Wraith (Steel Riders MC #3)

Chapter 1

Wraith

“Yo, Prez, Wraith’s yakking in the bathroom over here.”

I wince as I set my forehead down on my arm, bracketed against the cold porcelain.

The stupid fucking suit I’ve been forced into is so restrictive that drawing air into my lungs is a near impossibility.

My body feels like it’s just been stuffed into a raging furnace, the kind of industrial looking oven type thing that you’d imagine at a bakery.

Except at the moment, I am certainly not as pretty as golden freshly baked buns. I certainly don’t smell anywhere near as sweet.

Sweat drips down my forehead and rolls past my temples. My back is soaked, itchy, and prickly under the starched fucking dickwad of a shirt I have on, but then again, so is my chest and the rest of me.

Edge might be the club’s VP, but at the moment, he’s also king of being the biggest fucking douchebag of the century. I wish he’d let me die in peace, not stand in the door of the public damn washroom and call for reinforcements.

When I think about what I’m going to be forced to do in less than an hour, my stomach constricts again and bile creeps up my throat.

I let out a groan, a pathetic sound, and turn my head to the side, but this time, nothing comes out of my already empty stomach.

After a few bouts, all I can do is cough up air, the effort so painful, twisting up my insides, that I wish I would have downed a glass of water so at least it would be over and done with.

Strings of saliva trail from my mouth and I wipe them away with the back of my hand.

Real fucking sexy. Classic groom material right here.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as a large figure darkens the doorway.

When I say big, I mean fucking huge. Steel, Prez of the Steel Riders MC, isn’t the kind of guy a person fucks with. Unless they want to die, that is. Although, the club’s VP, Edge, decided to give that a go a few weeks ago when he made Steel’s daughter his old lady.

There was a big showdown, blah, blah, blah. Shit got out of hand with another club who moved in after The Riders took my old club down a few years ago, more blah fucking blah, and all of a sudden, to prevent an all-out fucking war, I got volunteered to take one for the team.

In the form of marriage.

To a girl I don’t even know.

Who I haven’t even seen.

And if her old man is any indication, I might have to throw a paper bag over her face or gouge out my eyes to get the deed done.

That might sound mean, but at the moment, I’m fresh out of fucks to give.

Because this is supposed to be the real fucking deal.

Not some fake ass paper marriage. Viking’s daughters are a pain in his ass.

He wanted them off his hands, still treated right—since he appears to have an ounce of humanity—but out of his hair for good.

So that brings me to right about now.

Sit back and enjoy the damn show, ladies and gents, I hope you splurged on the front row tickets because this shit is gonna be epic.

“Fucking hell, Wraith,” Steel grinds out as he stalks into the bathroom. “This place is public. You’ve got your face pressed to the same seat some big ugly bastard probably just had his hairy ass on last night.”

I grimace but can’t actually find the momentum to pull myself vertical.

I get a picture of that ass Steel was talking about and my stomach lurches again.

All I can do is cough up air and spittle, before Steel’s big hands hook under my arms and jerk me upright like I’m not a two-hundred-pound, six-foot-two human being.

He drags me to my feet like I’m a useless sack of shit, and stares at me with that creepy slate gray gaze of his.

“You’re getting married in less than an hour and you’ve puked all down the front of your fucking suit,” Steel snarls.

Ironically, my eyes focus on the raven black strand of hair plastered to his forehead. He’s sweating. Even our Prez is sweating. Which means he’s not as calm, cool, collected, and assholish as he’d lead me to believe.

“Yeah, well, didn’t want to wear the fucking thing anyway. Give me my leathers and a t-shirt and I’d have been fine.”

Steel isn’t a bad guy. At six and a half feet, wide as a house and with furious midnight black hair that flies around his face and shoulders like a cloud of demon ravens, he might look intimidating as a raging bull about to tear your ass to shreds, but at the heart of him, he’s a good man who has kept his town, and his club, at peace for over a decade.

“This was part of the agreement. Legit wedding, legit marriages. Legit alliance. You got that? Because I have two other guys out there holding their shit together.”

I know he means Gage and Wing, who are part of this triple fucked up fuckery of a wedding.

Who marries off three of their daughters to men they don’t even know?

The Prez of our new Jacksonville chapter, that’s fucking who.

He had Steel by the balls when he took his old lady and his daughter, as well as another one of the club’s old ladies, and held them captive.

I thought I’d saved our asses by pulling out a gun one of his asshole enforcers had missed.

