Tyrant (Satan’s Angels MC #1)

Chapter 9

Tyrant

A ny biker would agree that nothing could ever top the feeling of being out on the road, the low roar of your bike and the rush of wind in your ears, all that horsepower contained and rumbling between your legs. Bikers don’t just join clubs because they want to be thugs on the wrong side of the law. Sure, some might like the perks, but a true love of the road is mandatory.

I’ve always thought of my bike like my child.

Now, I might have one.

There’s nothing normal about this. I’ve never had Lark on the back of my bike before. If my brain wasn’t so scrambled with preparing for the conversation we’re going to have, I’d be entirely focused on her. I put this image through the paces in my head for five fucking years and now I can’t even feel it. I’ve numbed out. The only sensation I register is her thin arms banded around my chest, but I feel nothing except a crashing dip in my stomach and a burn lower down, because as numb as the rest of me might be, my dick registers the warmth at my back.

A few times I take corners too fast and even though she tries to keep her body from touching mine, her chest rams up against my back and I can feel her tits smash up against my spine and ribs before she throws herself back and refuses to rely on me for balance again. My dick is fully hard because of the way she smells, like fresh earth, lilacs, and a little bit like salt from sweating in the hot summer sun.

After taking the long way around Hart, which I’m sure Lark noticed and is probably fuming about, I pull up at Patterson’s.

The place used to be a ramshackle bar on the outskirts of town. It’s right along the highway that takes most people to Seattle, so it sees a lot of traffic. Patti Patterson inherited the place when her dad died. Her parents had been separated for a long time and her mom wasn’t going to come back to run the old bar. She’s been working the place, bartending and doing books, orders and staffing and everything else, since she was far too young to be legally doing any of it. She’s a platinum blonde in her early thirties with two boys. The only mistake she ever made was getting knocked up by a piece of shit who ran up debts and ran out on her.

Last year, when it was clear she was going to lose the bar to pay his debts, she came to us for a loan. Instead of giving her money to fix the place up and pay off the loan sharks her snake ex used in Seattle, we bought into the place. We’re now half owners, though we like to keep that quiet. Patti is a good woman, and her lips are sealed. If anyone ever asked where she got the money to turn the place from a shithole into something she could be proud of, she’d just smile and shake her head and divert the attention with some wild tale or another.

Lark scrambles off the bike the second I have it parked. She shoves off the helmet, her hair a mussed up dark tornado knotted all around the top of her head and smooths down her clothes.

She narrows her eyes, takes in the parking lot, which is huge, all new asphalt, and wraps around all sides of the building, and snorts. “You brought me to a bar to have the conversation that we’re going to have? Not just any bar, but the rowdiest one in Hart?” She shakes her head, rakes her fingers through the snarls from the helmet, and grimaces. “Never mind, of course you brought me here. Everyone knows this place is a biker bar and if they don’t want their teeth kicked in by some club thug, they don’t come here. No one wants to worry about saying the wrong thing and pissing off the Angels.”

I take in the mass of bikes lined up neatly on the other side of the lot, but for every bike, there’s a vehicle that doesn’t belong to the club here.

I hop off the bike with ease, throwing my helmet and Lark’s on the handlebars to hang until we need them again. Her eyes rake over me as I move.

“I think you’re just hearing what you want to hear about this place.”

And about me.

She makes a noise low in her throat, a half choke, half gasp. “We’re only here right now because you think you know something and it’s not true.”

I’m a man who believes in the honey versus vinegar nonsense, but Lark acting like the brat she never was in the past gets my hackles up in a big way. The energy flowing through me isn’t all annoyance or anger, and that’s a problem. She clearly wants nothing to do with me and I want nothing more than to be buried with all of my nine inches, snug in her tight little pussy.

I bite down on any further words and turn to set a hand on Lark’s shoulder so I can guide her around back where the picnic tables are. Anyone sees me coming, they’ll know from the look on my face to fuck off out of there fast, but it’s the time of night when most people are inside, drinking, playing pool or darts, and shooting the shit.

As soon as my hand makes contact with her leather jacket, she shrugs me off with force and sidesteps away, muttering under her breath about presumptuous assholes.

