by Dark, Raven
“Fuck this,” I muttered. Turning on my heel, I stalked back to her.
“Hawk, what—”
I seized her nape and laid a bruising kiss on her mouth. “I love you, too.”
Then I whipped around and stomped out, her small gasp filling my ears.
I grinned from ear to ear.
My words violated the self-imposed obligation I had set for myself to one day become a fifth level tai dan, but here and now, they felt too right to ignore. The truth in them burned my heart like a branding iron. I was the master of her body, her being; but that woman, damn her, she was the master of my heart.
Somewhere distant, Pretty Boy hooted with laughter again.
Shit. What the fuck had he done? The gavel in my cut pocket felt suddenly heavy and foreboding. I felt like I was in over my head, out of my element here, but I had to do this. I had to lead until Sheriff could take the gavel again.
In a perfect world, a general passed his title on to his Second when he was old and grey, after he’d lived a long and happy life with his Brothers. It happened when the time came for the sun to set on his reign and rise with the beginning of the new general’s leadership. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Ideally, the transfer of leadership from one MC general to his successor wasn’t that different from a master over a sect of the Yantu Order and his highest student. It happened when both were ready, with a transition as smooth as a river’s calm. Short of an untimely death, my having to take the gavel had happened in the worst possible way. It was worse because Sheriff hadn’t died a valiant death saving his club, a warrior’s death in battle. He’d lost his title at the hands of an enemy, to an enemy-inflicted disability that, in the eyes of many in this world, made him a burden. That Sheriff was my best friend made it so much worse.
Pretty Boy was wrong; he’d been lashing out when he’d accused me of betraying Sheriff, but deep down, I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of guilt, as if I had stolen his title from him.
With a nod to Oran stationed outside the hut, I relieved him of guard duty. Whistling over to one of my other guards sitting in front of front of Bear’s hut, I marched in the direction of Pretty Boy’s laugh, meaning to put a stop to whatever chaos was about to ensue. I didn’t get more than ten steps from his and Steel’s hut before I nearly bumped right into Ali’san. She’d been heading for the front door to my hut.
“Tai Dan Hawk.” She signaled to Oran that she’d take over the watch on Setora.
“Ali’san. You want the next watch?” Approval and surprise jolted through me that she cared for Setora so much, that they’d become such close friends over these last few days.
“I will…” She cut herself off and the color drained out of her naturally pale face, making her look ghostly white.
“What is it?”
Her pale, Violet eyes went wide. “And the Breaking of the Four shall come with the rise of the full moon but for the hand of the Savior that shall heal them.”
“What?”
She shook herself, and her face became a mask as if she hadn’t spoken. “Forgive me, Tai Dan Hawk. You do not have time for chit-chat, General. There is a problem that needs your attention.”
My head spun. The Breaking of the fucking Four? “What kind of problem?” My voice came out hoarse.
She nodded in the direction of Steel’s hut. “They’re already waiting for you,” she said calmly.
I whipped a look over at the hut, then back to Ali’san who was now walking away, hands clasped behind her, that sword of hers strapped to her back.
Fuck, I had an unsettled feeling no one had told her that there was a problem. I should have been used to this sort of thing with Setora, but the implications still filled me with a sense of wonder. Premonitions were things of myth, abilities people expected the Yantu to possess, only we didn’t. I was still trying to adjust to her being a warrior, for fuck’s sake.
I shook my thoughts off and walked toward Pretty Boy and Steel’s hut. Both of them were laughing now, the sound drifting out of the hut and grating on my last nerve. I growled under my breath. “Idiots.” I opened the door and stepped inside.
As soon as I entered the living room, both Pretty Boy and Steel stood up from the table and plastered silly grins on their faces.
“What did you two do now?” I rumbled.
“Nothing,” Steel chirped.
Pretty Boy remained silent, shaking his head so that his long ponytail brushed his shoulders. At least he was deigning to be in the same room as me, what with the fucking showdown in the street we’d had yesterday.
