Inflamed: A Shadow Riders MC

by Kiki Leach

  "Hm." I sat back as the image of a 'random woman' curdled my brain.

  "Here." Madison dropped two plates of food in front of me and sat back down in her chair, while Verna moved around the table and handed plates to both Avery and Jolene.

  I stared down at the both of them and pointed. "What's this?"

  Verna stood between myself and Jolene and rested her hands on her hips. "It's you becoming an official member of this family," she said.

  "I don't get it. Am I supposed to eat both plates of food to show some kind of solidarity or something?"

  "No," said Madison with a laugh. "You need to give one of them to my dad."

  "What?"

  "I'm the one that usually serves him his food because Gran doesn't believe in serving anyone who hasn't served her first."

  "Damn right," she said with a wink.

  "But seeing as how you're his 'new/old' friend now, I told Verna that I think it should be you to give him the food this time, and she agreed. Besides, I think he might appreciate it." She shot her eyes over to Jolene, and they both grinned.

  "Come on," said Verna, smacking me on the shoulder with the back of her hand. "All you've got to do is set it down in front of him and you can come back to enjoy your own food."

  I wanted to protest. I wanted to tell them that no way in hell was I serving a man food, a very capably man who could've easily gotten up, walked into the kitchen and gotten the food himself. But that wasn't the kind of world I lived in anymore. It wasn't even the kind I had hoped for; but it was the one I knew I had no choice in accepting, at least until I got what I needed from him, and him from me.

  "Okay." Reluctantly, I shoved myself away from the table and grabbed the plate, then got up and followed Verna over to the bar. I stepped to River's left, slid the plate in front of him and placed a plastic fork on top.

  He stared down at the plate, then turned to me and arched a brow. He peeked back over his shoulder at Jolene and Madison, who immediately turned away from him and focused down on their own food. River groaned and leaned back against the bar. "They put you up to this shit?" he said.

  "It's fine," I told him. "You're helping me out, the least I can do is feed you."

  Blue leaned in over the bar. "If that's the case, darlin', maybe next time you can give him somethin' a little extra to nibble on then too, yeah?"

  River latched his hand around my arm and shuffled us away from the bar and across the room. "Don't mind that motherfucker," he said. "He's--"

  I raised a hand to stop him from going on. "I get it," I said. "Um..." I stared down between us to keep from drowning in his eyes again and said, "Enjoy your food."

  "Thanks, doll."

  As I walked back over to my table, I could feel those sharp steel blue eyes on me the entire time, but I never looked back. I couldn't look back because I knew that if I did, I'd never want to stop; thus making me screwed from now (and not necessarily in the way that I had wanted) until the end of freaking time.

  After breakfast, Madison and another girl her age, Lily, whose father I had learned was Tiny (which shocked me), along with Styx and Trucker, took the smaller kids around to the other side of the club where a swing set had been installed a few years ago, thanks to so many of the women insisting on having 'distractions' when they chose to bring their children anywhere near the place. Meanwhile, Verna and Jolene introduced me to more of the old ladies and soon to be old ladies (wives/fiancée’s/girlfriends of the prospects) of the club.

  As we sat around a picnic table outside, each woman told me in their own special and 'colorful' ways through the smoke filling their lungs as they passed around lighters and packs of cigarettes, the differences between the following:

  An established club whore - A woman who had been around for longer than five years and had earned her keep by getting pregnant by a high ranking brother

  A rookie or newbie club whore - A woman who had been there less than two years and more than likely wouldn't make it to year three unless she got pregnant

  A club bitch - A respected and established woman within the club who didn't need to get pregnant to stick around because in general, her pussy was too goddamn good to pass up; she calls the shots and she’s not looking to cash in on the club’s dime; this one, they said, was both rare and the most dangerous piece of club pussy around, because a ‘club bitch’ was the most likely of the bunch to work her way up into Old Lady status within a perfect matter of time

  And last but not least...

  A club slut - Or the 'initiation pussy', which was a woman who had been passed around from member to member from day one and back again as soon as someone new was patched in

  They also informed me of why it was good to pick each woman out early on and never associate with any of them unless you had to; meaning, unless you were forced into it by the members of the club. It all sounded so completely degrading and depressing as hell, no matter the status of any woman involved.

  Next, they told me the truth regarding the 'pussy parties' and why old ladies weren't normally invited unless the men needed fully established pussy for one reason or another in attendance; because for the most part, as the name suggested, the parties were just about getting laid.

  Finally, they gave me the rundown of why even being considered an 'Old Lady', even if some weren't all that fond of the term, was better than having absolutely no status or title at all while standing alongside your man, even if you weren't officially married to him. If you didn't, it meant you had no say, no voice, no power. To them, once you earned that status, once a member or potential member slapped a patch on your ass and claimed you for life, you were considered as good as gold.

