Wild: Tiger's Blood MC (9 page)

Elliot’s not a boy any longer. He’s a real man now
. That was the thought that kept repeating in my head all the way back to the Amazons’ headquarters. I couldn’t believe how he’d changed. Where he used to be sweet and sensitive, now he was tough and firm. He growled, he groaned, he was exactly the kind of man who knew how to turn me on. But more than that, he’d lost whatever shaky, unsure quality that he’d had growing up. When we’d been kids, Elliot and I had always fought for balance of power. I usually won; I could get him to agree to anything, especially if I even had one lame reason. “Because I said so” worked on Elliot, and as a bossy little girl I more than abused my share of privilege.

But now, Elliot wasn’t like that. He didn’t give in and he didn’t back down. When I’d gone running out of his clubhouse, I could tell that he was stunned. Elliot wasn’t the type to show that though. Now, Elliot was the silent, tough type, the type that hunkered down and got shit done. I knew that he wasn’t a man to cross, that fighting with him wouldn’t get me anywhere. And yet I still felt the urge to rub him against the grain, to push him to the limit and see where it took me. Elliot was dangerous and I needed to stay away from him, but something deep inside of me was compelled to see where this went.

My heart felt heavy when I knew that my girls would be turning the Tiger’s Blood MC into the cops. I knew it was against MC code, hell, it was against
civilian
code. Normal people didn’t snitch to the cops as a way of revenge. Even my somewhat sheltered outlook had taught me that. Normal people handled their business the way I’d fought with Vero earlier, normal people didn’t rely on threats and accusations to get them through whatever was happening to upset their lives.

Part of me didn’t want revenge, not against Elliot. I couldn’t speak for the rest of his guys but it didn’t seem like he deserved what would be coming. He’d never done anything to me. Aside from storming into the Amazons’ hangout and demanding that I return with him, Elliot had been as mild as anything. And yeah, I knew that he ran guns. Hell, he’d probably killed people before. But that wasn’t my responsibility to judge; I’d seen my share of the same shit. And I did the same thing as Elliot for a career. But here I was, ready to turn him over and ruin my reputation forever. No one would trust me when they found out how readily I turned over one of my own. Hell, I’d be lucky if I made it through the rest of my life without someone carving
snitch
in my forehead.

No, revenge against Elliot himself didn’t seem like a good idea. Vero had seen what she’d seen, and now she was hell-bent on dragging the whole club down to her level. I didn’t like it, but I felt powerless. Even as the president, if everyone was against me, what choice did I have? It was either bend my will to the group or risk being run out of my own club. And with Vero’s temper and anger, right now I had the feeling that I wouldn’t get out alive.

That evening, I went over to the clubhouse to see Vero and the rest of the girls. Everyone seemed back to normal, and pumped about ratting out the Tiger’s Blood. The girls kept cheering, “Down with the tigers!” and whooping with their fists in their air. I cringed; it was like the scene from a rally, right before something went horribly wrong.

“So, you come to your senses?” Vero eyed me and took a sip of her beer. Her brown face was puffy and bruised from where I’d punched her, but she didn’t look nearly as bad as I did. One of my eyes was nearly swollen shut—I’d gasped when I’d looked in the mirror, unable to believe how Elliot could have been attracted to me.

“If you can call it that,” I said delicately. I picked up a beer and tapped the cap against the lip of the counter, then pounded it with my fist. The cap popped off and I threw my head back and took a long, relaxing swallow. Being around Vero was tense but I had to make it work for the sake of the club. And maybe after this whole mess was over, we’d get back to being as close as we had been before.

“I got in touch with the Russians,” Vero said with a nasty smile. “And I’ll see what I can do about turning their business over to us.”

“Really?” I grinned, despite myself. “That’s awesome.”

Vero smiled cattily. “Well, you made your point loud and clear,” she said dramatically, exhaling loudly. “If we snitch on the Tiger’s, ain’t no one gonna trust us. We’re gonna have to have us a new source of income.” She grinned like she’d come up with the idea herself. “And now, we’ll have the Russians all to ourselves.”

