Royally F*cked

by Ivy Blake

  Her question brought a smile to my face as I slowly raised my tear-stained gaze up to meet her beautiful green eyes.

  Holy hell, she looked more and more like him every single day.

  “I would love that,” I said.

  She ran to the couch and jumped on it, cutting on the television. I snuggled down next to her, holding her head to my chest while she spread out along my body. We flipped through until we landed on Aladdin, a squeal of delight peeling from her lips. I ran her fingertips through my hair as I kissed her forehead, feeling her settle into me before I pulled a blanket up to cover us both.

  I never told my mother about the Iron Souls. It would’ve killed her to know I had jumped back into the motorcycle life. But, I never brought Emery around them. They took care of me when I was pregnant and didn’t hound me about my decision to keep Emery away. They respected the fact that my mother wasn’t in agreement with how I had to live my life, and until I could get a place of my own, it was just easier to keep my daughter away. A few didn’t like it. They had helped me through the bulk of my pregnancy and helped me recuperate a bit, but the majority of the group understood.

  Which was a relief to me, because The Road Rebels were not the same way.

  With them, you were either in or out. If you associated with anyone regularly in the group, there was an attempt to induct you. They were very family-oriented, but it was born out of a necessity to keep those who understood their secrets close. The Road Rebels, before John and Joe, had been run by a President who was paranoid about any of their whereabouts or movements getting out to rival gangs. Everything about the way they operated was to be kept close to the chest, and if someone wanted to associate with a member and know the in’s and out’s, they had to become part of the group.

  That’s why I left without ever looking back. My father spread the rumor that my mother had died so she could be free to live her life without being hounded, and I left without so much as a word back to anyone for the same reason. I knew they’d hound me if they knew where I was going, and I knew if they hounded me long enough I’d come back.

  Come back to the group that had gotten my father killed.

  It was the real reason why I didn’t attend his funeral… a decision that still rose guilty streams of bile up my throat when I thought about it.

  I swallowed hard as I closed my eyes.

  As I laid there, feeling Emery smiled against my skin, I cursed myself for coming here. For putting her right in the middle of this fucking life. If I knew what was good for us, I needed to take that black sedan as a signal. I needed to pack our shit up, put us back in my car, and keep on driving. Away from here. Away from The Road Rebels.

  Away from Hawk.

  But even with the promise I’d made for myself and even with the promise I’d made my mother, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t tear her away from her father any more than I could tear myself away from Hawk. It was a knee-jerk reaction, coming here and showing up, but one that wasn’t prompted by a random decision.

  Being on the run was a risk I took on when I gravitated back towards the motorcycle lifestyle. When I found the Iron Souls and began running with them.

  When I realized I wasn’t going to truly be able to leave that all behind.

  The truth was, I really had nowhere else to go. My father was robbed from me at twenty years of age, and my mother had just succumbed to cancer. I would’ve simply continued to stay in her house and live out our days in it had the Iron Souls not been busted. I was on the run because of a group I spent maybe six years of my time with, and I had been thrust back into the territory of a group I’d been raised with.

  I literally had nowhere to go. This was the only place I could be.

  The movie droned on in the background as I felt Emery’s breaths evening out against my chest. I held her close as my mind swirled with that black sedan, wondering what in the hell it had been doing out there this morning. Was someone watching me? Was someone watching Hawk? Were The Road Rebels in trouble? Was there something I could do help?

  The last question startled me as I clenched Emery close to my chest. Memories of running around with Hawk and practicing our self-defense with other members of the group caused me to draw in a deep breath. Even with the blood-soaked memories of how I lost my father, I still had wonderful memories of growing up around here. There was never a moment where I felt alone. Where I felt you didn’t have anyone to go talk to. There were fun weekend road trips where I got to experience the open road and take trips with my father. I got to run around campsites with other kids while we played in the water and slept around bonfires.

  Hawk gave me my first kiss behind the dying embers of a hot fire on one of those trips.

  Even with the threats that loomed over our heads, there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t learn something new. Sure, we didn’t attend a regular school. We were all homeschooled by a couple of women who would volunteer to get their licenses through the county. But we learned in ways most children never did. They took us on trips to museums and candy factories. We would lay out at night and name all the stars we could see. We learned about constellations and burning gases and how the sun really shed its light.

  I smiled at the memories as I felt Emery shift on top of my body.

  I reached for the remote and shut the television off. It was approaching five hours since Hawk had been gone and I was beginning to get nervous. It was well past lunch time, almost colliding into dinner, and part of me wanted to call him and make sure he was all right.

  But I didn’t have his number, so that was out of the question.

  I slowly shifted Emery off me, then sat up on the couch. She curled into the cushion, pulling the blanket up onto her body while she continued to sleep. I bent down and kissed her, smoothing her hair out from her face as I smiled at her freckles. She didn’t have as many as me, but they were all congregated around her nose and cheeks. I memorized what she looked like in that very moment, curled up in a blanket that smelled of her father while she slept with a smile on her face.

  I wanted to memorize every part of her innocence before she ultimately found out why we were house-hopping.

  Why we had come to stay with Hawk.

