MARKED BY TWO RUTHLESS BIKER ALPHAS

Chapter 4 — Threadwoven

The motorcycle hit the curb outside Black Thorn Ink so hard the front window rattled in its frame.

Mara didn't have to look. She'd heard that engine once already, low and furious, tearing away through the rain. Now it cut off mid-roar, and a heavy silence dropped over the street. Then boots hit the pavement, three long strides, and the broken door swung inward on the last hinge it had left.

Kane Draven filled the doorway like a verdict.

He was in the same leather jacket, the same black shirt, the same expression he'd worn when he'd walked out: a face like a locked safe. But the lock had come loose. His chest rose and fell too fast. His eyes were already gold, and they swept over the room in one hard, sweeping pass: the splintered frame, the spilled gummy bears, the man in the tattoo chair with her wrist still crushed in his fist.

"Voss," he said.

It was one word. It had the temperature of a funeral.

"Draven." Jax did not let go of Mara. If anything, his grip tightened, which would have been romantic in a different universe. In this one, it was a bad idea. "You look well. Wow. Rested. Is that thorn a new look?"

"Get your hand off her."

"I would, but she's got a pretty firm hold on me too." Jax lifted their joined hands, like a trophy. The gold thread shone along his forearm, bright enough to throw light on the ceiling. "Funny story. Turns out she does this. Did you know she did this?"

"Everyone," said Mara, "please stop talking about me like I'm a weather event."

Neither of them looked at her. They were staring at each other. Something old and ugly stretched between them, thick as wire, strung tight enough to hum. Mara had read about men like this in the paperbacks Dani hid under her mattress. She'd always thought the smoldering looks were a little silly. She understood now that she'd been wrong. They weren't silly. They were loaded.

"You came here," Kane said, very low. "You came to her."

"I went to a tattoo parlor. It's practically public property."

"You followed me."

"Mate, I followed you? You turned up in my town with gold eyes and a limp and not a word to anyone. You think I'm not going to be curious?" Jax finally let go of Mara's wrist, and the thread between them went dim, then quiet. He rose from the chair in one smooth motion. He was slightly shorter than Kane, but broader through the shoulders, and when he stepped forward the whole room seemed to tilt toward him. "You know what I don't like, Kane? I don't like secrets in my territory."

"It's not your territory."

"It's got my smell on it."

"It's got hers," Kane said, "and you'll be out of it in the next ten seconds."

"Or what?"

The air changed. Mara felt it before she understood it, a pressure behind her teeth, a sudden electric crawl along her arms. Kane's hands had curled into fists. Jax's grin had stopped being a grin. The sharp edge of something old and animal slid through both of them, and the shop, eleven feet wide, suddenly felt a great deal smaller.

They're going to kill each other in my workplace, thought Mara, with perfect clarity. And then Wren is going to kill me.

She did the only thing she could think of.

She snatched the tattoo machine off its hook, thumbed the switch, and thrust it up like a weapon. The needle buzzed like an angry hornet.

"Nobody move," she said.

Both of them looked at her.

"I mean it." Her voice shook only slightly. "I have a very steady hand and an unlimited supply of black ink. Anyone who throws a punch in this shop gets a rainbow. On the face. And I'll do it in pastels."

There was a long, ringing silence.

"Is she threatening us with a unicorn?" Jax asked.

"I believe so," said Kane.

"That's adorable."

"I will do a pony, Voss, don't test me."

Kane's gaze dropped, briefly, to the buzzing machine in her hand. For a second Mara thought she saw something move at the corner of his mouth. The faintest crack in granite. Then it was gone, and the granite reassembled itself. He took one step forward.

"Put it down."

"Make me."

"Mara." It was the first time he had said her name. He said it like he was trying it out, like it might have a hidden catch. Her pulse jumped, and the gold line in her wrist leapt with it, flaring bright under the skin. Kane flinched. His hand went to his ribs, to the thorn that she'd drawn there, and his eyes went wide.

"You feel that," Jax said softly. "Don't you?"

"Shut up."

"You feel her."

"I said—"

Click-clack.

The sound was small and entirely out of place. It came from the back of the shop, from the narrow door behind the counter, and it was the sound of a pump-action shotgun being racked.

Everyone froze.

Old Wren stood in the doorway to the stairs, seventy-four years old and barely five feet tall, in a quilted purple dressing gown and a hairnet. Her white braid hung over one shoulder like a rope. One hearing aid was in. The other was clutched in her free hand. In her other hand, braced casually against her hip as if she'd been born with it, was a battered, sawed-down shotgun with a strip of electrical tape wound around the stock.

"Dolores," Wren said, "would like to know what the hell is going on in my shop."

"Wren—"

"Quiet, girl." She didn't look at Mara. She was looking at the two men with the flat, gimlet eyes of someone who had seen worse in 1974 and liked it. "You." She jerked her chin at Kane. "Draven's boy, aren't you? Your father came in here once. Had the same scowl. I'd hoped it skipped a generation."

Kane went rigid. "You knew my father?"

"He was a customer. They're all customers, in the end." The shotgun swung to Jax. "And you. Ashen Howl's i***t pup. Don't tell me I've got to put a hole in your jacket. It's expensive leather."

"Ma'am." Jax raised both palms, grinning again, and Mara marveled at the man's ability to be charming at the wrong end of a barrel. "I would never. This is a misunderstanding."

"The door's in pieces."

"Allow me to explain—"

"You'll explain it with money." Wren racked the shotgun again, for emphasis. "Here's how this works. My shop. My floor. My girl. In this room you may hate each other all you like, but you will not shift, you will not bleed, you will not break one more thing, and you will not lay a finger on her without her say-so. Understood?"

A beat. "Understood," said Jax.

Kane didn't answer. His eyes had gone back to Mara. They were gold and searching and something more complicated than anger, and she felt, absurdly, as if he were trying to read her through her own skin.

"Why," he said at last, rough, "do you smell like him?"

"Excuse me?"

"Cedar, gun oil. You smell like me." Jax's grin sharpened. "He's saying you smell like me, sweetheart. The worst thing he's ever said to anyone."

"You smell like her too," Kane snapped, and then looked as though he wanted to take it back. A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Like ink. Like rain and soap and—" He broke off. "I can taste her. In my mouth. Both of you, I can taste both of you."

"Okay," said Mara faintly. "That's the grossest sentence anyone's ever said to me, and I work with the public."

"You're not hearing me." Kane stepped forward, and the machine's snarl dropped to a whine in her hand. "It's not a smell. It's under the skin. Something's wrong with her. With what she does. Whatever she put in me—"

"I put thorns in you."

"You put a hook in me."

"I did not—"

"Enough," said Wren.

She hadn't raised her voice. She didn't have to. Mara had known her for six years, and she had never once heard that tone: quiet, certain, and a little afraid. The old woman lowered the shotgun. She set it, with great care, on the counter. Then she crossed the room, slow and bent-backed, and she stopped in front of Jax and took his marked wrist in both of her gnarled hands.

She turned it to the light.

The gold thread had faded to a faint shimmer beneath the thorn. But it was there. It rippled when she touched it, as if the skin were water. Wren's lips moved without sound. She stared at it for a long time. Then she let go, crossed to Kane, and without asking, pulled up the hem of his shirt. Her thumb brushed the black vines on his ribs, and the gold surfaced, shy and bright, as if called.

Mara had never seen Wren's face go that color.

"Wren?" she whispered. "What is it?"

The old woman didn't look up. She said one word, so softly the neon almost drowned it.

"Threadwoven."