The Ruthless Biker's Ex-Convict Bride

Chapter 2

Kael’s Point of View

Something was wrong. When I opened my eyes, the only thing I heard was the sound of a woman who sounded scared. Something inside me twisted. I got up and, in one swift move, grabbed the man’s head and snapped it.

I don't think before I do it. It’s as if my body already knows. I look down at what's left of him on the floor and wait to feel something. Nothing comes. Whatever I am, this isn't new to me. My hands know what to do before my mind catches up. That should scare me.

I try to remember where I am or who the woman in front of me is, but everything seems like a cloud. I can’t remember anything.

The wound in my side has torn open again. I wince, staggering when I feel a hot pull under the bandage around my torso. I put my hand on the wall to stay upright and don’t fall.

She's already moving with no fear or panic in her eyes. She steps around the body like she's done so many times.

“Easy. Let me help you,” she says, with warmth in her eyes. Something about the steadiness of her hands settles me in a way I can't explain and don't try to.

I don’t know who she is, but something pulls me to her. There’s a warmth to her that I find myself drawn to, and I know for sure I don’t want her to leave.

Wren’s Point of View

The stranger stands over him, chest heaving, blood soaking through the bandage I wrapped an hour ago. His hands are loose at his sides like they don't know what they've just done, like they're waiting for the rest of him to catch up. He looks down at the body the way you'd look at a spill on the floor. Not shocked. Just checking the damage.

I should be afraid of him. He has broad shoulders, olive-tan skin, and he’s ripped, as if he lives in the gym. I should be scared. I should be terrified of the six-foot-five man standing in my tiny room, but I'm not, because right now a dead man is bleeding out on my kitchen tile, and I don't have the luxury of being afraid of the one who just did it for me.

"Sit," I tell him. I clear the bed again for him. "Before you fall and give me two bodies instead of one."

He sits.

That's the thing about him. He doesn't argue. He just does what I say and watches me with those careful eyes. I notice that his eyes are a beautiful emerald green, and he has thick lips.

I shouldn’t be looking at him, but I do. I can’t take my eyes off him.

I almost thank him, but his eyes flutter, and he looks tired. He is losing a lot of blood.

"What's your name?" I ask him, grabbing more things so I can check if he busted his stitches.

"Where are you from?"

Nothing. His jaw works once, like he's searching for something and coming back empty-handed.

“Do you have a name?” I ask him, and he watches every movement. I should be scared of him and the fact that he killed a man with his hands, but I’m not.

I find myself drawn to him.

“Do you know where you are?” I ask him as he looks at me. Growing frustrated, I shake my head.

"Fine," I say. "Ash. I'm calling you Ash."

He doesn't correct me. He just looks at me.

“You can lie down. You’ve lost a lot of blood,” I tell him before moving away and going to Langford’s body.

I go through his pockets while I still have the stomach for it. Wallet, cash, keys to something I'll deal with later. I'm still going through what I can sell and what I'll need to burn when his phone lights up, the screen still open from whatever he'd been reading before he decided to put his hands on me.

I almost leave it alone. I have a body to deal with and a man bleeding out at my table and no time to be curious about a dead man’s phone.

But something catches my attention when I want to look away.

Elias Vance Confirmed as Copperhead MC's New President.

I pick it up, my heart racing so hard. Elias is now the president? There's a photo under the headline. Elias with his arm slung around Miranda's shoulders, laughing at something just off camera. Balloons behind them. Miranda holding a cake with her name written across the top in careful icing, candles already lit.

The caption says something about the club throwing her a birthday celebration.

I read further about how it has become tradition for Elias to hold such parties for Miranda.

Tears burn behind my eyes. When I found out he married Miranda the day I came back from prison, it hurt. I couldn’t sleep for nights.

He looks so happy in that picture. I think to myself.

And Miranda? She looks every bit perfect. Not like the way I look. Not the scarred hands I have now or the burns on my back.

I set the phone down on the counter. I don't cry. I won’t cry over him. I don't have any left for him.

Three years is a long time to grieve a man who's still walking around smiling for cameras. What I feel instead is colder than crying, a kind of numbness that settles behind my ribs and just stays there.

I put it away. I have work to do.

Ash watches me even as I clean him up again, watches my hands the whole time, not the wound, my hands, like he's trying to learn something from the way I work.

I tell him to stay put, and he does. I expected him to argue because men like him don’t take orders from women, but he stays still.

Getting rid of a body takes the rest of the night. Years of medical training, and nobody ever tells you the same hands that stitch a wound closed are the ones you'll need for this.

I work without letting myself think too hard about it. By the time the sky outside starts going grey at the edges, there's nothing left in that kitchen to find. No blood on the tile. No trace he ever bled here at all.

I come back in and find Ash exactly where I left him. Sitting straight-backed in the chair, hands loose on his knees, watching the door.

I pause when I close the door behind me. No one has ever looked at me like that.

Nobody has ever looked at me the way he is looking at me right now, not in the last three years. He looks at me like I’m the only thing worth paying attention to in the room.

I don't want this. I have enough trouble stacked up in my life already without adding a nameless man who is also a killer. The second he can stand on his own without my help, he needs to be gone. That's the plan.

I sit down across from him at the table, the same table that an hour ago had a dead man's blood pooling near its leg.

"You're well enough now," I say. "So, I guess you'll be leaving?"

He looks at me for a long time without breaking eye contact. I take in his well-defined jawline and face, which is covered in bruises.

“Are you—” I want to ask again, but his baritone voice cuts in. “I don't want to.”

And Jesus, he has the most beautiful voice. It’s deep and husky.

He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to leave.