The Hellfire Riders: Saxon & Jenny

by Kati Wilde

  His hoarse question barely penetrates. I haven’t come. That’s the problem now.

  “Jenny.” Long fingers tighten in my hair. “Why’d you stop by?”

  My chest seems suddenly squeezed by those same fingers. I look up. Saxon’s dark blue eyes are steady on mine. Waiting.

  He said he’d make me scream my answer to him. I didn’t scream. But I panted and moaned.

  Now the ache that fills me isn’t need. Just embarrassment. Anger. And the pain of realizing just how stupid I am. That wasn’t a kiss. Saxon just wanted my guard down so that I’ll tell him what he wants to know.

  I should have realized, though. I should have guessed. Where Saxon is concerned, nothing is pure heaven. There’s always the hell, too.

  “Get off me,” I say, but my throat is so thick that barely a whisper emerges.

  Saxon must have heard me, because he sets my feet down. I turn away from him, folding my arms over my aching stomach. I don’t know if I’m going to cry or be sick.

  He’s still right behind me. “Why’d you—”

  “Just let it go!” I close my eyes against their burning. “Please.”

  The harsh sound of his breathing fills the silence. Then he says softly, “Should I go ask Anna, instead?”

  “You asshole.” I whirl and shove at his chest—and get nowhere, except more pissed. “You wouldn’t ever ask any of your brothers to snitch on each other. Don’t you put that shit on her, making her choose between her boss or her friend.”

  “So I’m an asshole. And you’re hiding something you believe would be a snitch.” He catches my wrists in a tight grip. “Was it the Eighty-Eight? Were they hassling you?”

  “No!” Damn it all. He will ask Anna. “They were behind me when I got off the highway. So I pulled in here, just in case. But as far as I could tell, they were just passing through. I don’t even think they recognized me. So it was nothing.”

  His eyes blaze. “You know Reichmann’s brother is running their house now? You know the shit he’s stirring up about you?”

  That I’m a cocktease. That I’ve fucked all the Titans and deliberately put myself in front of his brother at the rally, to start a fight between the clubs, to see him killed. And that I deserve to get a real fucking now.

  Saxon is the one who’d killed the man’s brother, but Reichmann is either too cowardly or too smart to gun for him. That’s probably why Reichmann focused on me—because there is actually some chance of getting to me and taking his revenge.

  “I heard,” I say quietly.

  “You heard.” With an enraged snarl, Saxon yanks me closer. “And you’re telling me that it’s fucking nothing?”

  “Yes.” I don’t know where my sudden calm comes from. Maybe I just don’t have anything else left. “Because I’m leaving.”

  “You just downed two shots and a beer,” he says through gritted teeth. “You think I’m letting you drive out of here?”

  “No.” I wouldn’t be that stupid. “I mean that I’m leaving town. So it won’t matter what the Eighty-Eight wants to do to me, because I’ll be gone.”

  I’ve never seen Saxon staggered by anything. I’ve watched him hear out a guilty verdict and a prison sentence with no more reaction than a tilt of his head and a nod of acceptance. Now he stares at me, his face a rigid mask, his lips edged with white. “You’re what?”

  “I decided today. I’m selling the brewery. And just getting out.” God, and my calm is already cracking. Apparently I do have more left inside me—and it all hurts. “Because the cops can’t do anything until Reichmann actually touches me, and by that time I’ll already have been gang-raped. Maybe worse. So if I stay, either I’ll end up hurt, or someone who tries to protect me will.”

  Expression savage, he shoves his face into mine. “Over. My. Dead. Fucking. Body.”

  “That’s the point,” I say on a shuddering breath, and he jerks away, releasing my wrists.

  “No.” He stares at me, his jaw working. Tightening his own leash again. Finally he growls, “You stay right here. I’ll be back in one minute. Don’t you fucking try to slip out the back.”

  I wouldn’t. I’m running from the Eighty-Eight Henchmen, not from Saxon. At my nod, he rips open the door and stalks out. I hear him roaring for Stone.

  My legs are shaking. All of me is shaking—and tears are far too close. Taking shallow breaths, trying to loosen the thick knot in my throat, I sink into the chair facing the desk and cover my mouth with trembling hands.