Both of them were standing in front of the table, Pretty Boy rocking on his heels. Steel scratched his nose and gave a fake cough.
“Then why do you both look like the cats that just ate the canary?”
Neither said a word, exchanging the smirks that fought their way to the surface.
Suspicion made me raise my brow. “Not buying the act, Brothers. What have you been up to?”
“Nothing, boss,” Steel said with an innocence that didn’t fool me for a second.
Both were holding big mugs in their hands. I walked over and looked inside them. The liquid looked like water, but it stank of moonshine. If Ali’san thought this was a big problem, knowing my luck, they’d stolen it from someone in the village.
“Dump that shit out. You can get shit-faced later, but not in my meeting.”
“Sorry, Hawk,” Steel muttered, dumping his mug out the window.
“No, we’re not,” Pretty Boy countered. When he didn’t dump his, Steel grabbed his mug and did it for him.
I sighed and went around to the other side of the table. Pretty Boy was trying to get under my skin. This was going to be a long day. “Where’s Doc?”
“Coming,” Steel said. “He’s been up half the night with a new mother in town.”
I pulled out a chair. “Have a seat. We’ll wait for him.”
Steel took a seat opposite me. Pretty Boy crossed his arms and didn’t touch the chair in front of him. The smug look on his face, a look that usually had me shaking my head and trying not to laugh, now irritated the hell out of me.
“Sit down, Pretty Boy,” I said evenly.
“I’ll stand, thanks.”
Wow. If he’d been sitting and I told him to stand, he would have stayed on his ass. I let it slide, not rising to his bait.
Withdrawing the gavel from my cut, I set it on the table.
Pretty Boy’s gaze zeroed in on it, lethal. “Was that thing burning a hole in your pocket, Hawk?”
I ignored him.
“PB, come on,” Steel said coaxingly, shaking the chair beside him. “Sit down, man.”
I almost blinked. Steel never undermined him.
Pretty Boy ignored his sidekick.
That was even weirder. The two of them always acted in tandem, a well-oiled, if crazy-making machine whose two parts were inseparable, never one without the other.
The door to the hut opened, and Doc stepped in, shutting it behind him. “Sorry to hold the meeting up.” He joined us at the table and set down his medical kit. “I just got finished with an eight-hour labor.”
“Not a problem, Doc. How’s the mother?”
“Exhausted. But it’s gone a long way with the villagers. They don’t give us the stink-eye as much as they used to.”
“Good to hear.” I gave the gavel the customary double tap on the table.
We went through all the matters of importance. Sheriff’s condition and his continuing unwillingness to cooperate with anyone, my plan to try yet again to convince the Yantu to help him. The lack of progress we’d made in finding the Ladies of Shana Ra, or any hint of where Julian was, and lastly, Setora’s connection to him. The last was the only thing that seemed to be going well, since she still hadn’t had any dreams about him, and other than the test with Master Leif, he hadn’t made any appearances.
Which left us one more matter to discuss. The idea of bringing it up made my gut churn. �
�We still have to reassign ranks,” I said, twirling the gavel slowly between my fingers.
Doc stared at the table in front of him, nodding silently. Since I wasn’t the Undergeneral anymore, someone had to take over the role. Obviously, Doc hadn’t considered that, and it cut at him just as much as it did me.
Steel ran his hand through his hair, not looking at me.
“Don’t look at me,” Pretty Boy said, raising his hands. “I don’t want it.”
I scowled at him. Likely he was backing out of the role for the same reason I’d told Setora he wouldn’t want the gavel; it was too much responsibility. And yet, I couldn’t help thinking his reason was more personal than that. He didn’t want to serve under me. His refusal indicated just how far apart we’d grown.
I leaned back with a sigh. “Well, according to rank, the role is supposed to go to you, Pretty Boy. But I don’t have to follow seniority. Steel, that means you’re next in line.”
Steel’s head snapped up. “Uh…oh.” He gave another cough. “Hawk, I don’t think you want the Legion to end up in the shitter.” He gave a forced smile.
