I never met the guy but knew him from the photos that were around the club and in the war room. His chair still sat at the table for him, and no one was to sit in it, a decree made by my dad years ago. I also knew Darth from Shiloh. He appeared to her—as in he talked to her, and she talked to him and could even see him. Growing up, it was normal to see Shiloh walking around the compound talking aloud to herself. Sometimes, she would hold out her hand like someone was holding it. Well, that was what it looked like, but according to her, Darth had been holding it. After a while, we all got used to seeing her that way. She spoke to me about him so often that I felt like I knew him. He was a significant part of her life, and he helped her through many stressful times growing up. Being an MC kid, even one that was not an outlaw club like ours, we still attracted the wrong kind of attention. Kids at school stared at us being delivered to school on the back of Harley’s, wanted to be invited to club parties, and school bullies and wannabe tough guys started fights so they could go up against an MC member, shit like that.
“He rolled his eyes, didn’t he?” Mum asked my dad, interrupting my thoughts.
“Yep, then he went somewhere in his head. He is his mother’s son,” Dad joked, then ducked to avoid my hand to the back of his head. My old man was big, but I was bigger, and we had gone at it in the ring many times. Self-defence was an important tool to have, and we all knew how to fight.
“Zander, are you going to tell me what is going on with you, or do I have to gather the girls and go speak to Shiloh?” Mum threatened.
My eyes narrowed at her. She liked to push my buttons, and using Shiloh was her favourite weapon. The last thing I needed was my mother and her flock ganging up on my woman, not only would she cut my balls off but also, she would think I was speaking out of turn about our relationship. Charlotte had no idea about us, and Deck certainly didn’t have a clue I was bedding his daughter. The fact I had my ring on her finger without speaking to him first would earn me a few broken ribs—minimum.
“No, Mother, I am not going to tell you about Shiloh, and you aren’t going to sic your flock on her. You know Charlotte knows nothing about her us, so saying something is just going to cause even more headaches for me. So please”—I took Mum’s hand in mine and pressed a kiss to her knuckles—“no interfering, okay? I will handle my shit my own way. I am a big boy and don’t need my mummy fighting my battles for me,” I told her, making sure I kept my tone light. Mum was the sweetest person in the world, and I loved her, but I meant every word. Shiloh and I were going to have a talk very soon. It wasn’t in my nature to hide behind the skirt of a woman, but this was Shiloh, the woman I loved more than anything in the world.
Mum let out a long sigh, a look of defeat on her face. “Okay, Zander, I will do things your way. But just so you know, when it comes to my baby boy’s heart, I am not above blackmail or inflicting bodily harm. I may be blind, but your dad has taught me a few self-defence moves, too. If Shiloh really loves you, then she should shout it from the rooftops because life is too short to wait for your happily ever after,” Mum said with a world of knowledge and firsthand experience. The fight for her own happiness nearly took her life, and if she hadn’t fought for Dad and walked away… Well, I didn’t want to think about that. My parents had the love story of the century, a story of second chances and forgiveness.
I pulled my mum against my chest and hugged her tight, then dropped a kiss on her blonde head.
“Thanks, Mum. I love you,” I whispered into her hair, silently hoping my happily ever after was still within my grasp.
***
I leaned my tired body against the doorframe of the bathroom and looked at the raven-haired beauty half asleep in the bath. Suddenly, all the drama with the client at the hanger and the surprise and worrying visit from my parents vanished just by looking at my woman naked in a bath. By the looks of the vast amount of bubbles, I was guessing her day wasn’t much better than mine.
Shiloh had a few stress releasers—riding her bike, shooting at the range, and if neither of those worked, she headed straight for our huge bathtub and copious amounts of bubbles.