  So this is it. My life shattered by the abnormal cells going apeshit in my dad’s lungs and some supremacist with a grudge. I need to just pick up the pieces and go.

  But there are going to be so many pieces missing. My dad, the biggest. Along with Thorne, Anna. They’ve been a part of my life for so long. Knowing they soon won’t be hurts almost more than I can bear.

  And Saxon. I don’t know why the thought of never seeing him again tears me apart like this—as if I’m letting go. Even though I’ve never had him.

  Except one kiss.

  My lips still feel hot and swollen. Branded. As if he marked me as his.

  He doesn’t need to. I’ve been Saxon Gray’s for a long time now. I don’t know how long, exactly. Maybe since the rally. The courtroom. Outside the auto shop, or sometime during all the years following.

  Or since the letter. Don’t you EVER be sorry.

  I hadn’t done a good job of not being sorry before. I will now. No excuses. No apologies. Just do what I need to do, the best that I can do it—and never be sorry for it.

  “Jenny.”

  God. Just hearing his voice hurts. Heart aching, I glance over. Saxon stands at the office’s entrance. He’s wearing his kutte now, and the leather vest makes him look even bigger, meaner. His hands grip either side of the door frame and his arms are tightly flexed, as if he’s bracing himself against the wood—or stopping himself from coming through.

  His hard blue gaze never leaves my face. “We’re running the route back to the highway, then to your place, and making sure those fuckers aren’t waiting. When you’re ready to go, Thorne will ride with you. A few more of us will follow as escort. All right?”

  Throat thick, I nod. “Thank you.”

  For a moment I think he’ll throw my gratitude back in my face. Instead his voice is like dark, rough asphalt when he asks, “You sold your equipment yet? Take any jobs?”

  Pain squeezes my chest. “Not yet. I planned to make a few calls tomorrow. I’ve had offers before.”

  “Of course you have. You’re smart as fuck and any joint that sells your beer knows they’ll never have anything better. Only someone with piss for brains wouldn’t want you.” His fingers tighten on the door frame. “But there’s one more offer coming. Maybe another option. So don’t make any decisions just yet.”

  “What option?”

  “Talk to Red. You working tomorrow?”

  Working? I’m always working. And my mind is scrambling to catch up.

  Tomorrow. Saturday. During tourist season. “I’ll be at the barn all day. I’ve got tours and the tasting room from noon to six.”

  “I’ll come for you at six, then.”

  Come for me? “Sax—”

  “You talk to your dad.” Abruptly he pulls back. “Then you’ll tell me if you want what he lays out. And you need to want it. All right?”

  And whatever that is, Saxon won’t tell me now. That much is clear.

  Mutely, I nod. A second later he’s gone.

  3

  It’s after midnight when I pull up to the house. My high beams catch my dad waiting on the porch. He squints into the glare and I quickly flick off my headlights.

  The rumble of Thorne’s bike is already fading when I get out of the truck. The Hellfire Riders escorted us to the long driveway leading to the house and continued past, staying on the main road. Uncle Thorne followed me part of the way up the drive, up to the point where our paths split—mine toward home, his to the clubhouse and cabins on the
opposite side of the property. Everything else is quiet. Just the singing crickets and the cooling tick of my engine. All the lights are off in the house. The stars are brilliant above, like diamond dust scattered across the heavens. There’s nothing as beautiful as the sky over central Oregon on a clear summer night. When I was younger, my dad, my mom, and I used to lie out in the yard on a blanket, content just to look up.

  Aside from the years I was away at college, I’ve lived here all of my life. I love the old ranch house with its white siding and tall gables. It’s probably too much house for just two people, but my dad has made it ours over the years, renovating the tight rooms into spaces filled with light and air.

  Usually it doesn’t matter what sort of day I’ve had—coming home seems to lift whatever weight I carry. Not tonight. Tension knots my shoulders and neck as I climb the porch stairs.

  Dad is only a shadow on a deck chair, but it’s so easy to picture what I can’t see through the dark. Tall and lean, with grizzled red hair and a short white beard—and wearing the same jeans, boots, and T-shirt combination that he always does. I hear the clink of a bottle against glass.

