“Better?”I asked.
She nodded, one hand absently touching her bandaged temple.“Yes.Thank you.”
A simple exchange, but it felt like progress.Two hours ago, she’d been barely conscious in my arms at the gate.Now she was sitting at my table, clean and fed, fever receding.Not safe yet -- not truly -- but safer.
“We should talk.”I set my coffee mug aside.“About what happened at the gate.What it means.”
Her fingers traced the edge of the empty bowl, a rhythmic motion betraying her nerves.“You claimed me.”
“Yes.”
“In front of your… club.”
“Yes.”
Her gaze searched mine, hunting for meaning beyond the answers I’d given.“What does it actually mean?Beyond getting me through the gate?You explained some, but I still don’t get it.”
A fair question.One deserving a straight answer.
“In my world, claiming someone is a declaration.”I held her gaze, not softening the truth.“It means you’re mine, by MC standards.No one touches you, threatens you, or disrespects you without answering to me.”
Her breath caught slightly at “mine,” but she didn’t flinch or look away.Progress.
“And what does ‘mine’ entail, exactly?”she asked, voice steady despite the tension I could see building in her shoulders.
“Protection,” I said simply.“Loyalty.Resources.”I paused, making sure my next words were clear.“It doesn’t require anything physical you don’t want.Ever.That isn’t what this is about.”
Telling her she was essentially my wife would’ve sent her bolting for the door so fast I’d catch only a blur.
Relief flickered across her face, quickly masked.“So it’s like… bodyguard service?”
One corner of my mouth lifted.“More complicated.The Kings don’t take in strays and don’t allow unclaimed women inside the compound.Claiming you told the club -- and anyone who matters -- you’re family now.You fall under our protection.Anyone who wants to reach you comes through me first.”
The fire crackled in the silence, shadows sliding across the wooden walls as the weight of my words settled between us.Outside, an owl called into the night, its cry echoing across the compound.
Her hands stilled on the table, knuckles whitening.“Do you understand what you’ve done?”The question came out raw, almost angry.“What it means to stand between me and…” She stopped, swallowed hard.“You don’t know who he is.What he’ll do.”
I leaned forward, meeting her intensity with calm certainty.“You’re right.I don’t know him.But I know men like him.”My years with the Kings had taught me plenty about predators.“Men who zip-tie women and pistol-whip them when they try to run.Men who hunt someone half their size across county lines.”Something cold and certain settled in my voice.“I know exactly what they do.”
She shook her head, fingers twisting together on the tabletop.“This isn’t some bar fight or territorial dispute.He won’t just back down because you’re” -- she gestured vaguely at my cut draped across her shoulders --”whatever you are.”
“Reckless Kings,” I supplied, nodding toward the embroidered patch.“And you’re right.He won’t back down.”I let it sink in before continuing.“But neither will I.”
Callie stared at me, searching for weakness or deception.Finding neither, her shoulders slumped slightly, not in defeat but in something like bewilderment.
“Why?”she asked.“Why take this on?I’m nobody to you.”
It was a legitimate question.One Beast and Ranger had communicated without words at the gate.One I’d asked myself when I first spotted her crumpled form on the roadside.
“When I was nineteen, I was heading nowhere fast.Bad decisions, worse company.The Kings found me several years later.”I rarely talked about those days, but she deserved some explanation.“They could have left me to figure shit out on my own.Instead, they brought me in.Gave me purpose.Family.”I met her gaze steadily.“Sometimes people deserve a second chance.”
“And if he finds me here?”
“Then he finds more than he bargained for.”Simple truth.The Kings didn’t just talk about protection -- we delivered it, with whatever force necessary.
She studied me for a long moment, something shifting in her expression.Not quite trust, but consideration.Weighing options, outcomes.The calculation of someone used to having only bad choices.
“I know exactly what I’ve done,” I said, answering the question she’d asked earlier.“The question is whether you do.”