Did I imagine something else flashing in his eyes? Something that looked like guilt?
Doc and Pretty Boy chuckled, and Pretty Boy clapped him on the shoulder.
“You never give yourself enough credit, Steel,” I said. “You are more capable than you think.”
“Shucks, Hawk, you’ll make me blush.” He glanced at the others. Pretty Boy shrugged, as if to tell him to go for it.
“You got this, Steel,” Doc said. “Besides, if you don’t take it, I have to, and no one wants an old badger like me at the helm.”
“Shit, man, this sucks.” Steel heaved a sigh. “I didn’t want it like this.” He crossed his huge arms and gave me a nod. “I got your back, Hawk.”
I reached over and clasped his shoulder in as much thanks as reassurance. “Which leaves one order of business. Who’s turn is it to take care of Sheriff?”
“Mine.” Doc raised a begrudging hand.
“Good. Then—”
“He won’t have to,” Pretty Boy said. “Not after today.”
“What?” A foolish hope sprang up in me.
“If it pleases the Court, there is still one matter to address.” Pretty Boy dug into an inside pocket of his cut and drew something out—a small glass container. He waved his hand with a dramatic flourish and grin, setting it on the table in front of us.
My heart nearly stopped dead in my chest. The familiar bottle was a squat opaque white container I’d only seen once.
Once in Master Leif’s private healer’s cache.
That was the bottle of healer’s solution he’d shown me. The one that could cure Sheriff’s fucking blindness.
“You want to give it to him or should I?” Pretty Boy quipped. His eyes burned with a victorious light.
Fuck. I couldn’t breathe. Under any other circumstance I’d have been thrilled to see that bottle there. I’d have damned near leaped high enough to hit my head on the ceiling, Yantu calm be damned. A certain level of intense joy hit me, but it mixed with a thick, choking dread that coiled in my stomach.
Because there was only one way he could have gotten his hands on that dammed bottle.
When I spoke, I hardly recognized my own voice. “Tell me you’re fucking joking, Pretty Boy.”
“Nope.” He rocked on his heals.
“What did you do,” I whispered. “How did you get it?”
“How do you think?”
Steel grinned into his fist.
The dread morphed into horror. My teeth clenched. “What. Did. You. Do?”
“What else?” Pretty Boy said effortlessly. “We did what pirates do, Hawk. What we do best.”
I ran my hands through my hair, letting out a long, calming sigh.
“Oh, come on.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re mad? Seriously? Hawk, Sheriff is going to see again. We did good, man.”
I latched onto that single fact—the fact that Sheriff would see again—and shut out the anger rising in me for a moment, choosing instead to focus on the indescribable, bittersweet elation filling me.
Reaching out with trembling fingers, I picked up the bottle slowly, as if it might break in my hands at any moment. In that palm-sized bottle rested the salvation of our club. Sheriff’s salvation from eternal darkness.
I unscrewed the cap, looked inside the bottle… and blinked.
There was nothing in the bottle… nothing except a small, rolled up piece of paper, the kind used with carrier pigeons. Ice ran through my veins as I drew the paper out.
“What the fuck?” Pretty Boy growled.
I closed my eyes, heavy bricks of dread settling on my chest. I rolled open the paper and read it.
The tiny scroll had two words written on it in Master Leif’s elegant scrawl.
It read, Nice try.
My fingers felt suddenly numb, the blood rushing in my ears. The bottle slipped from my fingers, dropping to the floor with a soft tinkle of breaking glass.
“What is it, dammit?” Pretty Boy drawled.
“Hawk?” Doc prompted when I didn’t move, only stood there frozen in front of them.
My chest rose and fell, heavy and hard. I handed the paper to Pretty Boy slowly. Steel stood up and read it over his shoulder. The color left both of their faces.
“Son of a fucking bitch!” Pretty Boy shouted. He handed the paper to a worried looking Doc.
Doc scowled at the words and then put his head back. “Shit.”
I took the paper from him and glared at it, as if doing so would somehow change the words written there. But they remained the same, taunting me.
