“Nice to meet you, sweet thang,” he drawled. My back stiffened, and Ripper’s arm tightened around my waist. Not sure if he was offering me reassurance or warning me to stay in role.
“Nice to meet you, too, Tuck,” I lied, doing my best to maintain a pleasant expression on my face.
Tuck turned his attention from me to the bike. “Something happen to the Road King?”
Ripper sighed. “When I took Chim’s bike, I didn’t know that the damn fuel light was on the fritz. I lost track of the miles on the odometer, and we ran out of gas.”
Tuck snorted. “Rookie mistake, son.”
It was Ripper’s turn to stiffen, and when he responded his voice was icy and his eyes hard. “You think?”
In the old world, a Satan’s Saber wouldn’t mouth off to a Janissary. Did the habit of deference still hold?
“Sorry, man.” Tuck offered what Uncle Mel used to call a shit-eating grin. “So you guys are looking for a place to hole up?”
“Yeah. It’s been a month since we heard of anybody coming down with the flu. Figure anybody still alive is immune.” A bald-faced lie—we lost Miles only two and a half weeks ago—but important information to convey to the out-of-the-loop Wilcox Brigade. We needed them to invite us in, not keep us at a distance out of fear of the contagion. “We’re not worried about the flu anymore. It’s the buck-wild survivors roaming in packs you gotta look out for.”
“Strength in numbers, right brother?” Tuck said.
“Amen to that.”
Tuck tilted his head, squinting while he looked us over. “Me and my new friends, we could use a man with your skills.” He glanced at me again. “And we can always use another pretty girl.”
Just how the creep intended to use a pretty girl was something I absolutely didn’t want to think about.
Bristling internally, I tittered, as if thrilled by the compliment. I turned doe eyes up to Ripper. “What do you want to do, baby?”
“Depends.” He squeezed my ass. “Get me a bottle of water, then get lost while I talk to Tuck.”
Before setting out on our mission, Ripper instructed me on how to play the part of his old lady. Act deferential in front of the other men, especially Tuck, who didn’t like assertive women. Let them underestimate me, see me as an agreeable, nonthreatening appendage to Ripper. Fly under their radar so I could snoop around the house, looking for Sahdev and Bear. And if the shit hit the fan inside of Valhalla, it wouldn’t occur to them to be on guard against me.
I could do that.
“Okay.” I fetched the water then sat on a large boulder, swinging my legs back and forth and examining my cuticles while the men conversed.
Five minutes later, Ripper summoned me over. “We’re going to Valhalla.”
“Is that a town?” I asked.
“No, honey,” Tuck answered. “It’s a ranch. We got lots of room. Good people. Cattle. Horses. Food. Water. We’re sitting pretty.”
I squealed with excitement and clutched Ripper’s arm. “I love horses. Do you think I could learn how to ride one?”
“Dunno,” Ripper said. “Never been on a horse, so I couldn’t teach you.”
“We got a cowboy at the ranch,” Tuck said. “He’s not exactly a willing member of our crew, but I bet we could make him teach you, if you like.”
“That would be so cool.” I bounced on my toes, as if I could barely contain my excitement and didn’t mind at all that they held a cowboy against his will. See! I was as morally bankrupt as any of them.
With a short length of hose, the men siphoned some gas from Tuck’s fuel tank and transferred it to Ripper’s.
Ripper handed me my helmet and swung onto the bike. “Get on the back.”
Ten minutes later, Tuck unlocked the gate to Valhalla, and we rode up the long driveway to the ranch house. The sound of two engines must have attracted attention. Jerrilyn and Boyd stepped out onto the porch. Boyd carried a shotgun. We dismounted, and Tuck led the way to the porch. Jerrilyn crossed her arms over her chest and squinted suspiciously at our approach.
“I ran into an old friend of mine. His bike ran out of fuel a couple of miles from here,” Tuck said by way of introduction. “Ripper’s a Janissary out of Portland, and this is his old lady, Mac.”
Boyd nodded, but didn’t relax his grip on his shotgun.
Jerrilyn took a step forward. A woman of about sixty, with gray-streaked brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, she had deep lines carved into the sides of her mouth, as if the scowl she wore was her habitual expression.
