Crush (Royal Bastards MC Lexington, KY #4)

Chapter 1

Moab

The engine’s howl was the only voice that made sense tonight.

Four cylinders and forty years of history, rasping through cracked baffles and bleeding out behind me, loud enough to strip the nonsense right out of my skull.

I leaned harder into the curve, knees tight against the tank, felt the edges of the footpegs scoring their own gospel into the tarmac.

Pine trees leaned in overhead, their branches crowding the dusk, and I split the difference down the center line, one headlight carving up the twilight like a bone saw.

This was the only place I didn’t feel like prey, moving too fast for the old ghosts to hitch a ride.

The wind lifted sweat and cigarette stink off my skin.

That and a touch of engine oil. I’d bled on these bars more times than I cared to remember, and the scars across my knuckles pressed white against the grips.

I’d broken bones on this bike, too, and she always forgave me.

Forgave the hotheaded dumbassery, the bottle in the tank bag, the habit of chasing storms at night when everyone else had the sense to lie low.

Tonight, the sky was all gunmetal and bruised cloud.

Low sun through tree trunks striped the road gold and black.

When I passed the old church ruins, stained glass splinters caught the light, tossing handfuls of color onto the pavement before they vanished in my wake.

No congregation left, unless you counted the crows.

My colors flapped against my back, the leather cut with the Royal Bastards crest stitched in by Edda, the only person on earth who could get the thread through that tough bastard hide.

She’d called it “wolf-proof,” which, given the shape my arms took some nights, was maybe a joke and maybe not.

Beneath the patch, my tattooed wolf ran the length of my spine, jaws open, gold eyes forever hunting.

I felt it tonight, even through the jacket—like the ink itself was burning cold against my skin.

Honestly, I was ready to pull off the road and shift, running through the woods as the diabolical wolf that I am when not human.

Freedom was a mile marker, always just ahead. I twisted the throttle and let the bars shake in my hands, split-second wobble at a buck-twenty before the forks caught the rhythm and straightened me out. Nothing for it but to ride it out or go down hard. I liked those odds.

The phone on my thigh vibrated once, then again, urgent enough to cut through the roar. I ignored it. Probably Vin, or else someone who owed Vin and couldn’t pay up without making it my problem. For one goddamn hour, I just wanted the road and the wind and the nothingness at the end of it.

It buzzed again, a steady pulse, and I glanced down—two bars of service, which was two more than I wanted. I ignored the last warning sign, skidded the back tire over the painted line, and let the bike coast as I answered. “Yeah.”

“Moab. Where the fuck are you?” Vin’s voice could smoke out a possum from under the porch. He chewed syllables like they owed him money.

“Southbound. Near Milepost Thirty.”

A short silence. In the gap, I could hear voices behind him, the rattle of pool balls, someone cussing in the background. “You need to head back. Now.”

I knew better than to ask. I’d gotten this far by never making Vin repeat himself. Still, my tongue got out before my brain could stop it. “Thought Prez said I had the night off.”

“You do, now you don’t.” The phone line compressed his words into something sharp. “Riders from the Ghouls crew in our backyard. Yours to handle. You’re closest.”

I flicked the blinker—a dumb reflex, nobody out here but ghosts—and slowed enough to let the clutch whine as I downshifted. My jaw locked up so tight I tasted blood from my tongue.

“Copy,” I said, then clicked off before he could pile on.

I parked the Harley dead in the middle of the empty highway and let the rumble die down.

The forest pressed in. A whiff of woodsmoke from a far-off burn pile drifted on the wind.

If I shut my eyes, I could almost imagine I was back in the world, before all this.

Before I became the kind of man who handled the things nobody else would touch.

The freedom I’d been gunning for slipped away so easily, I wondered if it had ever been there at all.

I kicked the stand down, fished the burner phone out, and ran my thumb over the battered screen.

Call log said “Vin” in all caps, like he’d forced the goddamn phone to respect his authority.

Second on the list was “Edda,” and third was just a number—no name, no clue who it was.

My thumb hovered, but I locked the phone and shoved it in my cut.

Some things you let ride. Some things you don’t call back.

I ran my left hand over the wolf tattoo on my forearm—a habit when I was pissed off or thinking too much. The ink was old, gone blue at the edges, but it still felt alive when I needed it. Sometimes at night, when I woke up in a sweat, I could swear it moved beneath the skin.

I started the engine. The Harley caught after two hard kicks, the pipes barking in the hush, and I swung her around with a low, grinding U-turn that left a black scrawl across the yellow divider. Duty called, and I answered, like I always fucking did.

As I roared back toward the world I’d never quite managed to leave, the wolf in my chest grinned with all its teeth.

***

The bar was two years past condemned, its paint flaking off in scabs the color of old nicotine, neon sign flickering so slow it looked like a heartbeat giving up.

I parked the Harley close enough to see her from the window, killed the engine, and let the silence climb up my spine.

The lot was empty but for a rusted-out Ford and a Kia with four doughnut tires and more bumper stickers than actual bumper.

