Blade

by Aiden Bates

  I tried to shake away those thoughts. My attraction to Logan was not the reason I wanted to help him. If anything, it’d be a seriously dick move to try to get in his pants while he was clearly running from something dangerous.

  I remembered being in that situation—on the run, alone, feeling like every person I met had it out for me. Before Ankh pulled me off the streets and dropped me into Hell’s Ankhor, I’d had nothing. That same hopelessness hung around Logan. He moved like he was weighted down, exhausted by the demands of the world. It’d been nearly two decades since I’d been there, struggling just to survive each day, but I still remembered it vividly. I still had nightmares of being back in juvie.

  I stood up and stretched my arms over my head, then pulled off my boxer-briefs before I made my way to the shower. That was one of the perks of being president—a private house, and a seriously nice master bathroom. The shower was huge, with a rainstorm-style head. I cranked the heat and let the room fill with steam.

  In the shower, the hot water cascaded over my hair and shoulders, the heat and pressure easing the tension I’d built up from a sleepless night. I heaved a sigh, the humid air warming me from the inside. Behind my eyelids, I saw Logan’s sharp, surveying face. Those green eyes were narrowed and independent, not like the men I’d been with before, who admired me, or at least deferred to me. His nose had a slight bump in it, like a break long ago had healed a little crooked, and his biceps had surprised me with the lean muscle under my grip.

  My cock twitched with interest again. I shouldn't have been thinking of Logan like this. He needed help, and not the kind I could offer with my dick.

  But I did need to blow off some steam. If I got this feeling out of my system, I’d be able to focus better in order to balance my duties to the club and this new problem that wandered into my bar. And I couldn’t stop remembering the way Logan’s full lips reddened when he bit down on them nervously.

  If it had been a different night, in a different place—one where I wasn’t president, and he wasn’t in trouble—we could’ve spent the night together, and he’d be spending his morning in the shower with me. I’d caress his shoulders and gently push him to his knees. He’d go willingly, letting me guide him safely to the floor, and he’d keep those eyes locked on mine. His plush pink mouth would be open with desire.

  I was fully hard now, imagining the water that would bead on his skin, slicking back his hair. I gripped my dick at the base and stroked it slowly. If Logan were here with me right now, I’d cradle his jaw and slip my thumb into the corner of his mouth, finding it wet with spit, eager to suck me down.

  I braced one hand on the wall, tipping my head forward so the water ran down my back. I fisted myself slow and hard, focusing on the Logan in my imagination. He’d suck me slowly, letting me use my hand on the back of his head to pull him forward until my entire cock was engulfed in the velvety heat of his mouth. Only then would he flicker his eyes closed, the taste of my cock overwhelming his senses.

  Logan would take control then, letting my cock slip all the way out of his mouth, then he’d take it back in, his small hands skating up my abs. Our eyes would lock. I groaned and stroked myself harder and faster.

  My orgasm hit me like a physical blow in my gut. My head tipped against the cool tile, as I caught my breath and waited for my heart rate to slow before I moved. I hadn’t had an orgasm like that in ages. Even through my daze, part of me bristled at using him that way, but I shook off the guilt—Logan never had to know, and I did feel a little more clear-headed. I turned the water off and then climbed out, feeling awake and refreshed even without any real sleep.

  I pulled on my everyday uniform of jeans and a tight black t-shirt. No parties last night, so the guys at the clubhouse would probably be awake. If not, I’d play reveille. Can’t get pissed at the president.

  My small house was a short walk from the larger clubhouse. Priest had a freestanding house as well – larger than mine, a two-bedroom, and technically the president’s house, but it made no sense for Priest to move after Ankh passed. A little further away from the clubhouse we had a couple other smaller freestanding cabins for visiting members from other chapters, or prospective members getting further along in the initiation process.

  The leaves surrounding our buildings were just beginning to change color from green to yellow. In the early morning, the air still had a sharp crisp bite to it, and stepping outside was like a splash of cold water on my face. I’d walked this long unpaved path between my home and the clubhouse countless times, but this morning I really noticed the details of it, from the softness of the dirt under my boots to the cacophony of the birds. Everything seemed different, though I couldn’t quite pin down why.

