THE ALPHA BIKER WOMAN

Nova’s POV This evening has a cruel sense of humor. I realize that just as my car starts moving slowly, pushing me forward with every gallop. I watch as my car dies the way every bad relationship I’ve ever had does—loud, dramatic, and right when I need it least. Steam curls from the hood in a hiss while I sit behind the wheel “Perfect,” I mutter, hitting the steering wheel. “Absolutely perfect.” I lean back in my seat and stare up at the horizon. It looked like evening was setting. It would almost be beautiful if I weren’t stranded in the middle of nowhere with no cell service and a car that decided it was going to stop functioning. I check my phone anyway—one bar, mocking me. I hold it up like some kind of sacrificial offering. The bar flickers. Then dies. “Of course. Why would you help me?” I say to the phone, to the desert, to whatever malicious deity is running the script of my life. I laugh under my breath. It sounds too loud, almost wrong. “This is exactly how girls disappear in documentaries.” The silence is enormous. The kind that presses against your ears until you start to imagine sounds that aren’t there. I look out my window, paranoid. And then I hear a sound. Low. Rolling. Not the wind. The kind of sound that lives in your chest before it reaches your ears. Engines. I look at my rear view mirror.Headlights are behind me. Then more. Dozens. They move as one, predatory and beautiful in the kind of way you know will hurt you if you get too close. I get out of my car. They don’t pass me. They don’t even slow. They spread out, until I’m swallowed whole in their circle. Every instinct screams at me to get back in the car, lock the doors, and pray they get back into riding. Instead, I stay rooted to the spot. Because apparently, I have a death wish. They reeve their engines, the sound loud and my heartbeat thud violently in my chest, too fast. Dust curls around their tires, stinging my throat. And then he appears. The one at the center. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t need to. When he cuts his engine, the others follow like they’re tethered to him by an invisible chain. He swings off his bike, boots hitting the floor, heavy and for the first time in my life I understand what gravity feels like. He’s all big, leather and skin inked with lines I can’t quite read. But his eyes— God. They are deep blue. Not gray. Not pale blue. Blue, just like the pacific ocean. Those eyes are on me and it feels less like being seen than being cornered. The sight punches the air out of my lungs. For a heartbeat, nobody moves. Then I do the only logical thing my frazzled brain can come up with. I cross my arms, c**k my hip, and say, “Well. You all here to fix my car, or is this a highway robbery situation?” A few of the bikers chuckle, low and rough. But not him. He just tilts his head, studying me like I’m a puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit. “Depends,” he says finally, voice deep. “You worth robbing?” The words slide over me like a match dragged across skin. Taking me up in flames. Dangerous, teasing, forbidden. I raise a brow, feigning calm I absolutely do not feel. “Depends. You worth the felony charge?” That earns me a grin from one of the men behind him, a flash of gold tooth in the dusk. But blue eyes just steps closer. “I’m Cassian,” he says, as if that explains everything. I should be afraid. A lone girl surrounded by a gang of leather-clad men in the middle of nowhere? Every bad luck story I have ever heard is screaming in my head. But my pulse isn’t beating hard. I am… fascinated. Stupid. Stupid, Nova. “You going to tell me yours?” he asks, his voice low enough that it’s for me and me alone. I lick my lips. “Depends. You planning on rescuing me or killing me?” His grin is slow. “Maybe both.” The others laugh, but all I can do is stare at him. Something about him is wrong. Not wrong like a bad man in the obvious sense—though that too but wrong in a way that doesn’t belong to this world. Those eyes are too deep yet still so light, and for a fleeting second, they don’t just flash blue. They glow. I blink, and it’s gone. Great. Now I’m hallucinating. “Car trouble?” Cassian asks, finally tearing his gaze from me to glance at my sorry excuse for transportation. “It’s shy,” I say. “Doesn’t like strangers.” He huffs a laugh and the sound is worst that the silence because it makes me want to hear it again. He signals one of his men forward, but doesn’t take his eyes off me. Not once. The guy moves toward the car, but Cassian doesn’t stop watching me. And God help me, I can’t stop watching him back. You’re not supposed to want this, my brain chants, like some half-drunk mantra. This is the kind of man your mother warned you about. The kind of man who makes girls disappear. The kind of man you run from, not toward. And yet. When he steps closer, the space between us closing like a trap, I don’t move away. I breathe him in—leather, smoke, danger and it’s intoxicating. “Nova,” I say finally, because my mouth is a traitor. “My name’s Nova.” His smile like he is right about something. “Figures.” “Figures?” “Stars burn out fast,” he says, his voice so soft it’s almost kind. Almost. “But when they go, they light up the whole sky.” And just like that, I know I’m in trouble. Big, blue eyed, leather-clad trouble.