“Why’d you leave Portland?” she demanded.
“Portland’s gone. A religious cult burned it to the ground,” Ripper said.
“You shitting me?” Boyd sputtered.
“The same group blew up The Dalles Dam.”
Jerrilyn sat down hard on the top step and turned triumphant eyes to Boyd. “It’s happening. Just what your father always predicted. What we’ve been preparing for. The System has collapsed. The only thing standing between anarchy and order are militias like ours.”
“Somebody gotta step up,” Ripper agreed. “Sure as shit, the government and military are useless.”
“You carrying?” Boyd asked Ripper.
“What do you think?” Ripper held open his cut, revealing his Colt.
“Get real, Boyd,” Tuck said, shaking his head, his face twisted with derision. “Nowadays, any man with a lick of sense is carrying. I’ve known Ripper for years. He’s just the kind of man we want to recruit to our cause.”
“You wouldn’t mind if we held onto your gun, would you?” Jerrilyn asked. An insincere smile tipped her lips, a smile that proclaimed, I’m just a sweet, little old woman. Nothing to worry about here. Too bad the hard expression in her eyes gave the lie to the friendly gesture.
“Not gonna happen.” Ripper met her gaze calmly.
They stared at each other, neither one backing down. If Jerrilyn gave the order, no doubt Boyd would open fire with his shotgun, but the pellets would strike Tuck as well as Ripper and me. Odds were she wouldn’t want to lose both an established ally and a potential one. Or risk Ripper shooting first. Still, I froze and held my breath, hoping the stalemate would resolve in our favor.
Jerrilyn pursed her lips, deliberating. Finally, she nodded. “Have it your way. Just keep in mind that there are more of us than you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ripper said politely. Somehow I doubted that he was intimidated by their numbers.
Jerrilyn stood and called through the open front door. “Dwight, Darryl, get out here.” Within a minute, the men shambled onto the porch. “Meet Ripper and his old lady Mac, friends of Tuck. These are my nephews. Dwight’s the tall one. Darryl’s the runt.”
Boyd handed the shotgun to one of the men and retreated back into the house.
Her insult rolled right off Darryl’s back, as if he were used to Jerrilyn’s put downs. The men brazenly checked me out, their gaze sweeping up and down my body before honing in on the boobage spilling out of my red lace push-up bra. The taller man elbowed his brother, whispered something in his ear, then snickered.
“You men will want to keep your eyes off my property,” Ripper said, his voice full of quiet menace. He pulled me to his side, his fingers splayed across my rib cage, his thumb brushing the underside of my breast.
Ripper’s property.
Conflicting thoughts waged war inside my mind. I’d stepped inside one of my motorcycle club romances, jumped headfirst over the line separating reality from fantasy. How many times had I closed my eyes and pretended that I was in that world? Curled up in a chair with a book or alone in my bed at night, I wallowed in the fantasy of being claimed as property, safe in the knowledge that no one would ever know my guilty secret. Fantasies are harmless, right?
One by one, Ripper had made my fantasies come true, dragged them out of the darkness. And now circumstances dictated that he unwrap my guilty secret and reveal it to the world. I was no longer Kenzie Dunwitty, good girl, straight-A college student. I wa
s Mac, a biker’s property. My rational mind rebelled against the label, but my heart gloried in it.
It was okay, wasn’t it? We were on the side of the angels, playing a part, trying to rescue our friends and bring down a coven of Nazis.
Dwight and Darryl shuffled their feet, looking decidedly uncomfortable.
“I said, you men will want to keep your eyes off my property,” Ripper repeated. I stared at his stony face. Like a character in one of my books, he was making a bold in-your-face declaration of ownership.
“Answer the man,” Tuck spoke up. Startled, I swung my eyes from Ripper’s face to his. Tuck scowled at the brothers. I’d never be a fan of his, but maybe he felt more of an allegiance to a fellow biker—a Janissary—than he did to his new allies. If so, we could use that to our advantage.
Jerrilyn watched the exchange, her gaze sharp and assessing. “What are you going to do, boys?” Was she challenging them to stand up to Ripper? Did she want them to back down and keep the peace?
