but she couldn’t fit any weapons in her second skin of stitched leather.

  “It’s fine, Lyn.” Brew righted the table before she even asked. “Just having a chat with our sister.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a sweet family chat.” She tipped her head at me. Her blonde hair bobbed over her shoulders. Golden and beautiful, but more noble queen than gentle princess. “Are you okay?”

  She couldn’t have been much older than me, but she wasn’t anywhere near my brothers’ ages. I didn’t have to ride with Anathema to know who she was. A woman that poised and strong and working that much leather wasn’t a maid. Women like her hung out around the club for only a few reasons, but none of them could talk to my brothers like that.

  I nodded. “I’m okay.”

  She glanced over me, her pin-prickling gaze almost as bad as the combined glare from my brothers. “So you’re Bud.”

  “Just Rose now.”

  “The musician?”<
br />
  “Yeah.” Keep snorted. “She’s recently gone a Capella.”

  “Thorne wants to see her.”

  Brew narrowed his eyes. “We planned to make this a short visit.”

  “He already asked.”

  “God damn it.” Brew hauled me from the chair. “Let’s get this over with. He’s not going to be happy. Stay quiet and let me do the talking. Maybe we can get you home in one fucking piece.”

  Thorne. I remembered the name. I remembered the man.

  I wish I hadn’t.

  After Dad got arrested, the leadership splintered, and a younger man seized control. The new generation surpassed the old quicker than anyone would have liked, but, rumor was, no one wanted to mess with the new president. Even Exorcist only fractured the charter in a stealth attack, by jumping his own brothers in the dead of night and sheltering himself on the other side of the river.

  The thought of a man who stared down the barrel of a gun, survived because of sheer vengeance, and plotted his revenge each night trembled by every last confidence.

  My father wasn’t the only danger in the world. And, like a dutiful daughter and attentive sister, I obeyed my family’s rules and stayed out of trouble.

  What was I supposed to do when they delivered me into danger?

  Anathema wasn’t just motorcycles, and the crime shadowing their existence meant more to the men than blind anarchy. Their president needed to balance ruthless disregard with organized bloodshed.

  The man who waited for us was that leader.

  And he was good at what he did.

  My stomach flipped, flopped, and revved out of the office. The dark-haired renegade behind the desk had no patience for my brothers’ tantrums or the disruption in the bar. He scowled, but the frown didn’t ugly his face. It strengthened him. Enhanced the strong line of his jaw. Deepened the midnight threat of his gaze. It framed the darkness of his long hair, layering behind his ears.

  Thorne belonged in Anathema. He was an anathema. The man, the curse, the being of authority that existed in the world I didn’t belong. My every instinct told me to cower behind my brothers, to run home and forget everything I saw and everything I had done. The world was a treacherous enough place without men like Thorne Radek abusing the system and manipulating his strength to sate his bloodlust.