Chapter 2
The Ambush
The clubhouse was too damn quiet.
Not peaceful quiet — it was the kind that crawls under your skin and waits to break something. The pool-table lights are off. Someone has left half a bottle of Jack sweating on the bar. Even the air smelled wrong — stale oil, smoke, and tension.
From behind Tater’s office door came the sound voices.
Eagle’s, low and sharp.
Tater’s, lower and rougher.
“…she’s unpredictable,” Eagle said. “You can’t lead with that hanging over you.”
“She’s my old lady,” Tater answered.
“She’s your fuckin’ problem when she burns the wrong side of a fight.”
“She’s also the reason half this club is still breathing. Don’t forget that.”
The silence that followed had weight. she’d learned long ago what each kind of silence meant. This one was the sound of Tater deciding whether to break something — or someone.
Ren should’ve walked away. Instead, she leaned against the wall, listening.
“You keep saying she can control it,” Eagle pressed.
“She can.”
“Until she can’t.”
That one hit deep. She closed her eyes and let the heat rise, slow and steady, behind her ribs. The dragon shifted, restless.
“They’re afraid of you again,” it murmured.
“Not afraid,” she whispered. “Cautious.”
Same thing.
Ren turned away from the door before she heard more, she didn’t want to. Down the hall, the light over our room flickered. The patch-worn walls smelled like sweat and him. Familiar. Home.
Inside the room, the bed was still a mess from the night before. His leather cut hung on the chair, the crowned-skull patch catching the light. Ren’s chain laid against her throat, warm from her skin.
She unclasped it.
The sound it made when it hit the floor outside his door was small but sharp — metal against wood, like a period at the end of a sentence she hadn’t meant to fuckin’ write.
“Guess that’s that,” she muttered.
The dragon stirred. “He will follow.”
“Not if I’m gone before he knows.”
She grabbed her jacket, zipped it against the chill, and headed out into the night.
The rain had already started — thin needles hissed against the lot. The Royal Bastards’ bikes sat in two perfect rows, chrome caught every flash of lightning. Ren’s waited at the end, black and lean, exhaust still ticking from the earlier ride.
She swung a leg over, keyed the ignition. The engine growled awake.
“Just a ride,” she told herself. “Clear my head.”
The dragon didn’t believe me. “You’re running again,” it said.
“Maybe.”
She rolled out of the lot, past the gates, the sound of the engine swallowing the guilt.
Behind her, the clubhouse lights dimmed to nothing.
Half a mile down the county road, the storm thickened. Water sheeted across the asphalt, her headlight carved tunnels through mist. The dragon liked the way the rain steamed where it touched her heated skin, and the hiss that followed. It made her feel alive.
Then the second engine came.
At first, she thought it was just a late-night trucker. Then another joined it. Then two more. The sound multiplied until it wasn’t background anymore — it was a chorus, tuned wrong, teeth on metal.
Headlights filled her mirrors.
The Hades Hellhounds.
Their colors were black and bone white, their engines loud enough to drown prayer. They fanned out behind her — three, four, and five bikes. The lead rider whistled — a sharp, mocking sound that cut through the rain.
“Evenin,’ fire-girl!” he yelled. “Where’s your President now?”
The dragon snapped awake, claws dragging against her ribs.
“Kill them.”
“Working on it.”
She kicked into a higher gear. The bike jerked. Trees blurred on both sides, the road was slick under the tires. The Hades Hellhounds followed, headlights were bobbing like hungry eyes.
A gunshot cracked. Something pinged off her rear fender. Another round tore past her shoulder.
That was enough.
Heat flared up her spine, it pooled behind my teeth. Steam rolled off her jacket. The rain turned to vapor around her.
The dragon stretched, eagerly. “Let me out.”
“Not yet.”
Branches clawed overhead as she veered off the main road onto an old service trail that cut through the woods. Mud splashed on the tires that were fighting for grip. The Hades Hellhounds didn’t hesitate — they followed, shouting, laughing, guns flashing dull red in the storm light.
One pulled alongside her, close enough that she could see the grin behind his visor. He raised the pistol.
Ren leaned hard, and slammed her boot into his side, she felt him spin out and vanish into the dark with a crash of metal and curses.
“Next mother fucker,” she hissed.
Two more closed in. Ren could feel their heat, and their hatred. The dragon’s voice drowned out the storm. “Now.”
She let it out.
Fire crawled out from under her skin, bright veins across her arms. The next bullet that hit her flattened against invisible scales and dropped smoking into the mud. Ren’s vision sharpened — every raindrop a slow, perfect bead. The world narrowed to breath, heartbeat, target.
