Chapter 1 - King
My headlight sweeps across the deserted main drag as I throttle down, scanning for trouble. It's past midnight on a Tuesday, which means most decent folks are tucked safely in their beds while predators like me prowl the darkness. That's fine by me.
I've always preferred the night anyway. Less pretending, more honesty about what people really are underneath all that daylight bullshit.
Besides, the war with the Iron Eagles has everyone on edge lately. Vulture and his boys have been moving west like a plague, absorbing smaller clubs and leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. All because five years ago, I put his brother Marcus "Talon" Reeves in the ground during a bar fight that turned deadly. Self-defense doesn't mean shit when family honor's on the line, and now every Savage Rider has a target painted on his back.
I turn onto Elm Street, heading toward the bus station where late-night arrivals sometimes find more trouble than they bargained for. The streetlights cast long shadows between empty storefronts, most of them boarded up since the economy went to hell. This town's dying a slow death, but it's mine to protect until it breathes its last breath.
That's when I see them.
Three figures clustered near the bus station entrance. Three white guys in their twenties—one tall and lanky, one built like a brick shithouse, and a third who's wiry and twitchy like he's coming down from something—all of them circling something like wolves around wounded prey.
I kill the engine and coast closer, keeping to the shadows. The Harley's silence is deafening after hours of rumbling through empty streets.
"Come on, sweetheart," the tall one's saying, his voice carrying the particular kind of sleaze that makes my trigger finger itch. "Just hand over the bag and nobody gets hurt."
That's when I see her.
She's small, maybe five-foot-four, with long black hair that catches the streetlight like spilled ink. Curvy in all the right places, but it's not her body that stops me cold. It's the way she's standing.
Most people faced with three-to-one odds would be pissing themselves or trying to run. This woman has planted her feet shoulder-width apart, clutching a worn leather bag against her chest like it contains something precious, and she's staring down three potential killers like she's the one they should be afraid of.
"I said no." Her voice is quiet but steady, with just enough tremor to show she's scared but too much steel to show she'll break. "This bag isn't worth anything to you, but it means everything to me."
The brick shithouse laughs, a sound like gravel in a blender. "Lady, you're not in a position to negotiate. Hand it over, or we'll take it along with whatever else we want."
He takes a step closer, and that's when something primal unfurls in my chest. The same instinct that kept me alive through three tours in Afghanistan, the same cold fury that's made grown men beg for mercy they'll never receive.
Nobody threatens what's mine in my territory. And from the moment I laid eyes on this woman refusing to back down despiteimpossible odds, something deep and possessive in me claimed her.
I swing off the bike and let my boots announce my presence on the cracked asphalt. All four heads turn toward me, but their reactions couldn't be more different.
The three would-be robbers take one look at six-foot-three of muscle wrapped in leather and club colors, and suddenly they remember they've got somewhere else to be. The woman, though, she tilts her head slightly, blue eyes staring at me like she's trying to solve a puzzle.
"Evening, gentlemen." My voice carries the kind of casual menace that's made hardened criminals soil themselves. "Looks like you're having a conversation with the lady here."
The tall one tries to puff up his chest. "This ain't your business, biker."
I smile, and it's the kind of expression that's appeared in more than a few nightmares. "See, that's where you're wrong. Everything that happens in Blackwater Falls after midnight is my business. And right now, you three are making me very unhappy."
The wiry one's already backing away, recognizing the Savage Riders patch on my vest. He knows what it means. The other two are too stupid or too high to read the room properly.
"There's three of us and one of you," Brick Shithouse says, cracking his knuckles like he's in some B-grade movie.
"Math was never my strong suit," I admit, rolling my shoulders to loosen them. "But I've always been good at subtraction."
I take a single step forward, and suddenly the odds don't look so good to them anymore. Something in my eyes, the same thingthat earned me the nickname "King" and built this club from nothing, makes predators recognize an apex predator.
"We were just leaving," the tall one mutters, already moving.
"Smart choice." I don't watch them go. Once prey decides to run, they rarely come back for a second helping. Instead, I focus on the woman who's still clutching that bag like her life depends on it.
She's even more beautiful up close. Heart-shaped face with high cheekbones, full lips that were probably made for smiling though they're pressed tight with stress right now, and those beautiful blue eyes that seem to see straight through me.
"You okay?" I ask, keeping my voice gentle. Amazing how quickly I can change from predator to protector, depending on who's in my crosshairs.
She nods, but her knuckles are white around the bag strap. "Thank you. I know you probably think I was stupid for not just giving them what they wanted, but—"