  The clubhouse was an unassuming, welcoming property: a large, two-story red brick house with white window trim and a porch stuffed with Adirondack chairs.

  I walked in without knocking. “Look alive, troops!”

  “Blade,” Priest said fondly from the kitchen. He wore a pale green linen apron over his jeans. “Coffee?”

  “Hell, yes.” I dropped onto a stool at the big kitchen island. “Morning, boys.”

  Gunnar and Coop were seated at the island as well, half-dressed, both wearing t-shirts and sweatpants but still barefoot. Gunnar grunted. He was not a morning person.

  Priest was standing at the stove, cooking up enough eggs to feed a small army, which wasn’t too far from the truth. The upper level of the house was all bedrooms, available to any patched member who wished to live there.

  Mornings at the clubhouse were always calming. I didn’t spend every morning here—often I was asleep until late morning, or savoring some alone time in my house—but knowing the clubhouse was always an option, bustling with activity and people, was a comfort in my mind. It was a place I was always welcome. No questions asked. After over a decade with Hell’s Ankhor, my awe of that truth had yet to wane.

  “Get the man some coffee, Coop,” Priest said, wagging his spatula.

  “Yeah, Coop,” I said. “Do something around here.”

  “I do plenty,” Coop protested, but he got up as instructed, pulled a mug from the cabinet, and then filled it from the percolator on the counter. “I’m on laundry duty this week.”

  “Boo-hoo,” Priest said. “We all have to do it eventually.”

  Coop handed me my coffee in a mug stamped NUMBER ONE DAD mug and gave me a big, cheeky grin. Gunnar slid his mug to Coop wordlessly, and Coop huffed very dramatically, but did get him a refill.

  I shook my head fondly then took a sip of the coffee—hot and strong, as Priest always made it. The clubhouse didn’t look too different from how it had looked the first time I saw it, as a fresh-out-of-juvie eighteen-year-old, but traces of careful repair were visible to the searching eye. Over the years we’d refinished the cabinetry and installed new appliances in the kitchen. The hardwood floors shone, clean and waxed, and the big, overstuffed couches had been recently reupholstered in soft blue fabric. The pool table was kept covered – not a single drink ever touched the green felt.

  It was nice. Welcoming. Not just a gathering place, but a household, shared chores and all. Ankh had worked hard to make the club a family, and the clubhouse our home.

  “Any news from the clubs?” I asked Gunnar. The only major disturbance we’d had in Elkin Lake since I’d become president so far was the influx of party drugs. Dealing with this issue was at the top of my list.

  “Not yet,” Gunnar said. “I had Tex and Siren out last night sniffing around, but both checked in and said they didn’t have any good intel yet. Give it some time.”

  “We don’t have time,” I said gruffly. “We need to get this shit out of our territory yesterday.”

  “I know,” Gunnar said. “We’re on it. But you gotta trust me on the pacing. If we start asking too many questions too quickly, we could scare the dealers off, but it would only be temporary, and then we’d be back at square one when they come back. For now, we need to keep them dealing, s
o we can trace it back to the source.”

  “How did the citizens seem? Are people worried?”

  Gunnar shrugged. “Siren said no. If anything, business in the clubs is picking up. If you ask me, I think people like the edge of danger, you know? They drive in from the city, think they’re all cool for hanging out in biker territory, get some drugs that make them a little crazy, go home with a good story. But it’s not gonna last.”

  “Once the bad drugs outweigh the good, you mean.” I grimaced into my coffee. “Once people start realizing they can buy hard drugs in Elkin Lake, and that those drugs are causing deaths.”

  “Right. If that happens—if Elkin Lake starts to become known for bad drugs—our rep will take a hit. It’ll erode community trust. Right now, the public doesn’t see it as a systemic problem. Just a few people who have made bad choices. We don’t have a lot of time before that changes.”