Ripper was dancing a fine line here, establishing himself as a take-no-shit alpha male, while at the same time selling himself as a promising new recruit to their cause. He couldn’t afford to look weak, but he didn’t want to alienate everybody right off the bat. Ripper’s jaw was set in implacable lines as he stared down the men.
Holy shit. I got it. He was doing this to protect me. The same man who’d taught me how to shoot and how to fight, who brought me along on a critical mission, would also die to keep me safe. He was risking a confrontation that might derail our plans in order to make it one hundred percent clear that I was off limits. To establish that he’d take down any man who leered at me, not to mention who touched me. He’d told me that the Property of Ripper necklace meant that I could count on him to stand between me and harm. I touched the necklace, taking comfort from that promise.
“Sorry, man. We’ll keep our eyes to ourselves,” Dwight said, while his brother nodded in agreement.
“Glad we cleared that up,” Ripper said.
“Dinner’s about ready. You may as well come in.” Jerrilyn held open the screen door and gestured for us to enter.
Ripper stepped in front of me and led the way across the porch and into a large living room. With its deep leather sofas and huge stone fireplace, it must have been a pleasant gathering room before the Wilcox Brigade took over the house. They’d tacked a homemade Wilcox Brigade flag—emblazoned with swastikas—onto the main wall.
“Set two more places at the table,” Jerrilyn called out.
A heavily pregnant woman waddled into the room. Her face was flushed and sweaty, as if she’d been standing over a hot stove. “Ma’am?”
“We have guests. Ripper is an old friend of Tuck’s and Mac is his girlfriend.”
“Old lady,” Ripper corrected.
“And this is Libby, Boyd’s wife,” Jerrilyn continued, ignoring Ripper’s comment.
Libby nodded and pressed a hand against her lower back. Her ankles were so swollen that she’d stuffed her feet into a pair of slippers instead of shoes.
“Can I help you get the food on the table?” I offered, then remembered that I was playing a part. I glanced at Ripper’s face. “If it’s okay with you, that is.”
Nothing in his bland expression indicated that we were role-playing, that it was unusual for me to ask permission to do something.
“Sure, babe. Make yourself useful.”
You know, fantasizing about a dominant alpha male was one thing. In reality, begging permission to help with dinner set my teeth on edge. Still, I clenched my jaw and smiled up at him before following Libby to the kitchen.
Women’s realm, right Pastor Bill?
Stainless-steel pots simmered on top of a wood-burning stove similar to the one that Nicole had in her cabin. Libby picked up a wooden spoon and stirred one of the pots. “We’re having spaghetti. I picked lettuce and early tomatoes this morning for a salad.”
“You shouldn’t lift that heavy pot.” I moved to her side and glanced at the top of the stove, where a cow-shaped kitchen timer ticked down the minutes. “Let me strain the noodles when the timer goes off.”
“I’d appreciate that, Mac.” Libby wiped her arm across her forehead.
“Why don’t you sit down at the kitchen table and put together the salad, while I finish up the spaghetti?”
Sighing, Libby dropped into a chair. She placed a tomato on a cutting board, picked up a knife, and began to slice it. “Have you and Ripper been together long?”
“Only a couple of months.” I stirred the sauce. “Once the pandemic hit, I moved into my cousin’s compound in Portland. Ripper was his next-door neighbor. We met and hit it off, and it turned out we’re both immune. I don’t think that many couples survived the flu together.” I glanced over my shoulder at her. “Except you and Boyd.”
Libby dumped the sliced tomatoes into a giant wooden bowl full of lettuce. “After Boyd’s father was murdered in prison, we all rented a place outside of Battle Ground in Washington. We stockpiled food and weapons. Kept to ourselves. When people started dying from the flu, Boyd and Jerrilyn decided that we needed to get far away from everybody else. To protect the baby, you know. So we packed up and looked for a place way out in the sticks. We found Valhalla.”
“That was lucky,” I said. “Had the people who lived here died from the flu? Weren’t you afraid that the place was contaminated?”
“Nobody here had the flu,” she assured me. “The rancher and his wife and their ranch hands resisted, but Boyd and the men took care of them. The ranch owner’s son showed up a couple of days later. By then, Boyd had figured out that we’d need somebody around who knows how to tend to the cattle and run the equipment. You know, a ranch hand. We kept him alive. He’s here.”
