Animal (Royal Bastards MC 1)

“Remy,” I warn. “You need to be coherent to drive.”

“Let’s just stay the night and leave tomorrow—”

The unmistakable roaring of bike engines split the air outside the window, sending my nerves bouncing around inside my body.

“Fuck,” Remy growls, pulling his cellphone out of his pocket.

“What are you doing?”

“I need to call in my brothers.”

“And cause a war?” I screech, running over to him and taking his phone.

“Wren,” he warns, calling me by the name I gave myself after Kai discovered where I was a year ago. It’s a bird, and that’s how I feel most of the time—always in flight.

“I’ll talk to him, get him to give you safe passage out of here.”

“I can’t fucking believe you didn’t tell me you ran with the Royal Bastards. Do you know what fucking one of their bitches could get me?” he sneers.

“I’m not one of their bitches, and we ain’t fucking,” I snap, chucking his cell against the wall and smashing the screen.

“Wren!” he roars, grabbing me by the throat, much like Viking once did. I raise my leg, bringing the heel of my boot down on his knee, and jerk him backward, forcing his hand to release me. I’m quick, grabbing my knife from my boot. It has a serrated edge and is only three inches long, but it will hurt like a motherfucker plunged into his groin if he attacks. “Don’t ever fucking touch me again.” I hold the knife out, moving around him, grabbing the handle of the door.

“I’m sorry, Wren. I’m fucking dead if they come for me,” he pleads. Fuck him.

I slip through the door, closing it behind me and hitting a barricade in the form of Alec.

“Good choice,” he tells me, flicking out his tongue to wet his bottom lip.

“Let Remy leave,” I tell him, bending to slip my knife away.

“You been in his bed?”

My eyes narrow on him. “Is that your business?”

“Simple question.” I look around him to see the wall of bikers waiting for orders. “No, and we’re not like that. He’s a friend of a friend doing me a favor. My car broke down. I needed a ride,” I lie…kind of.

“You know you have a tell when you’re nervous or lying, right?”

“Alec, I haven’t slept with him, and I can’t have blood on my hands. Please let him go.”

“Why did you have a knife in your hands when you came out of the room?” His eyes track down to my boots.

“I’ll go with you if that’s what it takes,” I beg, ignoring his question.

“Fine,” he growls, jerking a thumb toward where he parked his bike.

I trail behind him like a naughty puppy, my tail tucked between my legs. When we reach his bike, I stare at my helmet attached to the back. He grabs it and hands it to me like the last eight years didn’t happen. How does he still have this? Tears spring in my eyes. My internal war has ravaged me, leaving me exhausted. “Before I get on, I need to ask…”

“I said I’d let the fucking Demon go.” He folds his arms, his biceps straining the fabric of his shirt. I don’t remember them being so big.

“It’s about my aunt,” I whisper.

“It wasn’t us.” His brows draw down, marring his features. “I looked into it. The police said it was a break-in gone wrong. Opportunist.”

“I heard there was a similar death to another woman…”

“Turned out to be domestic.” A breath flees my lungs. I bow my head and accept the helmet. My body quakes as I watch him straddle the machine, waiting for me to do the same. “It’s okay, Drew.” He assures me with a nudge of his head, and it shouldn’t matter. His words shouldn’t incite warmth and comfort inside me, but dammit, they do.

I latch onto his waist and shift onto the bike behind him. My thighs rest against his, my body leaning into him for safety, the helmet he gave me so long ago once again on my head like it never left. The engine roars to life and just like that I’m once again the girl on the back of Alec Walker’s bike.

Nineteen

Animal

A couple of hours later…

Thirty minutes I’ve been standing outside the clubhouse with Drew while she has a panic attack. She’s on her ass, head between her legs, heaving.

“No one will fucking dare touch you, Drew,” I remind her again—and a fucking again. “You spent half your life inside these walls.”

Her head whips up, her eyes glaring at me. “Didn’t stop me from becoming a target, did it?”

“My old man is fucking dead. What do you think he’s going to do—come back and haunt you?”

She gets to her feet and slaps me around the face, the sound ringing out through the courtyard. I grab her wrist, my teeth gritting, jaw ticking. “Drew,” I warn.