“I’m gonna catch up with you in a second,” I said, detaching myself from Cain’s arms. The place I’d been tucked into for the entire funeral.

We were standing with the Amber chapter, along with Hansen and Jagger. With the other Old Ladies, Macy, Gwen, Amy, Mia, Lily, Bex and the newest addition Lauren. She was quiet, beautiful and not at all what I pictured for the insane psychopath who hadn’t let her go the entire time.

But I guessed that’s why it worked.

I felt uneasy being part of this side of the club—the side with love and commitment and biker versions of fairy tales. The side I didn’t belong in. I snatched my chance for respite.

In pain.

Not just my own.

Cain reluctantly let me go, his eyes following where I’d focused on Linda, standing at one grave, alone. Likely because no one was brave enough to approach her.

He yanked me in for a kiss. “Don’t make the second too long. We’re ridin’ out soon.”

“I can catch a ride with—”

“You’re on the back of my bike,” he interrupted.

This was not a time to argue about such things, so I only nodded once and trudged through the grass fertilized by the dead, standing beside Linda.

She glanced at me, looked back at the grave and didn’t speak for a long time.

“Seen a lot of people come and go from this club,” she said her voice raspy, sucking greedily on her smoke like she wanted to drain the hours off her life. “Prospects that couldn’t stomach the life. Patched members that go wandering. Either onto the open road or into a closed coffin.”

Her eyes bore into the ground before lifting themselves back up to me. They were rimmed with harsh black liner, but dry. “Girls that are here for a good time, a story, before they run back to society, hold onto their wild stories to keep them warm in the suburban world that’ll suck the life from ‘em. Now and again, there are girls that last for longer, who need the freedom this world offers but don’t want the shackles from somethin’ as messy as love.”

I froze, silent as she spoke words I’d repeated to myself but never uttered out loud.

“Sons aren’t a club who are up to things like women getting equal rights—in title anyway—so women can’t get a patch. But there are other ways in. Harder ways, ‘cause these are complicated men in some ways and simple men in others. They live hard, cruel and messy. Not many women can handle that. Or they want to be the woman that fixes that.” She took another drag of her smoke. “Some broken things aren’t meant to be fixed. Some people are meant to live broken. Whether it’s by penance, by choice, for survival.”

Her hard, empty and clear eyes bore into me. “You’re one of those people. Special in all the worst ways. So you stayed. ‘Cause you’re a part of this club. You contribute in a way that’s different than those men wearin’ cuts, but no less important. You stayed for a reason. Don’t let your demons belittle that reason.” Her gaze moved from me, across the headstones, the sea of leather to focus of the man I’d been actively making sure I didn’t glance at.

“Don’t let them stop you from finally giving yourself some shackles to hold your broken pieces together,” she said. “‘Cause, it only takes a fucking day for the world to smash you all to pieces anyway.”

I blinked at the dry-eyed woman, chain-smoking and gazing emptily at her husband’s fresh grave.

“What’s it like?” I asked, unable to help myself. “The pain?”

She glanced at me, not with anger or hate at such a callous question. We’d always had somewhat of a distant connection, both of us women who’d had to construct cold and hard exteriors. We’d never been friends or even friendly. But there was a mutual respect there.

And if the biker queen hadn’t respected me, no way would’ve I been part of the club for as long as I had.

“Like your spine is being ripped out through your throat,” she said. “A pain so visceral I’m surprised that every time I inhale, every second it doesn’t kill me.” She sounded melancholy about this fact. “And like nothing at all at the same time.”

I nodded, not replying. There was nothing to say. Words couldn’t change the past, couldn’t heal pain, couldn’t do anything.

I just stood with her while she smoked a packet of cigarettes with a ferocity that told me she wished they’d put her in a grave next to the one in front of us.

But she wasn’t the type of woman who would succumb to such a need to end.

She was strong.

She’d survive.

She’d endure.

* * *

The funeral turned into a party, as all funerals did. This one more so because of the sheer size of it, and the fact this was the largest gathering of bikers that the town and the club had seen.

The police were present at the cemetery, had ‘escorted’ the bikes back to the clubhouse—the one that had been quickly cleared as a crime scene, record time thanks to a fat envelope—and then left.

