“But King?” Zeus said idly. “Skell’s got a point. You’re not a full member of this club, so when we take the vote ’bout the legit businesses, Ransom and you won’t be included. You wanna head out to the bar, and we’ll meet ya there?”
A muscle in my jaw jumped as I ground my teeth against the frustration of my situation. I was born Fallen, but even if I wasn’t, I’d worked my ass off my whole fuckin’ life to better myself so I could better the club. I’d graduated with honours from one’a the top universities in the country so I could bring that knowledge to this exact table and make a difference, only now, the Old Guard wouldn’t have it.
Lockin’ eyes with Zeus, I read his resolve and also his disappointment in some of our brothers for not acceptin’ all I had to give. He wanted them to, but he wouldn’t force it, and I hated that that made him a good leader.
“Fine,” I said, standin’. “But know this, brothers. I’m here to stay, and I’m here to take the club to even greater heights than we’ve seen before. All you have to do is trust my intent and give me a fuckin’ chance.”
I meet each other their gazes before I turned on my boot and walked out the door with Ransom on my heels. And not for the first time that week, or even that day, I wished like hell my best friend, Mute, could have been beside me.
Even so, when I sat at the bar and Ransom rounded it to grab us both a beer, I knew I had support in the club, and half an hour later when Nova, Curtains, Boner, Axe-Man, Kodiak, Lab-Rat, and even Priest took up seats around me after Church, I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d get a real spot at the table and a real say in the game.
Cressida
* * *
Spring was breaking through the perpetual grey ceiling we lived under in the winter months, the light turning from creamed to liquid honey as it streamed through the porous clouds over my upturned face. I sat on the top of one of the picnic tables to the front side of the clubhouse, my hands braced behind me so I could soak up the rays. There was the distant hum of machinery and male chatter from the garage bays at Hephaestus Auto to the left of the lot and the soft brushing swish of sea breeze in the evergreens standing before the high chain-link fence like sentries. Ares sat on the bench beside me, but his entire side was pressed against my leg, an arm looped around my calf as he read in his hoarse, Latin-accented English from John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
“How can I live without thee, how forego
Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,
To live again in these wild woods forlorn?
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no, no, I feel
The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.”
Ares stopped reading, his thumb sweeping over the text as if he could feel the words like the texture of a flower petal on his skin or in his soul. I smiled as I watched him because I recognized a poetic heart when I saw it, and I loved that he was being raised by a biker club who would protect him so that heart could flourish.
“What do you think?” I asked.
I wanted to card my hand through his hair, but Ares had rules about how he liked to interact with people. No touching, not unless he instigated it. He was incredibly affectionate when the mood struck him, especially with Loulou and me, but if he was touched without consent, he turned, frankly, terrifying.
He angled his head up and back to look at me, and the sun caught his depthless brown eyes, turning them liquid and warm as maple syrup. “I think Milton gets this story better than those idiots who wrote the Bible.”
I clucked my tongue at him even though I agreed. “We might not believe in that kind of religion, but that doesn’t mean we talk crap about it, Ares. What would you do if someone said something like that about the club?”
The arm around my leg constricted, and his jaw clenched.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “So it’s good practice not to condemn what someone else believes in. It took me a very long time to realize that, and judging that way almost kept me from some of the greatest treasures in my life.”
“Don’t get why you stopped teaching kids,” he muttered, looking back down at the book. “You’re good at it and shit.”