Goddamn, she is beautiful. I thanked my dumb luck every day that she picked me, took a chance and said to hell with our age gap. Most people didn’t give two shits about that sort of thing. Hell, all the men of the Wounded Souls were a great deal older than their wives, but when the age gap was reversed, and the bloke was the younger one, people would tend to judge. Being the size I was helped in some respect since I looked much older than Shiloh, who was five foot three and tiny. She wasn’t stick thin, but she was very slender for her height, so she seemed skinnier. But under those bubbles hid a body that would make a bucket load of cash at Body and Souls. My fists clenched at my sides as the mere thought of Shiloh dancing half-naked on a stage with drunk, dirty-minded men throwing money at her had my blood boiling.
“What has your jocks in a bunch?” Shiloh’s sleepy voice startled me.
“Huh?”
“You growled, and you only growl when you are deep inside me, pissed off at work, or thinking something stupid. It isn’t the first two, so what is it?”
She knew me so well. Smiling, I pushed my tired shoulder off the doorframe and walked further into the steamed-up room.
“Do you remember the first time I kissed you?” I asked, ignoring her question.
I watched as her eyes snapped open, the sapphire blue orbs round in question.
“Huh?”
“The first time I kissed you. Do you remember it?” I pushed, already knowing the answer, but I had a purpose, a point to make.
“Yes, of course, I do. I could never forget. That was the day my whole life changed,” she whispered softly.
Making my way to the bath, I knelt on the fluffy bath mat—of course, the bloody thing was pink. The whole bathroom was covered in pink. When we moved into this place together, our cover being just roommates so no one at the club got suspicious, and I realised she was hell-bent on covering every surface in her favourite colour, I had to put my foot down and insisted she add black to the colour scheme, too. I loved my woman, but living with twenty different shades of pink did nothing for my manhood.
“The second my lips touched yours, I felt a bolt of electricity power through me. I knew you were the one for me before that, but at that exact moment, when your lips met mine, you moaned and leaned into me. Your whole body melted against mine, the startled gasp you made when you felt that same charged bolt, your eyes darkening to the sexiest blue, and then when you pushed your hands into my hair and pulled me closer to you. I marked that moment as the happiest moment of my life.”
I reached out and gently pushed a loose, wet strand of hair from her cheek, loving the feel of her soft skin under my calloused, work-roughened finger.
“Because that was the day I found the other half of me. My dad went through years of hell before he found his just like Booth, Mannix, Steel, and your dad did. I didn’t have to go through my own personal hell before the black tunnel got light. I got so fucking lucky because my best friend was my happily ever after. I understand the stories of Darth wanting to be with Vegas because I wouldn’t want to live in a world where you didn’t exist for me, either. There is nothing more important to me than you, Shiloh—not a single fucking thing. I want you to have everything you have always wanted, and I want you to lead the club, but, Spunky, I also want to start our lives together. I want you to be my wife and have my babies. You have to decide if my dreams are just as important as yours. We can have it all, Shiloh. You are a bloody good VP and deserve to be president, but what I am saying is, why can’t you be that and love me at the same time? If you are ashamed of us or frightened that being with me is taking your attention away from that, then maybe I’m not your other half.” Even as I said the words, my heart felt like it was being ripped from my chest.
Shiloh’s gasp of horror gave me some small hope that what I had just said wasn’t true.
After my parents left the ha
nger today, I’d thought about what my mum said about Shiloh shouting our love from the rooftops. I wanted that. This wasn’t me giving Shiloh an ultimatum. This was me giving her an out, but she needed to make a decision. It wasn’t about giving up the leadership of the Wounded Souls. This had nothing to do with that. It was about her loving me enough to tell everyone, putting that ring on her finger permanently, and letting me give her its mate. It was about standing up for our love and being proud of it.
I watched the play of emotions wash across her beautiful face as her eyes filled with tears.
“Baby,” she started in a croaky voice, but I stopped her with a kiss to the forehead.
What I wanted to do was tear my clothes off and get in that water with her, and then make love to her until she submitted, but that was not the way. The ball was in her court now. If she loved me the way she said, the way I felt she did every time we were alone, then for me, the choice was easy.
