Chapter 2 Bones
BONES
Emma’s arms are wrapped around my waist, and I’m trying very hard not to think about how right this feels.
Or how wrong everything else is.
Three hours into the ride, somewhere in South Carolina, and I still haven’t figured out what the fuck I’m doing. Taking her to New York, yeah. Getting her away from the airport where those fuckers snatched her, sure. But beyond that? I’ve got nothing.
Last night I had her. Finally, after thirteen years of wanting and watching and waiting, I had Emma in my arms, under me, wrapped around me. She moaned my name like I was her fucking savior and dug her nails into my back hard enough to leave marks I can feel under my shirt every time I move.
And then she ran.
Can’t say I blame her.
The tracker is a line I shouldn’t have crossed.
I know that. Knew it when I gave the first one to her years ago, knew it again when I shot one into her back that she couldn’t lose or break.
I knew it every day since, and I especially knew it last night when she screamed at me about violation and trust and boundaries I don’t seem to understand.
But here’s the thing nobody gets: I do understand. I know exactly what I did. I know it’s fucked up by normal people standards. I know she thinks I’m some controlling asshole who violated her trust.
But it’s not about control. It’s not about deciding what she does or where she goes.
It’s about connection. About touching her even when she’s a thousand miles away. About knowing she’s safe, knowing she’s breathing, knowing she’s mine even when she’s living a life that has nothing to do with me.
The tracker wasn’t me controlling her movements. It was me refusing to be cut off from her completely. Refusing to lose the one person who makes everything else make sense.
And yeah. I know that’s twisted. I know that’s selfish.
But I can’t just stop wanting her.
And I can’t pretend I don’t need her.
What I can do is take her where she wants to go—even if it’s away from me.
I was sixteen when Stone assigned me to princess duty.
Emma was fifteen, home from that fancy dance academy in New York, and determined to raise hell after months of discipline and training.
Stone needed someone who could keep up with her, someone close to her age who wouldn’t stand out when she went to parties or snuck off to do stupid teenage shit.
That someone was me. The scrappy kid who’d been hanging around the MC for a year, desperate to prove I was worth patching in someday. Who’d already earned a reputation for hitting hard enough to break bones—mine, theirs, didn’t matter—and for being too stubborn to quit.
“Keep her safe,” Stone said. “Don’t let her out of your sight. She comes home in one piece, you’ve got a shot at prospecting officially.”
I said yes because turning down the president’s order wasn’t an option. Because I needed that prospect patch more than I needed air. Because at sixteen, with nowhere else to go and no one else to be, the MC was everything.
I didn’t say yes because of Emma.
That came later.
At first, she was just an assignment. An annoying one.
She tried to ditch me constantly—climbing out windows, sneaking through back doors, straight-up lying about where she was going.
I always found her. Always got her home safe.
She’d scream at me, tell me I was ruining her life, tell me she didn’t need a babysitter.
I’d shrug and show up the next day, anyway.
That was my job. Keep Stone’s daughter alive and out of trouble. Nothing more.
Except somewhere between the third time I dragged her out of a party right before it got raided and the night I carried her home after she sprained her ankle on a dare, it stopped feeling like just a job.
She was seventeen, home for Christmas break. I was eighteen, officially prospecting by then. We were sitting on the clubhouse roof at two in the morning because she couldn’t sleep and I was supposed to be watching her, anyway.
“Why do you do this?” she asked out of nowhere.
“Do what?”
“Follow me around. Deal with my shit. You could tell my dad it’s not worth it. That I’m too much trouble.”
She had her knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around them, hair loose around her face. She looked young, vulnerable—nothing like the fierce, sharp-tongued girl who made my life hell every time she came home.
“You’re not too much trouble,” I said.
“Liar.” But she smiled a little. “I’m definitely too much trouble.”
“Maybe. But you’re worth it.”
Her smile faded. “How?”
I should’ve said something safe. Something about duty or Stone’s orders or how watching her was my way into the MC. Instead, I told the truth.
“Because if something happened to you, I couldn’t live with myself.”
She rolled her eyes and called me a goon with a savior complex, and I laughed—because she wasn’t wrong.