  "It's like being queen of the goddamn castle," said Miranda, whose husband was Snake. They had been married for about five years and had three kids together already, despite her trying to get pregnant with her fourth. She swung her long brown hair over her freckled shoulders, turned her head up toward the sky and blew out the smoke from her cigarette. A wide smile split her lips and for a moment, she closed her eyes and soaked in the rays of the sun. "It's like you own shit," she said. "You run shit, you own it, everybody respects you--"

  "Except," Jolene drawled as she blew out a line of smoke between her lips. "Your man."

  Just then, Verna hopped up from the table and looked around at each of us. "Excuse me," she said, before making her way back inside the club.

  "Jesus." Miranda turned her blue eyes toward Jolene and sneered. "You do this every fucking time, Jolene," she said. "Every motherfucking time. Now, I respect you being River's mother and always have, but..." She shoved her cigarette into an ashtray and folded her arms across the table. "I think we're all about real sick and fucking tired of your shit, and your attitude toward Verna."

  "I wasn't throwing attitude toward Verna, young one," snapped Jolene. "I wasn't throwing attitude toward anyone at this table. In fact, I was making a goddamn point about what's been said and if you had been paying even the smallest bit of attention to my tone, you would've heard that. Old Lady status means shit without respect and that's something a lot of you young girls who get broken into this life don't seem to understand. You think if he comes home to you at night, its respect. You think if he tells you he loves you despite him sticking his dick inside another bitch the night before and after, it's respect. You think if he's asking you to wash his bloody clothes because he nearly beat some asshole to death that went against his club and his code, that it's respect. He's not telling you when, if, how, or why it all happened in the first fucking place, but you get to be the one to scrub those clothes until they're white again and heal his wounds and suck his cock ‘til it no longer feels broken, so that means you have the highest amount of respect he can offer to you or anyone else. Believe me, honey, if that's what you believe, you're a hell of a lot dumber than I ever thought. Because respect goes a long way for women, especially in a world like this, and there's not a single member of this club, my son included, who knows what it's a
ctually like to both love a woman AND show her the respect she deserves. I’ve been around here a long fucking time, a hell of a lot longer than some of you ever will and I’ve seen enough to know what’s to come when all of this shit between you and your men is said and done. Now do you have anything else you need to say to me about that?" she asked.

  Miranda looked around to everyone at the table as they all stared between her and Jolene, and shook her head. "No."

  "Good."

  For the next few minutes, no one else said another word until Candy, Shiver's wife, directed her attention toward me.

  "So Mia," she started. "How exactly did you meet River--?"

  "She's not giving that information up yet," Jolene interjected. She took a long drag of her cigarette and peered at me, then pulled it back and swiped her tongue between her lips while blowing out the smoke at the exact same time. "But she will. She will.”

  I smiled at everyone around the table and gulped again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Later that night after the prospects, official members and old ladies all headed home with their kids and I had put Avery to bed back in the bedroom, I offered to help Verna wash dishes.

  "Your first 'biker breakfast'," she said with a laugh. She handed me a dish to dry off, then tossed the wet towel into the sink. "And you still managed to survive it."

  "Just barely," I told her. "I did walk away with a few lessons, though, when it came to the women of the club and what it means for them, you... us? to actually be a part of it."

  "How did you feel about that?" she asked me.

  "Not very good." I finished drying off the last dish and placed it inside the rack. "After you left, Jolene went into this diatribe about respect. And how the men of the club don't actually respect their women even after they're made an 'Old Lady'. She made it seem as if it was just a title that really had no meaning outside of being number one in just a line of many others."

  "Jolene would say something like that," she muttered. She moved across the kitchen and headed over to the fridge.

  I spun around on my heels and leaned back against the sink. "What's the deal with you and her? I mean, if it's none of my business you can just tell me and I'll back off. But you seemed to get up from that table pretty quickly when she first started going on about--"

  "There's just a lot of history between us, that's all. I've known her practically since she was a child."

  I nodded. "I remember River mentioning something to me about that, vaguely. I can't remember the entire conversation or the exact details of what he told me, but--"

  "She was seventeen when she had him. Did you know that?"

  "No."

  She averted her eyes and stared directly at the wall. "She was just seventeen, just like you... And scared out of her goddamn mind about it all. She was attacked by two men, and Wolf..." She paused. "Found her on the side of the road." She shook her head. "I remember the first time I saw her in the hospital. She was beaten and bruised and bloodied but still able to hold onto her little boy." She turned back to me. "River saw a piece of her in you when he found you out there that day. It's something that deep down, even if he didn't initially remember it on the surface when you showed back up here again asking for his help, that he never truly forgot."

  "Do you think part of the reason that, aside from the club, his helping me has to do with Jolene?"

  "It could. But there could also be other factors in there too," she said. "Not just you or even about the club, but about himself."

  "What do you mean?" I asked, though she had no time to answer when River suddenly peeked his head inside the kitchen and cut his eyes between us.

  "I'm gonna head on out," he told us. "But can I talk to you for a second?" He stared right at me and nodded out toward the club.

  "Sure." I followed after him and we headed over to the bar.

  He turned to his side and leaned against the edge of it. "How was all this shit for you today? With the old ladies and everything?"