I bit my lip. “That’s a lot of extra service. We’re gonna have to step up our customer operations, maybe get some new girls in on probation. We don’t have the manpower to cover the grid right now, especially if we’re taking over their part of town.”

Vero shrugged. “You the boss, you’ll figure it out,” she said, winking at me. I knew that I should be feeling relieved that things were starting to smooth over, but part of me didn’t trust this new, friendly side of Vero. Even when we’d been close, she hadn’t ever been what you might call helpful. She’d always been out to get hers and that was all that mattered. Now part of me suspected that this was still the case, she was just trying to make it seem to the other girls like she’d forgiven me.

“I don’t know about taking revenge on the whole MC,” I mused aloud. “Elliot didn’t have shit to do with this, and I think you know that.”

Vero tutted. “And how do
you
know that?” She laughed at me and for the second time that day I felt a blush rise to my face. “I mean, he could have ordered it! He’s the president of the most corrupt MC in the city!”

I swallowed. “We’re pretty corrupt by the same standards,” I said evenly. “We run guns and we’re about to run a whole lot more of them.”

Vero put her hands on her hips, sassing me. “And you worried about this all of a sudden? Whatchu have such a conscience for?”

I couldn’t tell her the truth. No one in the Amazons knew about my past, only my motives for the future. Again, I was beginning to wish that I’d run far away after the death of my parents.

I walked away from Vero without answering. Something in my chest felt tight, like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen to breathe. I couldn’t think about hurting Elliot again, after all, I’d probably come close to ruining his life before. And now I was about to turn his crew over to the cops just because of something my second-in-command had seen?

Then I remembered Lydia, and the painful way she’d lowered herself into a chair for weeks after the incident. I remembered her telling me that she wouldn’t be able to have children, that her hopes of having a family were ruined. I shuddered when I remembered all of the blood in the spare room, how it had soaked into the mattress and turned it into a soggy cushion. It was a miracle that Lydia was still alive. Against my will, I felt my heart hardening inside my chest. No, I had to take revenge. I had to do
something
. Even if it meant hurting Elliot and the rest of his men, I had to avenge Lydia’s assault.

Elliot

That night, I had another dream about Grace again. Or rather, I thought I had a dream about her. We were laughing and playing together, roughhousing outside like a couple of kids. She was so real that I could feel the touch of her soft skin against mine, so
close
that I could smell the faint vanilla musk of her perfume.

That was when the dream started to change. We were playing in a park and the skies darkened. Grace looked at me with fire in her blue eyes and reached for me. As always, I felt my cock stiffening between my legs as Grace’s hands snaked around my waist. She’d always known how to turn me on, and this was no exception. When we kissed, I closed my eyes and felt the universe spinning around. I was hit with an overwhelming feeling, like how it felt to know how deeply in love with someone you really were. And Grace was that person for me. She was my everything; she was my
world
.

And then I woke up. My skin was sweaty and my hair was sticking to my forehead even though the air conditioner was on full blast. Grace was still parading through my head and try as I might, I couldn’t get the image of her to go away.

But now, things felt different. Now that Persephone had come into my life, I wasn’t sure what to think. In so many ways she reminded me of Grace, but I knew that wasn’t a logical connection. After all, Grace disappeared. She wouldn’t have hung around. I spent years looking for her.

Now it was time to accept that she was really gone.

Later in the morning, I drove over to the bar. There were some cars parked in the lot from the night before and Nero and Tony were bellied up to the bar itself, drinking whiskey and chasing it with beer. They both grinned at me.

“Hey, man,” Nero said. He slapped me on the back and I felt a twinge of unease. The guys still didn’t know about my conversation with Persephone from the other day. To them, she was just a hot chick in another local biker gang. But inside, I knew that I could have revealed some damaging information.
Don’t worry about it
, I thought.
You’re the leader of Tiger’s Blood. You don’t need to waste time worrying about what some chick can do to your reputation.

“Hey,” I said as I slipped onto a stool and reached over the counter for a beer. “What’s up?”

Nero grinned at me. He was still sporting a bruise on his face. “I got to meet the Russians later,” he said, miming like he was aiming a gun at the wall. “We got a
big
shipment coming in.”