But, as they say, no good deed ever goes unpunished, and I found myself volunteered for this shitshow.

“They looked pretty damn green to me a few minutes ago.”

“But unlike you,” Steel snorts, “They didn’t come in here and yak all over themselves.”

“I’m sorry,” I retort, completely insincerely, as I glance around the bathroom.

It belongs to the hall where we’ve decided to hold this shitshow.

The same hall that hosts most of Helena’s social functions.

It’s not a big place, but big enough for a hell of a lot of testosterone-fueled, leather clad bodies to pack into the place.

“Maybe I should have stayed put in that back room with you all and done it all over your shoes.”

Steel’s eyes track down to his shit-kickers, and I envy the bastard at the moment.

The rest of the club, us three unlucky bastards being the exception, got to come in their regular clothes.

Leathers and jeans and worn-in boots, not this soul sucking contraption they call a fucking suit.

Tux. Whatever. It’s all the same garbage to me.

That steely gaze traces my ruined jacket. It was open, so unfortunately the black shirt below didn’t fare much better.

“You’re a mess and we don’t have a spare for you with half an hour before this shit is supposed to go down. The place is already packed. Not like any of us have a spare sitting in our closet at home either.”

“Then let me wear my regular clothes. This shit is killing me. Literally. I can’t fucking breathe.”

Something in Steel’s hard look softens. “Leah isn’t here yet. She wasn’t feeling well and needed extra time at the house. She’ll swing by some store and pick something up.”

“In half an hour?”

I choose not to comment on the whole Steel’s old lady not feeling well.

It’s come to everyone’s attention, over the past few weeks, that she’s been sick on and off.

Being August, it’s not exactly cold and flu season either.

It’s obvious that Steel’s gonna be a father, even though he hasn’t come out and told the club yet.

“She’s worked miracles before.”

“Can you get her to turn water into wine while she’s at it?”

Steel’s meaty palm guides me over to the sinks. “Get the fuck undressed and shut that wise-ass mouth. See if you can keep it closed during this damn ceremony, if you can. The sooner it’s done, the better. We can get down to the real business of all of this.”

I brace my arms on the chipped porcelain sink.

I chance a glance in the mirror above, a square industrial looking thing put there out of pure necessity and not for any ornamental flair.

Big mistake. I look worse than I did two years ago, when The Riders picked my bullet-riddled ass off the floor of the warehouse where the rest of my club went down.

They gave me a choice. Join them or die.

I wanted to die. Or so I said. I guess they knew better, because they got my sorry ass stitched up and sent to rehab to get clean after years of putting my own product up my nose.

I remember being in that whitewashed room, looking at myself, shivering, red rimmed eyes, sweat encrusted grayed out skin.

I looked like something death couldn’t even digest and had shit back out.

The only difference between then and now is that, sans blow, I’ve filled out my six foot frame.

“Can I keep it fucking shut when they ask me to repeat those damn vows?”

Steel’s mouth presses into a hard line and I can practically hear his teeth grinding. “You’re helping us prevent an all-out war. Plus, having a second chapter of The Riders makes sense.”

“I know.” My fingers curl harder over the edge of the sink.

“If it’s any consolation, Leah says Leena is pretty.

All the old ladies thought so. The other sisters refused to show to their own wedding shower, but your girl, she was decent enough to come.

” Steel claps me on the back as he gets out his phone, ready to dial his old lady and try and put the pieces of my vomit-riddled self back together.

“Better get her to pick up spares for the other two. Gage and Wing didn’t look any better when I left.” I want to tack on some wise-ass crack about shoving those assurances up his ass, but I press my lips into a thin line and for once in my life, stay silent.

Steel rolls his eyes. He sets his big, heavy right hand on my shoulder, the one with his massive metal rings.

The biggest one, a huge chrome looking skull, winks back at me in the shitty fluorescent lighting overhead.

I shudder, hoping like hell Leah won’t answer and maybe I’ll be spared.

Or maybe they’ll just let me strip down to the waist and go out there bare chested.

I have enough ink littering my body that some might mistake it for a shirt.

No such luck. Steel launches into instructions immediately. Right at the end, before he hangs up, he says, love ya’ babe, and I think I’m going to be sick all over the floor again. If I barfed all over the fucker’s boots, it would serve him right.

Pretty wife to be or not, I’m twenty-nine years old and not ready to get fucking hitched.

It’s a damn fine thing that divorce is in style. The sooner I can get one, the better.