  I didn’t want any drugs in our territory, but we couldn’t catch every kid who drove in from Vegas or LA with a few baggies of coke in his pockets. Now, normally if someone was actively dealing in our territory—that was a problem, and I would sort it out. I’d take their stash and scare the living hell out of them. But whatever was being dealt around town now wasn’t the standard cheap coke or diluted MDMA. Something in this shit was killing people. And whoever was doing it was going to pay.

  Hell’s Ankhor didn’t own Elkin Lake, by any means, but we had a lot of club-owned businesses and a lot of delicate agreements with the local government. If the politicians began to see our presence as a threat, instead of an economic boost and a free public safety force, we’d start losing income, and with that, stability. The club’s stability was the foundation of its strength—and I never took it for granted.

  “So, Blade,” Coop said, leaning on the kitchen island and propping his chin in his palms like an interested schoolgirl. “What’s got you up and about so early? Interested in checking on a certain guest?”

  “Fuck off, Coop,” I said without any real heat behind it. “Shouldn’t you be chiming in on this discussion with something a little more productive? Since you’re technically an enforcer, too?”

  Coop grinned impishly and shrugged. “Just wondering. And I haven’t been assigned to this mission yet.” He winked pointedly at Gunnar. “I’m being proactive with the whole newcomer thing.”

  “All right, kids, cool it,” Priest said, sitting down with a plate of eggs, hash browns, toast, and a glass of orange juice. “You’ll feel better once you’ve eaten breakfast.”

  All three of us looked with betrayal at Priest’s plate.

  “What?” Priest asked through a mouthful of eggs. “I cook the entire meal and you want me to plate it for you, too? You have hands, go on.”

  Shaking my head again, I did as Priest told me and fixed my own breakfast from the smorgasbord on the stove. I ate quickly as I listened to Gunnar, Coop, and Priest chat idly about plans for the day, and sketch out a larger plan to capture more information about the drugs in town.

  After the meal, Gunnar and Coop tag-teamed the breakfast dishes, brushing off my offers to help.

  “I’m heading into town,” I said. If Logan was staying in Elkin Lake, I’d make it worth his time, show him around. Maybe get to know him a little better, if he’d let me.

  “Guess we are, too, Coop,” Gunnar said. As my sergeant-at-arms and my enforcer, he and Coop would ride with me as a security detail, just in case any unexpected issues arose.

  Priest chuckled to himself as he made a fresh pot of coffee for the late sleepers in the clubhouse. “Don’t scare him away, now,” he said.

  Outside the clubhouse, I straddled my bike. The engine roared to life beneath me, sending a familiar vibration through me. Behind me, Coop’s and Gunnar’s engines joined the chorus. I turned, led us out of the parking lot, and onto the winding road that led into town. The rich, low sound of the engines, the cool breeze, the winding road and my brothers at my back—for as long as I’d been with Hell’s Ankhor, riding with them had never lost its appeal.

  7

  Logan

  In the early morning haze of half-sleep, I knew I was dreaming, but that didn’t stop the dream from unfolding:

  “Come on, Logan!” My mother tugged me close to her body. We were walking side-by-side down the hilly streets of San Francisco. We’d just seen some long-forgotten matinee and the sun was going down, reflecting off the ever-present cast of clouds, so Mom wore her big sunglasses, and her mousy, wavy brown hair was loose to her shoulders. She took a sip of her soda, then offered me a sip, and the sweetness exploded across my tongue. “We gotta get home quick so I have time to make dinner.”

  “Pizza!” I exclaimed. I couldn’t have been older than nine.

  “Pizza? After all that popcorn? How about chicken Alfredo, instead? Your dad always likes that.”

  I stuck my tongue out. “Gross.”

  Mom checked her watch, and we picked up our pace. “Hurry up, now.”

  When we arrived at the doorstep of our small attached row house, Dad’s motorcycle was in the driveway.

  “Wait out here, okay?” Mom ruffled my hair. “I’ll send your brother out to play with you. It’ll just be a minute.” She bit her lip as she looked at me for one long moment, then squared her shoulders with purpose.

  And in she went to the mouth of the beast.