  I sink into the chair beside him, then take the whiskey he offers—and wonder if the drink is to soothe my nerves or his. He isn’t usually so quiet.

  Which means one thing. “Uncle Thorne called you?”

  “He did.”

  “I was all right.”

  “Since I’m sitting here instead of tailing you home, you know he told me that, too.”

  I nod, sipping the whiskey and holding it on my tongue, because if I swallow I’ll have no reason not to ask him what this other option is. Better to let him start.

  His heavy sigh fills the space between us. “Did you talk to Saxon?”

  “Only a little.” And kissed him. Wrapped my legs tight around him. But the memory doesn’t make me hot now; it only makes my heart ache. “He said I needed to talk to you. I told him I was selling the brewery and leaving town.”

  His chair creaks as he leans forward. “Do you want to?”

  No. Throat suddenly tight, I shake my head. My voice is a strained whisper. “It just seems like the only thing to do.”

  “Wait for me to die and then go?”

  “Jesus, Daddy.” The tears spill fast, before I can stop them. He’s always blunt. But how could he put it that way? “Taking care of you. Then taking care of myself.”

  “There’s only one part of that I give a shit about, and it ain’t the part where you’re taking care of me.”

  “And if you think I’m going to leave you alone, then fuck your lungs, because the doctors obviously forgot to look for the tumors in your brain!”

  He snorts. “That’s my girl. So dry up now. You know I can’t stand strong when you’re crying. And I need to stand strong now, Jenny.”

  The husky catch in his voice as he speaks my name almost breaks me again. But I won’t let him down. If he can stand strong, then I can, too—so I suck up the tears and down the whiskey, bracing myself for whatever is coming.

  A lighter flicks, revealing his face in the glow as he lights a cigarette. He’s watching me, his eyes the same pale green as mine.

  “Dad,” I say softly. He quit smoking years ago.

  “It don’t matter now, does it? I stopped too late.” His right shoulder lifts in a careless shrug, but after a long draw, he grinds out the cigarette. “But the secondhand ain’t good for you, I guess. Now, you tell me what you want to do when I’m gone. You want to stay here at the ranch? Or you want to give up the brewery?”

  With a sigh, I pull my feet up to the edge of the seat and wrap my arms around my knees. “I want to stay. Of course I want to stay.”

  “But the Eighty-Eight are going to keep fucking with you.”

  Sudden fear spears my heart. “You aren’t thinking of—”

  “Killing every last Henchman? Yeah, I think it. Every single fucking day, I think it. What do I have to lose?” The whiskey bottle clinks against the rim of his glass as he pours another. “But I ain’t some fool to risk that, Jenny. Say I get some of them, but not all. The rest will be out for revenge—and not the kind Reichmann is stirring up. That just passes the time for most of them. It’s a bit of entertainment. None of them except for Reichmann are boiling angry. That would change if I went after them. Maybe they’d even bring in Henchmen from other chapters. Then it’d be all-out war between a national club and us. No question who’d lose. So I’d be hurting you by touching any one of them.”

  And that pisses him off. His voice has taken on a hard edge I know well. Dad would stop the Eighty-Eight Henchmen by killing them, if he could—and he wouldn’t care if he spends the rest of his life behind bars for it.

  I care. “Promise me you won’t.”

  “I won’t promise. But it’s not in my sights right now.”

  “What is?”

  He takes his time. Gathering his thoughts, maybe. Or just enjoying the whiskey. Finally he says, “I used to be a Rider, you know. Second to Tommy Burns.”

  Lily the Viking’s father, and former president of the Hellfire Riders. “I know.”

  “I never said anything to you about it.”

  “Uncle Thorne did once, after I asked him why there’d been bad blood between you and the Riders.”

  “Huh.” The bland tone is a deceptive one; fifteen years ago, my dad’s response would have indicated that Thorne had earned an ass-kicking. Now it just means that he’s annoyed. “Did he say why we left and started up the Steel Titans?”

  “He said you and Tommy Burns split over a woman.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “‘Bullshit’ because Uncle Thorne wouldn’t say that? Or ‘bullshit’, it wasn’t a woman?”