  Who Hawk really was to her.

  I felt tears crest my eyes as I raised up from her. I tucked her in and ventured into the kitchen, cleaning up my mess from that morning. I was beyond conflicted. I wanted to shelter her from this life. Whisk her away to Northern California or Washington State. I wanted to use my two-year degree to get a job that would pay for us to live wonderfully, just like she deserved. I wanted to see her off to school and cook homemade meals she could devour at night. I wanted to decorate her room any way she wished and raise her in one home for the rest of her life.

  I wanted to host sleepovers and be the ‘cool mom’ and have my house be a refuge for all her friends to come when their parents weren’t being as cool as I was.

  But I missed the open road. I missed the wind in my hair. I missed the taste of sand and falling asleep underneath the stars. I missed having a big family, with lots of people to lean on at different times. I missed the fierce protection that came with the motorcycle lifestyle.

  I missed having friends and owning my own bike. I missed the shared camaraderie and the rally we all went to.

  But most of all, I missed Hawk.

  I missed that man more than I could stand.

  “Where are you?” I whispered it to myself as tears streamed down my face. I emptied the rest of the coffee pot into my freshly-cleaned mug as I tried to gather my mind. The last thing I needed to be was an unhinged mess when Hawk finally came through that door.

  But the one thing I’d forgotten was how quiet he could be when he walked.

  “Syd?” he asked as I gasped and whirled around.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Chapter 7

  Hawk

  I knew I had to lose this fucker, no matter what it took. I didn’t know if they were fol
lowing Sydney or if someone had latched onto what we were doing, but I knew I needed to take drastic measures. I kicked my bike into gear and sped out of the gas station, wrapping around the back of it as I looked in my rearview mirror. I saw the black sedan pulling out the parking lot, but they got hung up at the light. I wrapped my way around the gas station and sped down a one-way gravel lot before I crept up onto a bike path and sped through the woods.

  I was dodging cyclists and mothers with their children. I checked to make sure the groceries were okay before I crossed the gravel road. There was a back way that went for miles before it dumped me out onto an exit ramp, and I had every intention of riding it all the way to the highway.

  I sped through the woods and dodged little animals as the concrete turned to dirt. I hung on tight, trying to not rattle the groceries badly as I finally heard the traffic whizzing by my left ear. I took a sharp turn and jumped from the woods, sailing over a steep hill as cars honked at my intrusion. My bike hit with a thud onto the ramp of the highway, and I settled myself into traffic as I looked around.

  There was no black sedan, no police cars chasing me, and no mysterious vehicles trying to catch up.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as I made a u-turn in the middle of the highway. I needed to get going in the right direction so I could get back to Sydney and Emery. The last thing they needed to be was alone right now, especially since I knew someone was following me. What I needed to know was if someone was following them. Was it just me they were clocking, or were they watching my daughter, too.

  Because if someone was keeping tabs on those two women, they were in for a very serious discussion.

  I took the exit ramp and headed for my house as my head continued to dart around. Even as I drove down the main road that led to my house, I didn’t see a black sedan anywhere. I pulled my bike up beside the house and parked it in the shade, waiting around to see if anyone would come creeping up the road. I sat there, perched behind my bike as I kept staring around the corner of the house.

  But when no one came creeping down the road, I grabbed the groceries and went on inside.

  I took a deep breath as I closed the door silently behind me. I figured Emery would be napping somewhere, and I didn’t want to wake her, but the sound that hit my ears soon after I shut the door prickled the hairs on the back of my neck.

  Sydney was in the kitchen crying.

  I slowly walked around with the groceries in my hand as her body came into view. She was hunched over the sink, her hand holding her head as her tears dripped against the stainless steel metal. I stood there for a second, simply watching her. I listened out for anyone else that could be in the house. Anyone that might have come in here to try and harm her.

  But when I was satisfied no one else was in the house, I lifted the bags and set them on the table.

  She jumped and whirled around, her snotty nose and puffy eyes coming into view. She put her finger to her lips before she pointed over to the couch, trying to tell me Emery was asleep.

  “Syd?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Not here,” she said, whispering. “Not here.”

  I put away the cold stuff quickly and left the rest of the shit out on the counter. I took her hand and slowly led her up the steps, not thinking about the fact that I was still wearing my Road Rebels leather jacket. Her sobs were stifled by her hands, the sound crushing my heart as we made our way into my room.

  I sat her on the edge of my bed before I dipped into the bathroom.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Without a word, I started drawing her a bath. She was shaking up a storm, and I had to get her to calm down. I was worried someone had come by to talk with her. Had found her at my house and attempted to intimidate her back into the group. Maybe some other people in another black sedan or some shit had come snooping around and scared her. Or maybe someone looking for her had found her.

  I poured some hand soap into the bath, trying to get her some bubbles that might soothe her before I went back into my bedroom. Her crying had stopped, and she was trying to clean up her nose, but her body was still shaking up a storm.

  “Did someone come by the house?” I asked.

  “No,” she said breathlessly.

  “Would you tell me if someone had?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding.

  “Let’s get you in a bath.”