  Luke walked out a few moments later. He leaned up against the mailbox, surly as all thirteen year olds are.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Shut up,” he said.

  Then we heard the familiar sound of Dad’s roar and Mom’s retorts increasing in volume like a wave.

  Then the sound of something hard hitting something soft.

  I began to cry. Luke sighed, then sat down on the grass of our tiny front lawn next to me. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t cry. Dad’ll get pissed if he sees you cry.”

  I sniffed and wiped at my running nose, but the tears wouldn’t stop. Though now they were silent, which was a skill I had perfected over many nights to keep Dad from hearing. Luke knocked his shoulder against mine. “Mom’s tough. It’ll be okay. She just wasn’t supposed to be late.”

  “We were at the movies.” I hugged my knees to my chest. “She said it would be okay.”

  “Dad came home early,” Luke said. “You know you can’t bend the rules with him. You’re not supposed to go to the movies. He says Mom takes you to too much girly shit.”

  “But I like them,” I said miserably.

  “Dad wants the best for you,” Luke said. “The world is a tough place. He just wants us all to be able to stand up for ourselves.”

  I didn’t say anything. How could I explain to Luke the difference in the ways Dad looked at us? He liked Luke. He was proud of Luke. I was the problem.

  Dad walked out of the house. He stood framed in the doorway, eyes blazing with rage, the veins popping in his forehead and neck. Even with the small yard between us, I could smell the stench of booze radiating off him. Luke leaped to his feet like a soldier called to attention. “Hey, Dad,” he said loudly, like he was trying to distract a raging bear.

  I cowered on the lawn, my face still tear-streaked, as my father approached.

  Finally, I opened my eyes.

  Above me I didn’t see my Dad’s familiar bloodshot eyes, but exposed wooden rafters, a little dusty and a little cobwebbed. My bruised jaw still throbbed, and my shoulders ached, but I wasn’t getting any worse. That was good.

  It’d been a long time since I’d had a nightmare like that. Mom’s resolute expression burned in my mind as if I’d just seen it yesterday. She always put herself in the path of Dad’s wrath in order to spare me. When she died, Dad beat me like he was making up for lost time. He always thought Mom babied me—as if her disdain for violence had made me a weakling. Dad spent years trying to harden me and transform me into what he thought a man should be. It never worked. I was the family failure.

  Luke was five years older than me when
Mom died. Fifteen. At that age he was the perfect mix of tough and vulnerable and fell hard under Dad’s influence, and Dad eventually patched him into the Viper’s Nest with a Viper handle. Rebel. I hadn’t seen him in years.

  College had been my escape. For a few hazy, beautiful years I was away from the Vipers as I threw myself wholeheartedly into the nursing program. I thought it’d be a way out, a way to build a life of my own. A way to be good, and kind, and to help people, like Mom would have wanted. Stupid of me to think Dad would let me off so easily when I had so much insider knowledge and dirt. And having a nurse around is awfully convenient when you’re in a violent organization. If a Viper was injured in a scuffle or a bar fight, where did Dad bring them? Directly to my doorstep.

  That’s why the Vipers had appeared in my hospital, all drugged out of their minds, one hemorrhaging from his femoral artery. That’s why my father had threatened the hospital staff and asked for me by name. I hadn’t had a job for much longer after that.

  But there was no point in lingering on all that now. I was stuck in an enemy club’s territory, surrounded by club guys. It was no surprise that yesterday dredged up some old memories. I just had to keep my head down, my mind focused, and I’d be out of Elkin Lake and away from all this soon.

  I showered and dressed in plain jeans and a white Oxford. Despite the nightmare, I’d slept soundly. I could hardly believe I slept a full night, especially in a bedroom owned by Hell’s Ankhor. It was stupid of me. I should’ve been on alert—sure, Priest had given me the key, but how could I know if that was the only copy? Anyone could’ve come in in the middle of the night.

  That didn’t really seem like a possibility, though. Blade seemed like the kind of guy who handled his problems face-to-face. There was something authoritative about him, something that seemed… fair. He didn’t seem like the type to sneak around in the shadows like the Vipers would.