  “It wasn’t a woman. Not really. Tommy and me had our eye on the same one. Megan Fitzgerald. Tommy eventually got her, and sure enough, I wasn’t none too happy about it. I thought I was in love—of course, I didn’t know what that was until your mom came along. At the time, though, it stung deep. But never would I have let a woman come between me and my brothers. He got her; I let her go.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Tommy let her get between us.” In the shadows, he shakes his head. “Nah, not even that’s right. She didn’t get between us. Tommy’s prick did. Because me and Megan had been riding together a few times, you know what I mean?”

  Oh, God. I prefer not to think about my dad having sex. “So he was jealous?”

  “Like a fucking bull. Always snorting in my face. Touching her around me, kissing her. Making sure I knew she was his, though I wasn’t likely to forget.”

  “So he was the one who didn’t put the bros before the hos.”

  A laugh barks from him and ends as a ragged cough. “Christ, Jenny. You’ll kill me saying shit like that.”

  He thumps his chest and takes a long breath. It sounds even and smooth, but my own throat and lungs are aching, making it hard for me to breathe. I wait for him to continue.

  “Anyway. He decided to marry her, then put some crazy shit in the club bylaws. This was before there was real structure, you know? Nothing real official, no real voting, not like we have now.”

  “What kind of crazy?”

  “Everyone had to watch him fuck her and then join in. That was supposed to prove they thought she was worthy of everyone there; then they’d swear their loyalty and protection.” Another laugh runs beneath the statement. No coughing this time. Just a laugh that rolls harder with every word, as if each one sounds stupider than the last. “At the time, it was a kick in the face. But just imagine the whole scene—sitting there as Tommy banged away, while we bowed our heads or some shit—”

  His laughter gets in the way of talking then, and it does sound silly, but it’s hard to laugh along with him when I can hear the wheeze beneath his breath.

  He wipes his eyes. “God damn. But I was so pissed. I left before it ever happened—I just wasn’t going to be a part of that. To my mind, Tommy let his dick take over
the club. So Thorne and I walked. It wasn’t much later that Grandpop left me this place. It’s been the Titans’ home ever since. That’s what I’m thinking of when I’m not thinking of you.”

  So we’re finally getting around to it. “Do you think I’ll be upset if you leave the property to Uncle Thorne or the club? Because I won’t.”

  “It’s yours, Jenny.” His tone tells me not to argue.

  “Then they’ve still got a home. Even if I leave.” I can rent out the house, maybe. “And if I don’t leave…well, Uncle Thorne will look out for me. You know he will.”

  “Yeah,” says my dad softly—agreement, but with reservations. “Thorne ain’t young, Jenny. And the Titans aren’t as strong as we once were.”

  I can’t say anything. Not a thing. I can’t imagine what it took for him to speak those words. And I know they are true words. The club isn’t getting much new blood and they’ve been losing territory. Not through fights or power plays; it’s just slipping away. Joints that were once exclusively theirs just aren’t anymore. Such as this one tavern out near the county line—the Barracks. Not so long ago, it was like the Wolf Den. If you belonged to another club, you risked an ass-kicking simply by stepping inside without the Titans’ okay. It isn’t like that anymore. A rowdy mix of riders—including the Eighty-Eight—usually hang out at the Barracks now. But the Titans weren’t pushed out. They’ve just let it go. When the guys aren’t out riding, most of them pass the time at the clubhouse on the ranch, instead.

  But there is one club that hasn’t weakened, and heat shoots up beneath my skin as I suddenly realize where he’s going with this. He’d talked to Saxon.

  Saxon, who has already protected me once.

  And who is president of a rival club. Just because there isn’t bad blood between them anymore—there hasn’t been since Saxon stepped into Tommy Burns’ boots—doesn’t mean that my dad isn’t stirring up some serious shit here. How are the Titans going to take the news that my dad went to Saxon for this?

  Yet…he must have already talked to Uncle Thorne about it, because Thorne had been at the Wolf Den. I didn’t notice any anger there. If anything, Uncle Thorne was just concerned.