  I watched her stand, but her hands were shaking so bad she couldn’t grab her clothes. I walked over to her and slowly peeled her robe off her shoulders, letting it fall to the ground. She was still in my shirt, which meant she hadn’t attempted to clean herself up. There was only one time in my life I’d ever seen Sydney not take care of herself.

  And it was when I tried to get her to shower the night her father died.

  “Hey, hey, hey. Look at me.”

  She took a deep breath and raised her beautiful blue eyes up to greet mine. I ran my knuckles over her cheek, wiping away her tears while she tried to breathe through her nose. I wrapped my other hand into my white shirt and held it to her nose, nodding for her to blow as she dumped her face full of snot into the fabric of my clothes.

  “It’s gonna be all right. No one’s gonna find you here. Not The Road Rebels. Not the DEA. Not the Iron Souls, okay?”

  She nodded, but I could tell she still didn’t believe me. I shrugged my leather jacket off and tossed it onto the bed behind her while the tub continued to fill. I pulled my white shirt off and tossed it into the hamper, and immediately I felt her hands rush to my chest. She was so cold, her hands still shaking as her fingertips danced along the ridges of my muscles.

  That was one thing that was definitely different about my body from the last time I’d seen her all those years ago.

  “There’s no need to panic,” I said as I cupped her face. “Look at me.”

  Her breathing finally evened out as my hands smoothed down her neck. My rough pads graced her stomach, as I pushed my shirt up off over her arms. Her hands fell to her sides as the fabric slipped from her body, revealing to me every since crevice I wanted to stick my tongue into.

  “I just spiraled,” she said as her chest heaved.

  “About what?” I asked as I guided her into the bathroom.

  “My father. It just… hit me like a ton of bricks. That night. The blood. It was just… in my lap all of a sudden.”

  “What happened after that?” I asked. “Where were you?”

  “Outside with Emery,” she said breathlessly as I helped her into the tub. “I tried to control it. To latch onto her laughter. But she stopped and just stared at me, and I spiraled.”

  “How often does this happen?” I asked as I cut off the water.

  “Not often,” she said, sighing. “But it’s usually a dream I wake up from. It’s never happened while I’ve been awake.”

  “What never happens?” I asked as I stood.

  “The blood everywhere. I see it. It’s like it’s there. Actually there. Usually, I wake up from a dream, and it’s everywhere, and I can blink it away. But it didn’t happen like that this time.”

  She was dealing with PTSD from that night. We all were, really. Mine always happened in dreams, however. I never had anything happen to me in the middle of the day, unless I was taking a nap or some shit. She stretched her legs, groaning with the tension she was trying to release. I stepped out of my jeans and boxers, kicking them off to the side as her eyes slowly looked over at me.

  I couldn’t help but smirk as her eyes stopped at my cock.

  “Lean up,” I said.

  She leaned her body forward, and I slowly slipped into the tub with her. It was a little cramped, but she curled into me like I knew she would. My hand cupped the warm, soapy water and I poured it over her shoulder. I watched her shiver with relaxation as her body finally unlocked, the tremors leaving her fingertips as she sighed into the crook of my neck.

  She smelled different than she did six years ago, but somehow her scent was sti
ll comforting.

  “Holy hell I miss him,” she whispered into my neck.

  “I know you do. I miss them, too. Both of them.”

  “When am I gonna get over this?” she asked.

  “Probably never. Lots of us still struggle with it. Don’t sleep well. That kinda thing.”

  “Do you struggle with your sleep?” she asked.

  “Sometimes. It’s not as bad as it used to be. And it’s never happened to me during the day like it just did with you.”

  “Does that mean it’s getting worse?”

  “I don’t know. I know a few people who had it during the day and not at night at all. A couple of them had to leave the group. Couldn’t tolerate riding with us anymore.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “It happens. It comes with the life, I guess. I can see why you want to keep Emery from it.”

  A silence descended over us as she turned her back and pressed it into my chest.

  “She should know who her father is,” Sydney said.

  “I agree,” I said.

  “No, I mean… I think we should tell her.”

  “How do you want to approach that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, honestly. But, I wanted you to know where I stood with that. I do eventually want to tell her who you are.”

  “Thank you, because I’d like to be a part of her life. I’ve already missed so much of it…”

  I heard her sniffle, and I automatically wrapped my arms around her. I kissed her shoulders as she started shivering again, and I immediately felt like an asshole.

  “No, no, no. That wasn’t to make you cry. I’m sorry, all right?” I asked.

  “I just feel terrible,” she said. “All I’ve ever tried to do was protect Emery, and it seems that all I’ve done is fucked things up.”

  “You’ve done a wonderful job raisin’ that little girl. She’s smart and strong. She’s wild and free. She reminds me a lot of you when we were younger,” I said.

  “Funny. I thought she reminded me a lot of you.”

  We sat there for awhile and allowed the bubbles to pop against our skin. My arms were draped around her, feeling her tits bounce against my skin as I pulled her closer to me. My fingers began circling her nipple, feeling it pucker underneath my touch as she sighed lightly. She relaxed into the strength of my body as I tweaked her nipple, my lips ghosting up her neck while my nose tickled her pulse point.