Point is, long before I ever stuck a tracker in her, I was already gone. There are lines you don’t cross unless you’re in so deep you can’t even see air anymore.
For thirteen years I watched her walk away—every damn time—and told myself I’d be fine. That it was better for her. That she was meant for stages and lights and cities, not that faded town and the MC that raised us.
But every time she came back, even if it was just for a week or a night, I fell straight into orbit around her. Like some dumb dog that never learned the fence line.
Truth is, I don’t want to learn it. Don’t want to stop orbiting.
Swans mate for life. And she’s my swan. My mate.
Mine.
Has been since the day I swore to protect her.
And when she’s ready—when she’s done proving to herself and everyone else that she can be something other than an MC president’s daughter—she’ll realize that too.
Yeah, I could force it. I could push. I could back her into another screaming match where I throw every truth on the table until she cracks. But my girl is too damn stubborn and too damn brilliant to be cornered.
She has to choose this. Choose me. On her time. On her terms. Not because I demanded it or trapped her or because she felt like she owed me.
So I wait. I watch from a distance. I show up when she calls. And I let her fly every single time because that’s what you do when you love something wild.
You let it go. And you trust it’ll come back.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to make this ride last as long as humanly possible. Doesn’t mean I won’t take every second I can get with her pressed against my back, her arms around my waist, before I have to let her go again.
Her hand shifts against my stomach, and she presses closer to my back. She’s cold—the December air is brutal at highway speeds—and I’m just deciding whether we should stop soon or push on to the next city when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
Stone.
Of course it’s Stone.
I’ve been dodging this call since I left Stoneheart at four in the morning, tracking Emma’s movement toward the airport and praying she wouldn’t get on that plane. Not because I wanted to keep her in Stoneheart—though yeah, I’d fucking love that—but because if she did, she’d be alone.
And after everything that happened yesterday, no matter how brave she acts, she’d spend that whole flight scared shitless of getting kidnapped again on the other side. And I wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing to comfort her.
The phone buzzes again.
I ignore it. Emma doesn’t need to hear this conversation, and I sure as hell don’t need her listening to Stone tear into me while we’re doing seventy-five on I-85.
Fifteen minutes later, I pull off at a rest stop outside Greenville. One of those big travel plazas with multiple food options, surprisingly clean bathrooms, and harsh fluorescent lighting that makes everyone look half-dead.
Emma climbs off the bike stiffly, tugging off her helmet and shaking out her dark hair. She’s got helmet hair and road-weary eyes, and she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Coffee?” I ask.
“God, yes.”
We head inside, and I’m hyperaware of the looks we’re getting—me in my Stoneheart MC cut, her in jeans and a pink hoodie underneath my massive leather jacket.
I order us coffee and breakfast sandwiches while Emma claims a table in the corner, away from the families and truckers and business travelers. When I bring the food over, she’s staring at her phone—the burner she bought this morning—like it might bite her.
“Kya?” I guess, sliding her coffee across the table.
“Yep. Seven Instagram DMs asking where I am and if I’m OK.” Emma picks up the coffee, wraps both hands around it. “I told her I’m fine and heading back to New York. She’s not buying it.”
“Kya’s smart.”
“Yeah. I probably shouldn’t have downloaded any social media, but I literally don’t have anyone’s number. Figured I should check in before Dad panics.”
“You’ve got my number.”
“Yeah . . .“ She avoids elaborating by taking a sip of her coffee. “This coffee is terrible.”
“Welcome to road trip coffee. It only gets worse from here.”
She almost smiles. Almost.
We eat in silence for a few minutes, and I’m trying to figure out how to have the conversation we need to have—about last night, about the tracker, about what the hell happens next—when my phone buzzes again.
Stone. Again.
Emma’s gray eyes flick to my phone. “You should probably answer that.”
“Probably.”
“He’s going to be furious.”
“Definitely.”
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “You’re going to get in trouble because of me.”
“I was already in trouble, swan. Just not because of you—because of me.” I stand, grabbing my phone. “I’ll be right back.”
I head outside into the cold, find a spot away from the entrance, and call Stone back.
He answers on the first ring.
“Where the fuck is my daughter?”