Chapter 17 Scarlette #2
I crawled to him, shivering, and he pulled me in.
The heat of his body was shocking, almost obscene, against my skin.
I felt my own blood, the sticky wet of his, and the mingling was a comfort I hadn’t known I needed.
He pressed his forehead to mine, both of us slick with the afterbirth of violence, and for a second, the world was just the two of us, breathing.
Vin came over, one hand pressed to his thigh, and looked at me with something like awe. “You okay, Scar?”
I tried to answer, but my voice cracked. “I don’t—” I started, then just shook my head.
Shivs rolled over, spat out a tooth, and said, “Fuck me, that was a party.”
Moab glanced down at the wreckage of men and blood, then at the circle of ancient trees. “Not over yet,” he said. “Not by a long shot.”
I pulled myself upright, still clinging to Moab. My knees were streaked with mud, my chest sticky with portal slime, and maybe a little of my own sick. My hair hung in wet clumps over my face. I looked at the Ghouls, all six of them down, none moving.
The dawn light caught on the blood, turning the ground to glass.
Moab let go, just long enough to check the perimeter, then came back, wrapping his arms around me. “You did well,” he said.
I barely had time to catch my breath before the world announced itself again, louder and meaner than ever.
The rumble started as a whisper in the dirt, then became a shudder in the roots, then resolved itself into a wall of sound that battered the trees from all sides.
It was like thunder, but with a rhythm, a violence you could dance to if you had the stomach.
The first motorcycle burst through the undergrowth, mud and leaves exploding under its wheels.
It was matte black, low to the ground, and the man riding it wore a leather jacket with patches sewn on every inch—skulls, daggers, a crown with a wolf’s head at its center.
The next bike was red, the third silver, then more and more, a whole pride of them, maybe a dozen, maybe more.
They didn’t slow down for the bodies or the blood or the crowd of trees; they just roared through, riding in tight formation, engines screaming their arrival.
The Royal Bastard MC, Moab had called them once, but I hadn’t understood what that meant until now.
In my world, armies moved slowly, rank by rank, their violence a thing of order and hierarchy.
These men (and a handful of women) were something else—wild, but in concert, a chaos that knew itself, knew its place in the order of things.
They rode like the world owed them the right, and every engine’s growl was a warning to anyone who doubted.
The Ghouls must’ve known they were outgunned, but they tried anyway.
The last of them, Gold Tooth, fat man, beard, and neck tattoo, the whole sorry heap, scrambled to their feet, knuckles white around knives and cheap pistols.
They formed a huddle in the center of the clearing, backs to each other, eyes darting.
The new arrivals did not wait to negotiate.
The Bastards dismounted in a single, flowing motion. Weapons flashed in every hand. The men advanced together, shouting in a language I could almost understand. “Family first!” “Smoke these fucks!” “Take it to them!”
I pressed myself to the nearest oak, heart jackrabbiting against my ribs.
Moab was nowhere I could see, but I knew he was in the thick of it, maybe even at the point where the two packs would meet.
Vin hung back, tending to Shivs, who was upright but clutching his bleeding mouth, teeth spit out onto the frost. I should have moved to help, but my legs weren’t working, not with the sound of the engines still vibrating in my bones.
The two MCs met with a sound like a dam breaking.
The Bastards didn’t fight clean. They rushed the Ghouls in a wave, bowling them over, battering them with the weight of their bodies and the metal in their hands.
There was no time for words, just the crunch of bone, the slap of flesh, the wet, bubbling gasp as one of the Ghouls caught a pipe to the side of the head.
Blood sprayed, dark and arterial, onto the white bark of the trees.
Gold Tooth made a break for it, limping toward the tree line with his mouth still leaking red.
Moab cut him off, grabbing him by the vest and spinning him into a headlock.
He didn’t even bother with a punch this time; he bit Gold Tooth’s ear, right at the tip, and spat the chunk back in the man’s face.
I saw Gold Tooth’s eyes roll up, then he collapsed, boneless, to the ground.
The fat man tried to shoot, but one of the Bastards, an enormous woman with a shock of white hair, smashed his hand with a hammer, then stomped him in the throat.
He died without a sound, legs twitching in the mud.
The woman wiped her hammer on his shirt, then looked up and saw me watching.