“I choose you every time, Shiloh. Every time we have to hide, every time I have to watch you take your ring off and put it in your pocket because a member is coming. I… choose… you. Now it’s your turn to choose.”
Tears streamed down her face nearly breaking my resolve, so I quickly jumped to my feet, the physical pain of not touching and comforting her nearly doing me in.
“I have to get back to the club and help with the set up for the party tonight.”
“Zander, I do love you,” Shiloh cried. “You are important to me. You have to know that, baby,” she pleaded.
With my back to her, I dropped my head and breathed in a deep, shuddering breath. Jesus, fuck, was I doing the right thing? I wasn’t putting my happiness before hers, just trying to make her see that she was putting hers before us.
Quickly, I nodded my head and made myself walk out. My heart squeezed painfully in my chest as my brain screamed at me to turn around and go back, take Shiloh in my arms, and tell her I didn’t mean it, that I would wait for her as long as she needed me to, but I didn’t because that was not what I wanted or how I imagined us living.
I just hoped Shiloh thought that, too.
Chapter 5
Shiloh
My mind barely registered that the water had long turned cold. My body wouldn’t move. I couldn’t get my brain to tell my legs or my arms to push myself up and out of the near-freezing water.
Zander’s words played on a loop in my mind, and all those things he said were true. He had put himself second, giving me my way so I could go out and achieve the near impossible in the MC world. I remembered all the times I took my ring off and carelessly tucked it in my pocket just so no one would see it and question me on it or its significance, the many times when I hurriedly shoved him away from me when my dad or another patched officer walked into the same room as us. At the time, I didn’t see the hurt flash in his beautiful black eyes, but now, sitting there in the bath, every single thing he said hit me. Like a tsunami wave, memory after memory battered me. Hurt, sadness, anger, and regret were all the emotions I saw in Zander’s eyes, and I completely ignored them just because I wanted to be the president of the Wounded Souls. A silly little girl’s dream I’d made into an obsession.
What was the use of having that dream when my heart just walked out the door?
“Oh, God, what have I done?” I cried, my head dropping into my hands and my shoulders shaking with the force of my sobs. The pain that I just might lose Zander was too much to bear. I had asked far too much of him in our relationship, and he hadn’t asked for anything except for me to love him. And I did love him. I loved him so much. Our age gap never bothered me and growing up together as a family never bothered me. If anything, that made us a better couple because we knew each other so well—he knew me better than I knew myself. There was one thing he was wrong about, though. He was my other half. Sometimes, after we had been apart for the whole day and couldn’t find the right time to get a few minutes alone at the clubhouse, I experienced a physical ache from the loss of not touching him for so long.
What was it he said? We can have it all. Was it possible? Had I complicated things more than necessary? I’d assumed the members wouldn’t accept me as the president without a man beside me. Nothing was ever said by Booth or anyone else about specific requirements for a president. My hard-fought war to be the bad-arse, the best shot, the best painter, and the best rider were all on me, not the club wanting that from me. Somewhere along the way to proving myself, I’d lost sight of the one thing that made me who I was, who I always had been. I was the Wounded Souls princess and accepted—no matter what I did for a living or who I chose to love.
“Such an idiot.” I slapped my hand on the side of the porcelain tub. “It’s not too late. I have to get to the club and find Zander,” I muttered to myself as I quickly got to my feet, grabbed a towel off the built-in ledge, then wrapped it around my body, tucking it in at my boobs. I grabbed another towel and made quick work of drying my long, curly hair. As a little girl, I loved my long ringlet curls, but now, they were just a pain in the arse. My hair normally took forever to dry because it was so long and thick, but there was no time for the hair dryer. I had to get dressed and go. Zander had waited long enough for me to come to my senses and realise he was so much more important in my life. To me, he was everything—my rock, my biggest supporter, my partner in crime and life, and the love of my life.