“Here? Where?” I craned my neck, glancing around, as if Bear was in the room. “Is that safe? I mean, he’s got to be pissed that you killed his family.”
“Nothing to worry about. He’s chained up securely in a back room. We bring him out every morning to work. After our dinner, I bring him a plate of food.”
Apparently, Libby was eager to talk to another young woman. Considering that the only other woman on the ranch was her mother-in-law, a scary battle axe from everything I heard, I couldn’t blame Libby for being eager to make a new friend. Good. It meant that I’d be able to glean a wealth of information from the lonely, chatty young woman.
“You look tired,” I said, touching her arm. “Maybe I could carry the food to him so you can rest.” I couldn’t afford to make her suspicious, so I tamped down my eagerness to see Bear. “If you’re sure it’s safe, that is.”
“Maybe. It depends on what the men say.”
She laid a hand on her belly. Her fingers jumped when the baby kicked. I glanced at the timer. Three minutes and forty-five seconds left. I turned to face her and pointed at her distended stomach. “May I?”
“Sure.” She held out a hand, and I knelt down next to her chair. Libby placed my palm on the left side of her belly. Within a few seconds, the baby kicked.
My eyes grew wide. “Wow.”
“I know. Can you believe there’s a real person in there?”
We shared a genuine smile, a sisterly solidarity as we marveled over the new life she was carrying.
Then she opened her mouth.
“Have you and Ripper considered having a baby? The mongrel races are easy breeders. If we’re not vigilant, they’ll overwhelm us and take over. It’s up to people like us to replenish our pure racial stock.”
Mongrel races. Pure racial stock.
My horrified mind blanked for a good twenty seconds, and I struggled to formulate a response. “We haven’t talked about having a baby,” I sputtered. “We’ve only known each other for a few months. It’s way too soon to consider it.”
“For two healthy young white people, it’s never too soon to start considering having a baby. It’s your duty to the race.” Libby leaned forward eagerly. “Besides, wouldn’t it be fun if our
babies could grow up together? Who knows, they might even fall in love someday and get married.”
I blinked. I’ve always kept a mental list of fates worse than death, most of them related to my fear of the dark and my claustrophobia. Being trapped in a collapsed building after an earthquake, curled up in a tiny void, unable to see, move, or escape. Being wedged into a narrow underwater cavern while cave diving, my arms pinned to my side, unable to wriggle free, hoping to be rescued before my oxygen supply ran out. Recently, marriage to Pastor Bill joined that list. And now, a new horror, my child—Ripper’s child—marrying into the Wilcox Brigade.
I had to say something, and the perfect thing suddenly occurred to me. “Are you worried about having a baby without a doctor? In case something goes wrong?”
“We have a doctor,” Libby assured me, squeezing my hand. “Dwight and Darryl came across him a few days ago.”
“I didn’t meet him. Where is he?”
“He’s in the back of the house with our other prisoner. I’ll feed them both later on,” Libby said.
Thank God. Proof that Sahdev was still alive and a clue about his location.
I furrowed my brow, hoping to look confused. “Why is the doctor a prisoner?”
Libby made a face. “Unfortunately, the doctor isn’t white. Ordinarily, Boyd would never allow a man like that anywhere near me, but Jerrilyn overruled him. She says the health of the baby comes first, and for the good of the race we have to make sure that I survive the delivery.”
Warm and fuzzy mother-in-law, wasn’t Jerrilyn? She wanted Libby to survive for the good of the race. Libby and I would never be friends. She bought into all of the brigade’s racist bullshit. From everything she said, their treatment of Sahdev and Bear didn’t give her pause or prick her conscience in the least. I despised her choices and everything she believed, but I also pitied her.
The timer went off, relieving me of the need to reply. I jumped to my feet and dumped the spaghetti into the strainer that sat in the sink, then transferred the pasta to the pan of sauce.
“Do we dish up in the kitchen or put the food on the table?” I asked.
“Just carry the pot of spaghetti to the table, through there.” Libby pointed through an arched doorway. “I’ll bring the salad and extra place settings.” I tucked a potholder under my arm so the hot pan wouldn’t scorch the table and followed Libby into the dining room.
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