I dropped my shoulders, letting the paper fall to the dirt floor, anger burning a hole in my chest. Anger that should have been entirely with Pretty Boy, only it wasn’t. An equally caustic animosity toward my master cut at me. I felt like a child, pissed at his father for having caught him stealing from his coin purse. That the theft was for a noble cause made the anger feel painfully justified, which only heightened the emotion and cycled it back onto Pretty Boy.
My Fortress had never felt so damned out of reach.
“Fucking rat-bastard Yantu.” Pretty Boy gripped the edge of the table with an angry growl. “I should have known. It was too easy getting in and out of there.”
“He knew we were coming,” Steel muttered, glancing at me. “Your master knew we would try something like this.”
It didn’t surprise me that Steel had been in on this. “So you dragged him into this, as usual,” I snapped at Pretty Boy. “Steel, do you realize what you two have done?”
“Go easy on him, Hawk.” Steel’s voice was flat. “Actually, it was—”
I put up my hand. He silenced but looked stung. I glared at Pretty Boy. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
He flashed me a belligerent look. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” I hissed. “You went against orders. You stole from me.”
“You?” His lips twisted in disgust. “No, I stole from that jerk you call a master.”
I closed my eyes, reining in the last of my patience.
“Hawk, back off of him a little,” Steel said. “This wasn’t his—”
“No, Steel, I will not back off. He crossed the fucking line.”
“Hawk.” Steel waited until I fired a look at him. He cleared his throat. “This wasn’t his idea. It was mine.”
I jerked back, as if slapped. “What?”
Pretty Boy nodded, shaking Steel’s shoulders. “He did good. His plan was fucking brilliant. It should have worked. It would have if Leif wasn’t such a shit.”
I clenched my teeth. It was bad enough that Steel had led the charge on this, something he never did, but for Pretty Boy to be congratulating him… And then for him to blame my master because the plan hadn’t worked...
“Have you fucking lost it, Pretty Boy? You’re blaming my master for this?”
His eyes blazed as he rammed his fist into
his palm. “Damn straight, I’m blaming his ass. I ought to storm through that temple and break his fucking nose.”
“Pretty Boy, what the fuck is wrong with you? You two have no idea what you’ve done, do you? You haven’t the faintest fucking clue.”
“And what is it we did, exactly, besides try to help our General and save this club from falling apart, huh?” he yelled.
I let out a deep rumble. It took everything in me not to throw the table at him. Instead, I set my hands on the back of the chair, restraining them from bringing a whole world of hell on him that would have had him in Doc’s infirmary for a month. Somehow, I kept my voice even, a quiet, dangerous calm that, for anyone who knew me, indicated how close I was to hurting someone.
“For starters, you two violated the Yantu Order. You dishonored my master, and that means you dishonored me. You stole from him, which means you stole from me.”
“Oh, Hawk, get off your fucking high horse, this isn’t about you—”
“Secondly,” I growled darkly, “do you have any idea what kind of shame your actions have brought on me—on this club?”
“Shame?” Pretty Boy bit out. “You think I care about shame or any of your fucking honor shit right now? The General is sitting up there in the dark, practically trying to kill himself.” He jerked his hand in the direction of Sheriff’s hut. “He’s killing himself because he knows what being blind means for a man like him. His life is over, Hawk. Over. Do you get that? If he doesn’t get his sight back, it’s over for him. Being the General is all he knows.”
I let out a long, calming breath and closed my eyes, pushing down the agony those words brought. It killed me to know that, on some level, as wrong as his and Steel’s actions were, his words carried a painful truth.
“And those…shits over there in their high and mighty temple know how to fix him,” Pretty Boy added lividly. “But will they? Fuck no. Why not? Because of what we wear,” he grabbed his cut, fisting it, his eyes wild. “Because of what we are, Hawk. And for you to side with those fuckers means you are—”
“Pretty Boy, stop,” Doc said, almost sensing that something irrevocable was happening the longer Pretty Boy spoke. I knew it, because I felt it too.