I didn’t know what the police had as evidence, likely they didn’t have any. I didn’t know what the Sons had gathered either because that wasn’t something women were allowed to know. And even if I wanted to ask, there was no time for talking with Cain.

I could feel it, though. The energy, the need for blood. For revenge. I felt it because that same need flowed through my own blood.

But now, the music thumped loud enough to chatter my teeth and the whisky did its job to numb everything around the edges. A familiar scene for me.

What was not familiar was that I was surrounded by the Amber chapter of the Sons of Templar—some of the Old Ladies too, including Bex who I had clicked with immediately, our demons played well together—tucked into Cain’s side much like all the other women.

There were club girls almost completely naked dancing on polls, getting passed from man to man, something I would’ve been doing, should’ve been doing. Something that had felt natural, right in all the wrong ways before. But now the thought of being anywhere but where I was filled my stomach with unease.

And that was bad.

I was getting used to this. Being tucked up in a place I didn’t belong, with a title that shouldn’t have fit me.

“Almost midnight,” Cain murmured in my ear, temporarily chasing away those toxic thoughts.

“What, you gonna turn into a pumpkin?” I teased.

He grinned. “Almost time for me to kiss my woman, first time for the new year.”

I blinked. He was right. It was almost a new year. “Who says you have to wait until midnight?” I purred, running my finger down his chest.

His eyes darkened and he immediately plastered his mouth to mine. The kiss turned as my desperation to chase away the demons that came with every single new year poured into it. I was barely aware of him lifting me. Of the shouts and whistles as we moved through the party. I didn’t care about any of that, about those problems with us—with me—that seemed so important.

No, none of it mattered apart from the fact he was wearing too many clothes.

“I want you,” I hissed into his mouth. “Now.” I ground my hips downward, craving friction.

He made a throaty noise as I encountered his beautiful, hard cock, unfortunately hindered by denim. “Jesus, woman, you’re gonna be the end of me,” he growled, slamming me against the wall and working at his belt.

He was inside me in a matter of seconds, and we rang in the new year with him fucking me brutally against the wall, with the party going on mere feet away.

“End of me,” he grunted, thrusting hard enough to force me into another beautiful climax.

I was the end for him.

But I knew that already.

* * *

The promised words about our...whatever we were, about our demons, our past, they never came to pass as we didn’t arrive home until the early hours.

This time, we didn’t yank each other’s clothes off, bruise, scratch and get lost in each other.

No, he whipped off his tee, revealing the body I gaped at any time I got a chance. I promptly took off my dress, aware of his eyes, and then put his tee on.

It was warm, his scent still clinging to it. I wanted it to cling to me. I wanted it to seep into my skin. Into my blood. It wasn’t a healthy need. But nothing with me was healthy.

Cain yanked me into his arms. “Like you in my tee, angel.”

Again, this was more than a simple statement about the tee.

This was another moment for me to reach for my ice queen persona, to end this before it got any further. Before I fell any further. But I’d already fallen. Hit the ground and shattered.

So I didn’t say anything.

I let Cain pull me into bed, yank me into his chest and I fell asleep.

Cuddling him.

I was so fucked.

* * *

“Angel, got something to talk to you about.”

We had been sitting in comfortable silence after a rare morning when we didn’t have to rush away and organize a funeral (me) or plan a revenge mission (Cain).

My silence was only outward, though. The knowledge of what this day was, of what lay before me, screamed at my head, demons clawed at my skull.

My stomach was too uneasy to stomach anything but black coffee, so I was sipping on it, pretending to read the news on my phone.

We were on the sofa. I was tucked up against Cain’s shoulder as he sipped his own coffee and read the paper. Yeah, we were fucking cuddling on the sofa that I promised myself would not see such things.

“Is it the fact you put four sugars in your coffee? Because that’s not something you should talk to me about, that’s for a medical professional to handle,” I shot at him, still aimlessly staring at my phone.

The paper rustled to the floor, my phone was taken from my hands and Cain moved to focus on me. “Well some of us aren’t as naturally sweet as you,” he remarked dryly.

I flipped him the bird.

He grinned, playing with my hair.

It was strange what those casual, natural touches did to me. How intimate they felt to a woman who didn’t think anything could be intimate.