She smiled, teeth as clean and sharp as a hunting dog’s.
The fight lasted less than a minute, but when it was over, there were only Bastards standing.
The last of the Ghouls, neck tattoo, made a run for his bike, but a younger Bastard chased him down, tackled him from behind, and bashed his head against the ground until the only thing left was a red, pulpy smear.
The silence after was worse than the noise. The smell of fuel and blood and hot metal crowded the clearing. The Ghouls lay sprawled, every one of them broken or bleeding or both. The Bastards regrouped, checked on each other, shared nods and short, savage smiles.
Moab finally reappeared, arms streaked with blood, face split by a cut just above the eyebrow. He looked at me, saw the way I shook, and nodded once. It was not a comfort, not really, but I clung to it anyway.
Then the woman with the white hair came over.
She moved with the confidence of someone who had never, not once in her life, failed to get her way.
Her jacket was patched with a dozen insignias, and a ring of wolf’s heads circled her right sleeve.
She crouched in front of me, her face close enough to see the lines carved deep around her mouth and eyes.
“You’re cold,” she said. Her voice was soft, but there was a command in it. “And naked. Can’t have that.”
I tried to cover myself, but her jacket was off and around my shoulders before I could protest. The inside was lined with something I’d never felt before, not fur, not silk, but a kind of softness that seemed to hug my skin all on its own.
She tugged the sides together, covering my breasts, then pulled a bundle of clothes from her pack.
She handed me a pair of pants, blue and stiff, the fabric so dense and perfect it made my fingers ache. I stared at them, not sure what to do.
“They’re called jeans,” she said, amusement flickering at the corners of her mouth. “Slide ‘em on. Zipper in front.”
The shirt was next, black and printed with a red wolf’s head, the cotton smooth as a secret.
I put it on, fumbling with the holes, not sure where my arms were meant to go.
The woman watched, patient as a midwife, then reached over to help, threading my hands through the sleeves and smoothing the shirt down over my hips.
“There you go,” she said. “First day in the new world, and you’re already dressed better than most of these idiots.”
I didn’t know what to say. My mouth worked, but no words came out. The woman just smiled, then brushed the hair out of my face.
“You got a name, honey?” she asked.
“Scarlette,” I managed.
“Well, Scarlette, I’m Edda. You ever need anything, you come find me. Club always takes care of its own.”
She stood, then whistled to another Bastard, a skinny kid with a shock of blue hair. “Hey, get the lady a drink, would you?” The kid nodded, jogged off to one of the bikes, and returned with a bottle of water. He handed it over, eyes wide and curious, but didn’t linger.
I took the bottle, stared at it. It was clear as crystal, capped with a twist of blue plastic.
I had seen glass bottles before, but nothing like this.
I twisted the cap, and it came off with a pop.
The water inside was so cold it made my teeth ache, but I drank anyway, desperate to scrub away the taste of blood and fear.
Edda watched me, then grinned. “You’re a quick learner.”
I looked down at the jeans, at the way they hugged my hips, the seams straight and flawless, the stitches so fine I could barely see them. The shirt was just as strange, printed with a picture so clear it looked alive. I touched the wolf’s head, feeling the smoothness, the slick surface of the ink.
“Who makes these?” I asked, the question slipping out before I could stop it.
Edda laughed, not unkind. “Machines, mostly. But don’t worry, you’ll catch up.”
The clearing had emptied out, the Ghouls already forgotten. Some of the Bastards stripped the bodies, looking for anything useful. The rest smoked, or checked their bikes, or just stood together, arms folded, silent as gravestones.
Moab found me then, knelt beside me, and looked me over. He took my hand, turned it over, inspected the fingers as if checking for breaks. His touch was warm, grounding.
“You good?” he asked.
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure it was true. “Yes.”
He squeezed my hand, then looked at the jacket, the jeans, the shirt. “You look like you belong,” he said.
Something in me wanted to believe it.
I glanced at the ring of oaks, the ancient stones, the bloody mess at their feet. I thought about the world I’d left behind, Ashburn, the church, Sir Aldric’s sneer, the endless parade of men who called me a witch and never thought I might be more than their fears.
Now I wore the skin of the future, or maybe just the skin of another kind of animal. The Bastards were no different than the knights, not really, but they bled for each other, and for the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to be wanted by a pack.