Ren twisted in the saddle and exhaled a stream of white-hot flame.
It wasn’t enough to torch the forest — just a whip of fire that caught one Hellhound’s front tire. Rubber shrieked. His bike skidded sideways and slammed into a tree.
The rest scattered for half a heartbeat, then regrouped. Wolves around a bigger predator.
That was when she saw the van parked sideways across the trail up ahead — no lights, doors open.
Ambush inside the ambush.
The dragon snarled. “Trap.”
“Yeah,” she breathed. “Figured that out.”
She dropped gears, let the rear tire slide, aimed for the narrow gap on the left. Something metallic flickered — wire, stretched between trees. Too late.
It caught Her front wheel. The bike pitched. The world flipped. Ground, sky, ground.
Pain exploded through her shoulder. The dragon’s roar filled her skull. She hit the mud hard enough to knock the air out of herself. The bike crashed somewhere behind.
Boots thudded closer. Voices. Laughter.
“Well, look what crawled outta the myths,” one said. “Prez’s pet lizard.”
Ren rolled to her knees, spitting blood, hand finding the knife at her boot.
Five shapes circled. One had a crowbar. One carried chain. Another still had the pistol.
“Let’s see if she bleeds gold,” the one with the chain said.
The dragon rumbled low. “Show them.”
She stood.
Rain steamed off her. Heat rolled through the clearing. Their laughter faltered as the fire lit beneath her skin again, bright cracks of light tracing her arms.
“Run,” she said.
They didn’t.
She moved.
The first swing of the knife caught the gun hand; the pistol went spinning. She turned with momentum, she slammed an elbow into the next man’s throat, felt cartilage pop. The dragon flooded strength through her, too much, too fast. Ren’s vision blurred red.
Someone’s chain caught her shoulder and yanked her back. Ren spun, flames flaring from her fingertips burning through the steel links. He screamed and fell. The smell of scorched leather filled the clearing.
More gunfire. A line of fire lanced through her side. The dragon screamed in her head. she stumbled, turned, and then she saw the shooter — bald, eyes wild. He fired again.
The bullet hit, but the dragon caught it halfway. Pain, heat, rage — all one thing now.
She lifted my hand and let the fire go.
Light and noise. His world ended in flame.
The light faded fast. All that was left was the stink of scorched fuel and rain turning the ash into mud. Ren’s knees hit the ground. The dragon went quiet, heartbeat dropping back into her chest like a dying engine.
The forest sounded wrong — no birds, no night bugs, just water that hissed on hot metal. She tried to stand; her right leg didn’t answer. The cut along her ribs burned like a live wire.
Boots scraped behind Ren. She turned slowly and saw one Hellhound was still moving. His cut was half-torched, his colors melting, but he was breathing. He raised a pistol with a shaking hand.
“Should’ve stayed on the damn leash,” he rasped.
The dragon didn’t have enough left for fire. It gave her one last pulse of heat, just enough. She threw the knife. The blade sank into his throat, clean. He went down without a sound.
Then her world tilted. The rain blurred everything into streaks of gray.
“Stay awake,” the dragon warned.
“Trying.”
A familiar noise cut through the storm. A low growl of an engine that didn’t belong to the Hades Hellhounds. The sound of a Bastards bike tuned mean and fast.
She tried to call out, but her voice came out a whisper. The dragon flickered, weak but alive.
“He’s close,” it murmured.
She looked up through the rain. Headlights sliced through the trees, one beam sweeping across the wrecked trail. Tires slid in the mud, then stopped. The bike’s engine cut.
Boots hit the ground. A silhouette moved through the steam and smoke, big shoulders, familiar swagger. Leather cut glinting with the crown-skull patch.
“Tater,” she managed to say.
He didn’t speak at first. He just stared, taking in the wreckage — the burnt trees, the bodies, the blackened mud, Ren on her knees in the middle of it. When he finally moved, it was fast. He was beside her, hands on her face, checking for breath.
“Jesus, Ren…” His voice cracked. “What the hell did you do?”
“Went for a ride,” she whispered.
He looked like he wanted to shake her and hold her all at once. His gloves were slick with rain and blood —hers or theirs, she couldn’t tell.
“Stay with me,” he said. “Eagle’s ten minutes out with the truck. We got you.”
“Don’t yell at me later, “she muttered.
“Too late for that.”
The dragon stirred, faint amusement threading through the pain. He came.
“Yeah,” she breathed. “He always does.”
The last thing she saw was his face, gray eyes hard and wet with rain. Then everything went dark.