Chapter 32 #2
Tuesday watched the Nantahala Gorge fly past them in a blur of deep green and rushing white water.
Knife leaned his new bike into the curves with practiced skill, and she moved with him like they were one machine, one creature, perfectly in sync.
The wind whipped around her helmet, the river roared beside them, and every tight, thrilling turn threading through the canyon sent a jolt of adrenaline singing through her blood.
She tightened her arms around his waist and smiled, because this was who she was now. A biker’s ol’lady, riding bitch behind him, and it was glorious.
She’d walked into his butcher shop nearly ten months earlier as a pack wolf, when she’d never once considered walking away from not only the safety of the pack, but the rituals and gatherings that’d defined her entire life.
The monthly full-moon runs with her people, the easy comfort of pack bonds, the knowledge that she would always have dozens of powerful wolves at her back if she ever needed them.
But then she’d fallen in love, and had chosen to walk away from the pack bonds, to trade a major part of her life for a man who saw every dark, complicated, hungry part of her and didn’t just accept it — he fed it. He challenged it.
Knife pushed her past every limit she thought she had, and he loved her even more fiercely for how she surrendered and broke for him.
And the bikers, his chosen family, the men and their ol’ladies had opened their arms and made her one of their own without hesitation. Not a pack, but a collection of shifters with oaths tying them together in different ways.
She’d lost the safety and sanction of the pack, but had gained something deeper: a man who owns her completely in the bedroom.
She’d gained a man whose chosen family had whooped and cheered as he’d put his vest on her beside a pool in Alabama.
Women who had welcomed her into their sisterhood, who also love complicated, dominant men.
She’d gained a life where she doesn’t have to hide who she is.
Not any of it — not the wolf, not the masochist, not the woman who orders multiple entrees.
They accept all of her, even the chef with a YouTube channel who drives a Maserati.
The gorge opened briefly and the river spread wide beside them.
Knife accelerated to pull them out of a curve, and she felt the surge of it in her chest and stomach.
This road, this man, this bike, was the reward for walking into Homewood and uttering the words that’d severed everything she’d been born into.
And it’d been worth it, without a single moment of regret. She’d felt the loss for many months, and still did sometimes, but never had she regretted it.
She pressed her face against the back of his shoulder and breathed him in over the cold air and the many scents of the river, and he took another long right-hand curve with the kind of controlled aggression he put into everything — belting her, cutting steaks, playing paintball with his brothers, and driving his bike.
She moved with him the way her wolf moved with the terrain — not thinking about it, just reading it, the knowledge in her body rather than her head.
The river flashed silver beside them, and she felt the thrill race through her body like lightning. She pressed closer to Knife’s back, feeling the solid strength of him, the steady beat of his heart under her hands.
They were both wolves, and they’d both left their packs. They both knew exactly what they’d lost, and what they’d gained.
And now he was carrying her through the mountains, toward his family of origin.
Both the blood family who’d raised him and the club family he’d oathed into were hers now, too. Just as her grandmother’s loud Thanksgiving table, her cousin’s teasing, and her grandmother’s unconditional love were his.
She’d considered getting married the day before Valentine’s Day, but then she’d lose a holiday for the rest of her life, with Valentines and her Anniversary being smashed together.
So their wedding day would happen in mid-January, and she would marry the man who could, and often did, take her apart and then put her back together stronger. The man who understood every dark, complicated piece of her and loved her all the more for it.
She thought about how she’d walked into his butcher shop for a cut of meat, everything that’d come after, and her wolf settled inside her, beyond pleased to submit to this man they’d chosen together.
She leaned into another hairpin turn with him and simply held on while Knife’s strong arms skillfully piloted the motorcycle over the winding ribbon of road, carrying them forward into the rest of their lives.
Thank you for reading KNIFE.