  "It was interesting to say the least." I laughed. "I learned a lot with regard to how they feel about the other women around here, as well as each other." I shrugged. "At the end of the day, I'm just glad that Avery was able to meet some other kids her own age, as well as your daughter who she seemed to take to pretty quickly, and have some fun. Everything about today kept her from asking me questions about her father that I'm still not ready to answer just yet, so thank you for that alone. If nothing else you saved me the trouble of--"

  Before I could even get out the next word, I heard what sounded like a loud, bloodcurdling scream coming from the back of the club; so loud that it nearly jarred me out of place where I stood.

  River stood up and away from the bar and clinched his fists and was making his way toward the back until Verna came rushing out and nearly bounded directly into him.

  She peeked around him and looked over at me. "It's Avery," she said. "She--"

  I raced around the bar before she could even manage to spit out another word, then darted down every hallway there was, with both Verna and River on my tail, until I finally reached the room we shared together.

  When I stepped inside, I found my little girl sitting on the bed and staring at the floor. "Avery?" When she didn't respond, I glanced at both River and Verna, then walked over and kneeled down in front of her. "Avery?" I placed my hands on her knees, then moved the other one up to her face. Her eyes closed as she shoved her cheek into my hand. "Did you have a bad dream?" I asked her. She nodded. "What was it about?"

  "I don't know," she said. "I don't know, but I saw blood in it."

  "You saw what?"

  "Blood." Her eyes widened as they remained focused on the floor. "I saw blood."

  "What kind of blood was it? Whose blood did you see?"

  "I don't know."

  "Okay, well is that why you were screaming?"

  "No," she said.

  I dropped both of my hands back to her knees and tilted my head. "Okay, baby, then why were you screaming? What happened?"

  "I don't know where it came from," she told me. "I don't know where that blood came from, but it scared me. And I wet the bed a little, so I got up to go to the bathroom. But then I remembered that we weren't at home and I wasn't in your room." She shook her head. "There wasn't a bathroom in here. So I went to the bathroom that we used this morning."

  "In River's bedroom?"

  She nodded. "And I saw a man in there on the bed, and a woman on top of him; her face was down between his legs and--"

  "Oh my God."

  "Christ." I turned back to River and he dropped his head and pressed his fingers against his eye sockets so hard that for a split second I wondered if he was actually trying to pop his own eyes out of his head.

  I turned back to Avery and moved closer to her. Ducking my head, I tried to get her to focus on my eyes instead of that floor. "What did the man look like that you saw when you went in there?"

  "I--" Her eyes suddenly shifted over and when I turned, I saw Tiny moving in and standing behind River. He looked both smug and pissed the hell off at the same damn time while switching his eyes between the both of us.

  "You." I hopped up from the floor and moved forward like a wild animal on the attack of its prey, but River quickly turned and stepped in front of me before I could get to him. I wasn't sure who the hell he thought he was protecting more in this situation, me or the tub of lard standing on the other side of the door.

  Tiny opened his hands and tilted his head and while staring right at me said, "Sorry."

  No he wasn't. His tone was crude, callous and careless. He was no sorrier than I would've been in ripping every working limb from his body and tossing them into the nearest incinerator.

  "You're sorry?" I snapped. "You're sorry." I pointed behind me while attempting to shove River out of the way, though he stood firm and unmoving. "My KID just walked in on you getting a fucking blow job--"

  "Mama--"

  "Sorry!" I shot back. "Fro
m God only knows who or what." I dropped my hand to my side and rattled my head. "What the hell were you even thinking?"

  He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes; from the look he gave me, I could tell that he was wondering how and where in the hell I managed to get such nerve in even speaking to him as I did in his own place of business. It was clear that no other woman ever had, and if they did, they sure as hell didn't last long thereafter.

  He flared his nostrils like some kind of raging bull and grinded his teeth so hard that I could actually hear the sound of them scraping together. "I was thinkin' that some goddamn KID wouldn't have been bustin' up in that room and watchin' me FUCK--!"

  "Yeah, fuck in my goddamn room, asshole," River snarled in a low voice. I couldn't see his face, but I had a feeling just from the sound of his voice alone that he was more furious than I was, though I was sure his reason behind it was completely different from mine altogether. "And in my goddamn bed."

  "It's a community bed, motherfucker. And it hadn't gotten any goddamn use outta you for nearly a goddamn year ‘til just a few nights ago when you decided to pump up that nineteen year old bitch."

  River peeked back and me and swallowed hard before turning back to his brother and exhaling so sharply that both his shoulders and back moved up and down in response. "Let's head outside and take a fuckin' walk, asshole." He threw his hand into Tiny's back and shoved him out of the room.

  Verna stepped forward practically wringing her hands together as her face turned bright red. "Can I get her anything?"

  I turned back to Avery and shook my head. "No," I told her. "But you can get me something."

  "What's that?"

  I crossed my arms and turned on my heel. "The number for the nearest cab company," I said. "There's no way in hell I'm keeping her here another night, or any other night after that."