With new resolve, I threw the towel I had used on my hair to the floor, then swiped the one from my body and got as much water off before shoving my arms into my robe and took off running for the bedroom, belting my robe as I went.
“Darf,” I shouted when I hit the room I shared with Zander, running straight for the walk-in robe.
I’m here, Squirt. Finally figured it out, have you? the deep voice of my lifelong bodyguard said from somewhere in the room.
I huffed as I struggled to get the tight spandex workout pants up my still damp legs. Damn it, shit, fuck, bugger.
“If you already knew, why didn’t you help me see it earlier?” I yelled at him, reaching for my ‘You just got FLOCKED’ tee and pulling it over my messy wet hair. I quickly shoved my feet into my black shitkickers, grabbed a hair tie off the dresser, and pulled my hair into a messy bun. If I looked in a mirror now, I just might waste time fixing myself up, and I didn’t have time to do that, so I bypassed the floor-length mirror, resisting the temptation to see exactly what sort of nightmare I looked like right now.
Sweet girl, you have been busting your arse since you were fifteen to prove yourself to Booth and the rest of the brothers that you are made of the right thing to lead the club. You got that part right, but what you totally screwed up was that you thought you had to do it alone. Being voted in as the president doesn’t come with the condition of no man by your side, honey.
Coming out of the walk-in robe, I stopped and looked at the big man standing by my bed. His hair was brushed back from his face and up in his trademark man bun. He wore his club cut and dark black military-style pants with huge black shitkickers on his feet. He looked exactly the same every day he appeared to me since that fateful day in the dance school. The only things different were the blood stain on his shirt and the bullet wound were gone as was the big scar he once had on his face.
“I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought if I did it myself and proved I could be just as good as Booth…” I admitted softly. Even to my own ears, my reasoning sounded idiotic.
Shiloh, Booth is a great leader. He led us not only in battle as our commanding officer but as our club president. But his best work came after he found Stella and fell in love with her. She centres him, gives him focus, and makes him a better man. No one can do it all on their own, Squirt. Depending on others for support is the first lesson in leading and leaning on one person for strength makes you better. Stella gives that to Booth and is there for him when he can’t hold it together. Zander is that person for you, but you haven’t exactly been there for him.
Even as he spoke, I knew
he was right. Zander had been the giver, and I was doing all the taking. Well, that was going to stop. Stalking to the bedside table, I gently picked up my ring from the crystal dish and slid it onto my finger. That was the last time it was ever going to sit in that dish. Never again was I going to remove it from the place it belonged.
“Let’s get going,” I said in a determined voice, my car keys and cut the last two things I picked up as I rushed from my room.
Tonight, I was going to prove to my man that I was proud of us and not ashamed. Tonight, I was going to claim my prince.
***
Jesus fucking Christ, Shiloh, you drive a car worse than you ride a bike. Ever heard of indicators and brakes?
I slammed the car door, cutting off more of Darth’s complaining—not that it stopped him because he immediately appeared to my side and continued his grumbling.
You’re a fucking menace behind the wheel.
“Will you stop complaining. You were there in the car with me when I got my driver’s licence—which, I might add, I passed with a perfect score. Lord have mercy, Darf, you ride with me all the effing time.”
We argued all the way from my parking spot until we reached the main door to the compound. Even with the heavy wooden door closed, I could feel the steady thump of the loud music going on inside. When the MC put on a party, they did it all the way. Tonight was for Bastian, Gabe, and Zander’s brother, Cole, to show them just how proud the whole family was of their bravery and dedication to being the men they were raised to be.
Immediately, I was racked with more guilt when I thought of my family on the other side of the door. My parents were going to be pissed and more than a little disappointed that I had kept secrets from them, my dad and Booth especially. Not to mention the trouble Zander may be in too since he had gone along with me. Our officer patches were in serious jeopardy.
I had broken all the rules they lived their lives by, rules they’d maintained since I was a baby and even before that when they were an elite commando team.
Her Prince (The Wounded Souls Series Book 6) Page 5