Judging by the dry rot on the front step, I was the first new face in a week.

Inside, the air was a syrup of stale beer and sweet smoke.

They still let you light up in places like this, out where the laws hadn’t caught up to the culture.

The only light came from beer signs and one jaundiced fixture over the pool table, where three locals nursed the same argument they’d probably been having since the Carter administration.

I took a seat at the bar, back to the wall, right hand loose above my thigh—old habits.

Not like anyone here was likely to try anything, but I’d learned the hard way you don’t ever let your guard down just because everyone else looks half-dead.

The bartender was a square-built woman with silver-streaked braids and arms like rebar under her faded work shirt.

She poured me a double without asking, probably clocked the cut and decided whiskey was the safe bet.

She didn’t bother with small talk, just flicked her eyes over my face and went back to wiping down the counter with a rag so saturated it was leaving smears instead of cleaning them up.

I downed half the whiskey in a single pull. Burned the roof of my mouth, reminding me I was still made out of meat and bad decisions.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the door open.

A man came in, trailing cold air and an attitude, walking like someone who thought he had a right to the place.

He had a raw, sunburned face and a scar on his left wrist, thick as a worm and purple-black.

Military, maybe, or else a habit of losing arguments with sharp objects.

He made a beeline for the waitress, a thin woman who looked too tired to even notice she was being cornered. I noticed, though.

He caught her by the arm. Not hard, but not gentle, either. “Hey, sugar, you forgot my goddamn order.”

She tried to twist away, forced a smile, the sort of grimace waitstaff wear when they want tips more than teeth. “I’m getting to it, hon. We’re a little slammed.”

He jerked her a little closer, voice dropping. “Don’t bullshit me, girl. I saw you talking to those dirtbags over there.”

The bartender clocked the scene, eyes flat and unreadable. Nobody else in the bar looked up. I set my glass down, pushed the stool back, and moved. My boots made no sound on the sticky tiles. I slid between the bar and the man, gave him a cold two seconds to take the hint.

He didn’t.

I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed, not hard, just enough to let him know there was a difference between thinking you’re tough and being it. “You got business, you take it outside. Otherwise, keep your hands to yourself.”

He swung around, half-drunk and full of piss.

Tried to say something witty, but it caught in his throat when he looked up at me.

I could tell the instant he recognized what I was, or what he thought I was.

Wolves can always smell each other, even when they’re hiding under tattoos and leather and the stink of cheap whiskey.

He swung anyway, because idiots always do. I stepped into the punch, caught his fist in my hand, and drove my forehead into his nose. I felt the cartilage crunch, the wet shock of blood on my face, and he went down hard, blinking up at the water-stained ceiling tiles.

I crouched, close enough to smell the rot in his teeth. “Touch her again,” I said, low and even, “and you’ll be eating through a tube. Got it?”

He nodded, blood running into his mouth. I let him go.

The waitress had shrunk back, hand covering her own mouth. Her eyes flicked from the man on the ground to me, and for a second, she looked more afraid of the cure than the disease. She wasn’t wrong.

“Sorry about the mess,” I said, voice softening. I fished a crumpled twenty from my pocket and pressed it into her hand. “For the trouble.”

She tried to thank me, words tripping over themselves, but her eyes never left mine.

I saw the moment it happened, the pupil dilation, the way her heartbeat sped up, the animal logic of fear and awe.

My reflection in the bar’s cracked mirror showed why, just for a second, the gold in my eyes caught the light and burned.

Not a trick of the neon, not human. I blinked it away, but the damage was done.

She backed up, nearly knocking over a tray of empties. “You—your eyes—”

“Bad lighting,” I lied, then finished my whiskey in a gulp. The bartender watched all this like someone watching a documentary about a species she’d only ever heard about.

The man on the floor dragged himself up, dabbing at his nose with a filthy handkerchief. He glared at me, murder in his eyes, but I saw the tremble in his fingers. He wouldn’t try it again. Not tonight.

I left cash on the bar, enough to cover the drink and the mess. As I headed for the door, every pair of eyes in the place tracked me. The old men at the pool table were suddenly very interested in their game. The bartender just nodded, maybe in thanks or maybe in relief.

Outside, the cold was waiting for me, sharp as a knife. I lit a cigarette and leaned against the bike, letting the smoke do its work. My hands still shook a little. Not from the fight, never from the fight, but from the other thing. The part of me that slipped when I wasn’t watching close enough.

The world was getting smaller. Or maybe I was just getting easier to spot.

The thing is, what they don’t tell you about being an outlaw biker, the road can be lonely.

Sure, there are old ladies waiting in the wings, but most of the time, most of us are looking for the one, the one who will accept and rock our world. That there is the challenge for us.

I ground the cigarette under my boot and straddled the Harley. As the engine caught, I looked back at the bar. The waitress stood in the alley, silhouetted by the neon, one hand pressed to the glass.

I gave her a nod, something halfway between apology and warning, then let the wolf in me take the throttle, heading into the night with nothing but the road ahead and the taste of blood and whiskey in the air.