A flash of the other night came back to me; Persephone on top of me, straddling me with her muscular legs and demanding to know something. God, it was killing me! If I didn’t remember what I told her, I was fucked!

“Oh yeah?” I swallowed hard and took a long drink of beer. “What kind of deal?”

Nero grinned and flexed his arms. “The kind that’s gonna permanently set us up for life, brother,” he said with a nod. “The kind of deal we’ve been struggling to make for years.”

Another alarm bell went off in the back of my head but I ignored it.
Something
about the way Nero was talking sounded familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it.

“Hey,” Tony said sharply. “Man, what happened last night? Did you find that girl?”

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. I flashed back to Persephone in my arms, her hot little mouth pressed against mine, her tight body wriggling. “I found her alright. I brought her back here.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “And? Anything good?”

I snorted. “I’m not telling you shit,” I said dismissively. “I don’t need to talk about getting laid when I can actually do it.”

Tony and Nero laughed, high-fiving each other. Being around the guys normally made me relax, but today I felt like I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I knew that I had to find Persephone again, and get her to tell me what had really happened.

“I’m gonna go ride out,” I said, standing and finishing the last of my beer. “You guys need me around for the deal?”

“Yeah,” Nero replied. “That would be fuckin’ great, man.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be around later. When are you meeting with the Russians?”

“Ten,” Tony said. He looked more solemn than usual and I wondered what was wrong with him. “I mean, if you can swing that.”

I nodded. “Yeah, no worries,” I said. “I’ll be back by then.”

When I left the bar, I felt a weird sense of relief flood my body. It wasn’t that I hated being around the guys right now, but there was so much shit flying around in my head that I had no idea how to talk to them. It was hard to concentrate on Tigers business when I had to worry about Persephone and what information she’d pulled out of me. But I had to come out on top; I had to show her who was boss.

I grinned.
And I don’t think I’ll have much trouble with that
, I thought nastily as I remembered the way Persephone had shoved her tits against my chest and slipped her tongue into my mouth. She was a hot little sex kitten and all I had to do was make her mine. As soon as she was mine, I knew there was no way she could fuck over the Tigers.

I hopped on my bike and rode it to the outskirts of town, staring at the city from high above. I always loved the canyons outside of LA; they made the city look like some kind of weird, mythical creature. But right now they just made me feel alone, with the weight of my decisions in my mind.
I have to find her.
And soon
.

I rode down to the Amazons’ clubhouse. I had to hand it to them; Persephone was a good leader. She’d managed to turn the MC completely legit in less than a few years, and they looked like they were turning quite a profit. The clubhouse was a nice building: sleek, with all the modern touches that an MC could possibly want. They even had a state-of-the-art surveillance system outside. I swallowed hard as I knocked on the front door.

A diminutive-looking girl answered the door. I recognized her from last time—her name was Lyndsey or Lydia or some shit. “Hey,” I said shortly. “Is Persephone around?”

The girl swallowed hard. She had light brown hair and big, scared-looking eyes. She looked more like an ingénue than a biker, and part of me wondered what she was doing with a club as tough as the Amazons.

“Yeah,” she said softly after a long pause. “You wait out here. I’ll go get her.”

I rocked on the balls of my feet, feeling slightly impressed. Despite the girl’s soft looks, her voice had come across with an undertone of steel.
Persephone must have seen something in her, even if the others didn’t
, I decided.
She must have a good eye for that sort of thing
.

When Persephone came to the door, her face was pale and beginning to contort with anger. “What?” she asked in a huff. “What do you want now?”

“Come with me,” I said sharply. “We need to talk.”

This time, Persephone didn’t resist. She folded her arms across her chest and called something to the girls before grabbing her jacket and climbing on her bike. “I’m not riding as your bitch,” she said. “And I leave when I want to leave.”

I shrugged. “You’re not under arrest, you know,” I told her sharply. “You can leave whenever you damn well want to leave.”

A different look came into Persephone’s eyes just then, something akin to respect. She nodded curtly and climbed on her giant hog, making it roar to life with the mere twist of a key. I waited until she was good to go and then climbed on my bike, steering it out of the driveway and back up into the hills.