I mutter under my breath, just loud enough for her to hear, about how pretty her jacket would look with a patch that says ‘Property of Satan’s Angels MC’ . She gives me a scathing sidelong glare, flips me off, and marches straight for the door.

I let her head on in while I round the back. I used to smile and laugh freely, but not so much anymore. I’m sitting on top of one of the new wooden picnic tables when Lark turns the corner, fuming about me letting her walk into the bar when I never intended on going in there, wearing one hell of a mantle of indignation. It’s such a shock for me seeing all that fury on such a soft face that I can’t help but throw back my head and let out a deep, full belly laugh.

She crosses her arms and widens her stance, a new thing that she continues to do to make herself look bigger. That’s hilarious too because she’s such a little slip of a thing, especially compared to me, that I laugh harder.

“You’ve turned into such a full-on prick,” she seethes, hands fisting at her sides like she wants to clock me right in the face. She’d probably break her own hand if she tried. “I don’t have to be here. I didn’t have to come on this ride at all. I don’t owe you a thing.”

“Yes, you do. An explanation, for one.”

“I gave you an explanation when I texted you. I told you that I’d changed my mind. The life, Raiden… all of it. It should be pretty obvious. If you want to lay all the blame on me, go ahead. I deserve it. We’ve already been through this. I’m not going over it again. If that’s all you wanted to discuss, then please, take me home.”

“If that’s all you thought I wanted to discuss, why even agree to the ride in the first place?”

She starts to pace, walking the same spot in those silly little fashion boots that should have liquified back there on my bike.

“I went because everything would have gone to shit if I’d stayed.”

“I don’t think so, Lark.”

“Can’t bullshit a bullshitter, huh?”

“I rarely bullshit. I rarely have to.” I know my lips are ugly now. That my smile is always going to be a sinister smirk, compliments of my own father, his parting gift from one prez to the next.

“You’ve been lying to your best friend and brother about taking his little sister’s virginity.”

“Careful darlin’.” I shoot up from the table, moderating my tone. I don’t want to scare her. I didn’t want this conversation to go this way. I’d planned an apology first about being a cunt the other day and now I’m acting like one all over again. The soft, comfortable easiness we knew around each other in the past is long gone. “I’d be very careful about what you say.”

“Why?” Her eyes dart around. “Do you think the whole place is listening? No one even knows we’re out here. There’s no one for miles, which is why you wanted to come here. Still casual, but private. Public, so you can resist the urge not to be a giant asshole and put your hands on me like you’re owed something. Careful? Or what?” She steps towards me, chest puffed out like she can stand toe to toe, like she could be every inch the caveman I can. “Or what, Gray?”

She studies my face and starts to pant. Her cheeks are flushed. The or what is quite clear. I might not be into the kind of dark shit some men are, but the thought of punishing her sweetly, spanking the sass out of her—not to hurt, but to make a point—has me hard as steel and I’d bet my entire club that if I told her so, she’d soak through her jeans. I have no doubt she’s wet already.

“You have a smart answer for everything, don’t you, Gray?” She screws her face up in such anger that we’re no longer playing around. “What if I called my brother right now and asked him to come get me? What if I told him the real reason we’re talking? What if I told him that when I was eighteen years old, you broke your promise to him and fucked the virginity right out of his baby sister after you’d promised to keep me safe?”

I’ve pushed her too far. What am I even doing right now? I’m thirty fucking years old and I’m out here acting like a child, taking out my hurt on her because she’s the one person who deserves it. If she really stopped to analyze the situation, she’d see the heart she cut out, offered to her in my open palms. I’m so fucking pathetic. Time to reel this back in.

I hold up my hands, my palms to her, to let her see my surrender. “No matter how we do this, we take care of Raiden’s heart. You and I both know that’s the only way this goes down. I take a beating? He wants to smash my face in? Yeah. I deserve it. I won’t be his prez, this has nothing to do with club business. He can kick my ass until his raging brotherly heart is content and then we’ll move on.”