“How attached are you to New Mexico?” he interrupted my thoughts. “This place?”

He nodded around the sparsely decorated and crappy apartment I’d made no effort to turn into a home.

I shrugged in answer. Because I didn’t want to admit the fact I wasn’t at all attached. That before this I was floating, tethered by the thinnest of strings to the club that just got decimated a week ago. And instead of hurtling out into the dead and cold space, the broken string was grasped and attached to a tanned, muscular and beautiful hand. The one that was still playing with strands of my hair.

“You wouldn’t be averse to a location change, then?” he asked, eyes on mine.

I froze. “What do you mean?”

He cupped my face. “I mean I want you with me. That I don’t wanna ride back to Amber without you on the back of my bike. In my bed.”

I blinked at him.

His words were not good.

Worse was my reaction.

Happiness.

Fucking hope.

Of a life in Amber amongst the women I’d gotten along with last night. The men I’d joked with. A life with the man cupping my face.

And ending.

A good one.

I stood abruptly.

Cain must’ve expected that because he let me, standing too.

“You’re fucking insane,” I said.

“Depends on who you ask.”

I gaped. “Well, coming from me, that’s a pretty bad thing since my definition of insane is much kinder than society’s. But you suggesting I abandon a life here, drop everything for a man I’ve known a week, cut myself up to fit his life...yeah that’s fucking batshit.”

His eyes narrowed. “No, what’s batshit is you lying to yourself and me pretending that you don’t want to. I’m not some fuckin’ man. And you’re not some woman. You’re my woman. My Old Lady.”

Hearing it out loud was different than the different ways he’d shown me that’s what he considered it to be. There was no explaining it away, no pretending.

“No,” I whispered. “I’m no one’s Old Lady. That’s not a title made for me.”

“Considering you were fuckin’ made for me, I disagree,” he clipped.

“I’m vulgar,” I said. “I’ve done things that I’m not ashamed of but what most people would be disgusted at. I’ve acted like a whore, dressed like one, I’ve made my life as one. I’m cold in almost every way, defiled, broken. What could you possibly want from me?”

He stepped forward. “Everything,” he hissed. “Everything that you didn’t say. Like the fact you’ve lived through shit that would’ve killed most people—even if I don’t know what it is, I know that. You’ve survived in a world determined to bring you down. You’re loyal.” He moved his hand to trail lightly down my jaw.

“That you’re beautiful because of your hardness. Because you’re soft, but you don’t even know it. And watching the strongest and most painfully beautiful woman I’ve ever met go soft for me and me only, it’s the best experience of my fuckin’ existence.” His eyes hardened. “And in regards to that ugly word you just called yourself that I take great fuckin’ issue with, I don’t give a fuck whose bed you’ve been in in the past, fuck knows I’m not one to talk. Because I know it’s been empty, cold and a way for you to live a life that you made for yourself. I’m a biker, babe. I’m not looking for some mystical, pure and fuckin’ boring woman that’s only been with me. I’m looking for a battle-worn, beautiful, fucking warrior. And I’ve got that. It doesn’t matter whose bed you’ve been in on any given night. It matters you’re gonna be in mine, in all the nights to come.”

His words hit me with force. With pain. Fucking agony.

Neither of us spoke as he waited for me to respond, to argue. I waited for myself to acquire enough courage to throw the words back in his face.

The ringing of a phone both saved me and damned me.

Cain glanced to his phone, frowning. Then his eyes found me. “This isn’t over.”

“Yes, it is,” I whispered.

He jerked but answered the phone. “Cade.”

There was silence as his president spoke. They were riding out tomorrow, I knew that. And Cain was likely to ride out with them. Something that I’d been avoiding.

And something he’d forced into my face with his insane offer.

The thought of him riding into the sunset without me caused me to taste bile. Those early hours would be empty once more.

I’d be empty once more.

“We’ll be there in two.” He hung up the phone. “Get your jacket, we’re needed at the club.” His tone was iron, something was obviously going down.

I nodded once, knowing better than to argue about what the club needed.

“Angel,” he called to my back. “You’re not walkin’ away from me.”

I stayed for a second more before I disappeared into my room.

I wouldn’t walk away, but I’d make sure he rode into the sunset.

Alone.