“Never understood why he went on about your looks,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Sure, I’ve no doubt you’d look fuckin’ fine takin’ my cock, or any man’s, but I also thought Cricket was missin’ the point of ya.”
I swallowed thickly but infused my voice with my signature sarcasm. “You sure know how to compliment a woman.”
“That point being, the brain in that pretty head. See, I’ve got these questions that’ve been needin’ answers since you took up with my cousin. Like why the fuck would an MC princess hook up with a man from a rival MC? Why would she stay loyal to him when he started takin’ that beauty and desecratin’ it with bruises? Why would she love him when he didn’t even get the point of her beyond the pretty set of her face?”
“Seems like you’ve spent a fuckuva lotta time thinking about me, Wrath,” I murmured, tucking my chin into my left shoulder so he could see the curve of my cheek, the red of my lips curled up and the way my eyelashes fluttered like fans. My ass pressed back slightly into the seat of his groin and I was triumphant to find his cock lay hard against his thigh. “Maybe these are questions you’re asking as a man and not a cousin.”
He breathed hard in my ear as I ground down on his erection then stepped away. His hand lashed out quick as a flash to wrap hard around my wrist and jerk me back into him. “Maybe, I am. But remember this, Harleigh Rose, man or cousin, I’m always the VP of this club. You’d do best to remember that you’re playin’ games with a brother who’s not afraid of violence and murder.”
The anger that had lain dormant in my belly since the moment Cricket attacked me in my apartment, beat me and tried to rape me, flared to life as bright as the flames surrounding his now charred corpse. I ripped my hand out of Wrath’s grip, spun to face him and pressed my knee hard into his groin, up under his tender, swinging balls.
“Yeah, well you remember this big man. I’m the princess of The Fallen MC, not some sniffling Disney nitwit without the means to save herself. I’m a warrior princess, the kind that’ll cut off your balls and serve them for fuckin’ tea, you feel me? So next time you threaten me, why don’t you remember that?”
I pushed off his chest and stalked farther up the beach away from him. I didn’t start breathing again until I’d got twenty paces without Wrath following me. There was no doubt in my mind that Wrath had his eye on me, in more uncomfortable ways than one.
“H.R.,” a throaty voice called, and I turned around to see Laken Bard, my one and only true friend in the Berserker bitches.
I tipped my chin at her but kept moving. “I gotta head.”
She frowned and shouted, even though it drew eyes I didn’t want to both of us, “You’re comin’ to the clubhouse for the wake.”
It wasn’t a question, but up until that point I hadn’t been sure I would go. Laken was reminding me in the only way she could that I didn’t have a choice. If I wasn’t at my Old Man’s wake, it would be noted and even though I was technically done with the Bersekers, for them no one was done unless they’d cut the cord themselves. I had to give them the opportunity to do so.
“Yeah, see you then,” I called out, about to turn around and catch a ride with one of the bikers who was already leaving when I caught sight of a tall, blond man wrapping his arms around Laken.
Even before I turned to fully face them, I knew in the depths of my chest who would be holding her, because my body knew intrinsically whenever he was in my vicinity.
I shouldn’t have recognized him in that brief glimpse, not with the leather cut snug tight across his broad chest, a snarling wolf patched across the back under the “Berserkers MC” top rocker, and a bright red, green and black tangle of a tattoo peeking out from under it.
The man I knew him to be wore Timberland boots, not motorcycle shit kickers, plaid shirts not dirty tees, and he always had his clean, shining gold hair smoothed away from his forehead instead of the mess it currently fell in over his eyes.
I dragged a deep, steadying breath into my lungs before looking back at him and it still hit me harder than seeing Cricket burn, to see Officer Lionel Danner tangled in a passionate kiss with my best girl, Laken Bard.
The Berserker clubhouse was not like The Fallen’s. It was a huge four-story Victorian house on a big lot in West Van. The club owned both lots on either side of it, one that was converted into a massive garage for their bikes and equipment and the other they rented to nomad bikers and Berserker affiliates to cut down on nosy neighbors and noise complaints. The cops basically lived on the opposite side of the street, constantly looking for a reason to take down the club but after twenty years of existence, the club remained largely unscathed.