Chapter 2
Knox
Rain hammers my face but I don't feel it.
All I feel is her. Arms locked around my waist, fingers not quite meeting across my stomach. Face pressed against my back, sheltering from the storm. And cutting through the rain and exhaust and pine—her scent. Faint, diluted by the storm, but there. Warm. Bright. Something like summer grass and honey that has no business existing in this downpour.
My grip tightens on the handlebars.
Twenty years I've built this life. Twenty years since I walked away from the clans, from my father's throne, from everything I should have been. Forty-two years old and scarred in places no one sees. Long past believing in fairy tales.
So why does this small human woman make my blood sing?
I lean into the curves harder than I should. Her arms tighten and she leans with me into the curves. The feral thing in my chest—the part I've spent decades chaining down—rumbles approval.
Good. She trusts us.
I kill that thought. She doesn't know me. Scared, stranded, out of options. That's desperation, not trust.
But underneath her exhaustion, underneath the terror I caught on the roadside—she smells like relief.
The clubhouse lights slice through the rain as we round the final bend. I ease off the throttle, let the other bikes pull ahead and give her a moment to see it.
The Shipyard rises from the waterfront—massive timber beams weathered by salt and decades, sprawling across the old dock works. We've spent twenty years turning this abandoned wreck into home.
She lifts her head from my back, arms loosening, and I hear her breath catch.
I imagine what she sees: dark wood against darker water. Bikes lined up in formation. The Feral Sons banner snapping in the wind. Warm light bleeding from a dozen windows. Nothing like the corporate boxes humans build.
A monster's den.
I kill the engine. Silence crashes down, louder than the rain. Brothers dismount around us, rolling their bikes under the covered walkway.
"You okay back there?"
She doesn't answer right away. Her hands flatten against my stomach—steadying herself—and heat punches through my wet shirt.
"It's bigger than I expected." Her voice comes muffled through the helmet.
I swing off and turn to help her down. The moment her leg clears the seat, she wobbles. I catch her elbow. Her free hand lands on my chest.
She looks up.
Rain streams down the visor, hiding her face. But it doesn't matter. I know what's happening. Her pulse hammers where my fingers circle her arm. Her scent shifts—curiosity threading through the exhaustion. Something warmer underneath.
My fingers tighten on the doorframe hard enough to dent the wood.
"Knox." Finn's voice cuts through. "Want me to get her set up in the back room?"
I drop her arm. "No, I'll handle it."
His eyebrow rises. He doesn't push. Smart man.
Sarah pulls off the helmet, shakes loose hair darkened with rain, and looks past me toward the entrance. Garrett fills the doorway—seven feet of minotaur, arms crossed, horns catching the light. Rex leans against a pillar beside him, gold tusk caps glinting, wearing that careful blank expression he uses when sizing someone up.
Sarah doesn't shrink.
She should. Any human with survival instincts should take a step back from Garrett. Make herself small. Show submission.