She lets her pacing take her away from me like she can’t stand to be near. She needs air. I need air. Would it have been like this if she’d stayed? Would we have ended up driving each other crazy? Possibly, but even if we had, the makeup sex would have been explosive. How could she stay mad at me when I’d feast on her sweet pussy morning and night? I’d beg her forgiveness with my cock, worship her body with my mouth, give her orgasms until she was senseless.

I thought that she should pay with her pain and anguish, her guilt and her honesty, but condemning her and hurting her, driving stakes and shooting bullets into her is killing me too. I’d destroy any asshole who dared. She deserves my penance now. She’ll never share her truth with me otherwise.

“I’m sorry.” She studies me with utter suspicion wreathed in anguish. “I wanted to tell you that as soon as you got on my bike tonight. I raged out and freaked out last time and I’m doing it tonight. I was out of line with your parents. Obviously, you wanted to come home before it was too late to reconcile with them. They need you and you need them. You’re a family.”

Her eyes glisten, tears glimmering on her lashes. She stubbornly won’t blink. She doesn’t want me to see them fall. “But?”

“Am I nothing more than a criminal to you? Not now, but then? I taught you how to ride a bicycle. Bandaged you up when you fell down. I taught you to fish. To hike. To play baseball and basketball and tennis. I helped you with your homework whenever you needed it. I was there to protect you, to make you feel like you mattered, because you always did. It was us against the world when Raiden went away. I wanted to be there for you, but I didn’t want to tear you away from your family. What did I ever do to deserve realizing I was half in love with you and then having it torn away? We made a promise together, then you found me wanting. I wasn’t your idol anymore. I wasn’t your Gray. I was just… nothing. I want to know how it happened. I want to know why.”

Tears run down her cheeks. She shoves them away angrily, missing at least half, leaving shiny smudges all over her face. She was working in her parents’ flower gardens again, probably all day and giving it her all. I didn’t realize that her face was dirt streaked until the tears made a mess of it.

“Gray,” she whispers. My name. Not Tyrant. I let out a sigh of relief that cuts me in half. “I handed you the secret heart of me,” I say quietly. She sits down hard on the bench of the picnic table. It jumps, even from her small body. Her eyes beg me. Please, stop. Don’t do this. I can’t take anymore.

I don’t stop. I wish I could, but she needs to hear this. Worse, I need to say it. Never believed in church or any god to speak of other than our own church at the club, the gospel of the road and the wind, and the brotherhood of bikers. But I feel like I’m one of those confessional booths, pouring out my soul to some aloof priest, waiting for him to grant me absolution.

“You promised to guard my soul and then you tore it from my body. I’ve been soulless for five years. I was so angry. I wanted to drive straight to Seattle and demand a real explanation. Worse, I wanted to get on my knees and beg you.” Shame accosts me, hot and uncomfortable. I don’t like being vulnerable, being vulnerable in my world gets a man killed.

“But?” She leans forward like it hurts too much to even say that one word.

“But I made a promise to Raiden to leave you alone and that was worth more than my own pain. Help me understand, because I’m floundering here. I might be a criminal, but I’ve been one for a long time. Patched in when you were still basically a kid. You didn’t judge me then, but you did after. I could have protected you, but you didn’t even give me a chance.”

I shouldn’t touch her. It’s too dangerous. Too explosive. We’re poison to each other now, but I stride over in my shitkickers and hook a finger under her chin anyway. I can’t stop. I need more. She’s like that first taste of freedom when I got a dirt bike at eight years old and was immediately an addict.

I see the heartbreak on her face, and I feel it down from my chest to the tips of my fingers and the bottom of my feet. The tears spill down her cheeks, silver trickles, but I don’t wipe them away. I can’t make her tell me shit. I can’t make her do anything. No one can own this woman. She’s like the bird she was named for. Free. Put her in a cage and she’ll only wither and die slowly.

“You made a decision,” I continue, though it’s a struggle. “Even though you have no real idea what club life is like or how it works.”