The air was humid and damp but it felt good on my face as I rode. The moisture clinging to every cell cooled my face down and I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of the sun and the clean air. I hadn’t ridden for pleasure in what felt like a long time, and even though I was working I didn’t feel too horrible about it.
Everything will be fine
, I told myself.
She’s with you. You’ve got her now. You know she would be yours, if you wanted
.

In some ways, it didn’t feel as much like a betrayal to Grace as I would have thought. Maybe it was because I hadn’t been laid in a couple of weeks, maybe it was just because Persephone had something about her that didn’t make me question her. It was in her smile, in her swagger, in the way she carried herself so confidently. Persephone was one of those women who always seemed on top of her game. I was impressed. She could teach the Tiger’s Blood a thing or two about loyalty, and about classiness within the rules of the MC.

I was surprised when she turned out to be moody that day. We parked our bikes just above the Hollywood sign and strode around in the brush, kicking at clods of dirt and dried lumps of cactus that had fallen off.

“Do you always come up here?” Persephone looked at me. Her blue eyes seemed focused, but I could tell that her mind was elsewhere. “I mean, this is a cool place. It’s good for thinking. But I’ve never seen you here before.”

“I used to come up here with an old girlfriend,” I said as casually as I could muster. I still couldn’t think about Grace without feeling a tug at my heartstrings, but whenever Persephone was around the pain wasn’t nearly as hard to deal with as it was when I was alone. “It was years ago, though. Now I come up by myself when I need to be alone.”

Persephone nodded. She lowered herself down onto the dirt and relaxed, leaning back on the heels of her hands and staring straight up at the sky. “I come here a lot,” she said softly. She glanced down at the ground. “Whenever I really need to be alone with myself and think, you know?” Persephone looked into my eyes and I felt a shiver of lust. Even though the moment was solemn, there was something about her that made me itch to put my hands all over her body and make her mine. In my pants, my cock chafed, eager to be inside Persephone’s warm, wet body.

“I get that,” I said, scooting closer. “What do you think about?” I winked at her.

“Everything,” Persephone said dramatically. She pulled her black hair up into a ponytail and knotted it with an elastic. “The club, my girls, everything that’s going on right now.” She let out a long sigh. I stared; I hadn’t exactly expected her to make me a serious answer. “There’s a lot going on with the Amazons that you don’t know.”

I laughed. “My club is the same way,” I said, getting to my feet and brushing the dirt off my jeans. “There’s so much shit going on right now that I can’t even see through it. Has that ever happened before?”

Persephone rolled onto her flat belly and stared at the ground. I admired the lean curve of her waist and the way her ass stuck out into the air. She was a natural beauty, and I was feeling the itch to fuck her even more strongly than before. “Things are just messy right now,” she said, plucking a piece of grass from the earth and gnawing on the tip of it. I watched as her pink tongue stuck out of her lips. A shiver of lust seized my body and I had to glance away before I started imagining that same pink tongue licking my hard cock. “I don’t feel like a good leader. I feel like I’m failing my girls.”

I shrugged. “They’re adults,” I said. “They need someone to make decisions for them sometimes. They must respect you. That new clubhouse is ace.”

Persephone nodded. “We did a good job,” she said in a quiet voice. Her face grew serious again. “I just don’t know. Sometimes I don’t think I’m a good fit for this life. I always wanted to be in an MC, but sometimes I wonder if I wouldn’t do better on my own.”

I shook my head and leaned up against a tree, watching Persephone’s face intently. She’d closed her eyes and rested her cheek down on a forearm. She looked troubled, even in a peaceful pose. I couldn’t imagine her falling asleep despite her relaxed posture.

“You’re doing fine,” I said mildly. Persephone looked into my eyes and the air between us crackled with tension. “I mean, you’re doing the best that you can, right?”

Persephone nodded. She let out a long sigh. “I don’t wanna talk about this anymore,” she said abruptly, rolling onto her back and staring at the sky. She shielded her eyes with a hand and took a deep breath. “What do you want?”