She wrenches her chin away from me and brings up an arm between us to swat me away. “Really?” The wrath inside of her is immediately renewed. She brings her knees up and hugs them tight in the strangest position for a picnic table bench, but her glare is so potent it could turn me to stone. “I know all about your clubhouse. You all have rooms there and some live there permanently. It’s impenetrable, or so you’d like to think, but going around saying you’re invincible, sounds like famous last words. You have your poor prospects guarding the chain link fence and the entrances. Your sergeant-at-arms has to be good at security, even with the real law in your pocket.” She stops, waiting to see how much shit she’s going to get into. She’s pricked my interest in a big way.

“Continue,” I encourage, my tone lethal.

She notes it, but obeys. “If anyone ever came with a real warrant, probably at the federal level, they’d find nothing. You’re careful about where you put your product. Probably in some old warehouse or factory, or at farms not even close to Hart. Maybe even underground. You need a way to funnel all the criminal cash you get from drug sales and god knows what else, so you have a ton of legit businesses, some seedy, some not.” She points at the bar. “Places like this, for example. Clubs, strippers, pubs, this bar right here, the garages where you work on vehicles and bikes, tattoo shops, probably even the fucking gift stores and laundromats.”

She’s not wrong, but all of Hart knows this shit. “What else?”

“You all have your designated little positions which you think makes you sound professional. Your council with the President and the VP, the sergeant-at-arms and treasurer. You want to be all badass, but you still structure yourself like any other nine to five Fortune 500.” She rolls her eyes, so damn critical. She’s turning my life into a joke, but I take it. I asked for this.

“You do your little church sessions and make your decisions. You’re the mother chapter because you’re original, though there are no other chapters, so technically you’re the mother of nothing. You party so hard the whole of Hart can probably hear it, you’ve got your club women on tap who are happy to be treated like whores. You live hard and live free, or that’s what you like to tell yourselves because it gives you an excuse to act without morals. The living fast thing? It usually doesn’t come with a side serving of longevity.”

When she finally stops for a breath and stays stopped, I clap my hands. “Bravo. I’m impressed. You can use the internet and read books. You have the basics, I’ll give you that, but it’s nothing more than a rough outline. That’s like looking at a skeleton and calling it a body. You’ve reduced us to the bare bones. You’ve left out the skin and the muscle and the heart of it. Where did this sudden disdain come from? You never used to have a problem with the MC. Why now? Why five years ago? Why… unless you had something monumental change your mind? Something you never could have planned for? Something you needed to protect.”

She looks away quickly. I’m not going to keep at this all night. I’m not nearly at the end of my patience, but time is a precious commodity. Neither of us have enough of it.

“The thing about bikers is that we aren’t lawless. You know that. We do have a code. We have our own honor. We would never hurt any of our women, and we’d defend our kids to the death. Some of the brothers might live each day like it’s their last, but living hard is their prerogative and it’s their right, especially after the lives some of them have led. But to think that I wouldn’t have protected you after I spent years doing just that? That’s unfair. That’s so vastly unfair that it makes me want to say unkind things.”

She blinks, not the least taken aback by my honesty. It reminds me that she’s studied me. She was watching me when I wasn’t aware. For years.

“I need you to be honest. Blame and anger and everything else aside. Did we make a child that night? And if we did, then I need you to help me figure out where we go from here. We need a plan. If you don’t want me to turn into a possessive asshole who won’t let you leave and has to resort to threats because I’m cornered and dangerous, I need you to help me. I’m not telling you this to scare you. I’m not trying to control or manipulate you. I’m begging you for the truth.”

“Begging?” she snorts, pissed off at everything I just said that wasn’t meant to piss her off. She rises to face me down, drawing herself into her five foot four, petite frame. Size doesn’t have anything to do with power and vengeance. She looks like she could fly at me and claw the life out of me with a single swipe. “A man like you doesn’t know how to beg. You just said as much. Hart is your empire, and everything here is under your control. Emperor, dictator, tyrant. How fitting.”

I’ll show her I mean it. I’ll prove it to her. I’ll get on my knees for her, even if I’d never do it for any other person alive. Not just for her, but for the child I know is mine. My daughter. For her, I’d do anything.

I don’t do it with grace.

I let my knees unfold and crumple right there onto the asphalt, where the hard stones can dig into me as penance. I’ll stay down here, my head bowed before the woman I wanted to make my queen until I’m bruised and bleeding.

Until she believes.