Chapter 4 #2
“Ren,” Tater said, more warning in his voice now.
“What?” she snapped. “You want me to freak out? Start sobbing? Admit I’m scared? Newsflash, Baby — I’ve been scared since the first time that thing under my ribs decided to set a man on fire for slapping me. I just got real good at acting like I wasn’t.”
Silence settled over the room, heavy and close. The fluorescent light buzzed, flickered once, then steadied.
Tater sat back down in the chair, rubbing his eyes with thumb and forefinger.
“You left your chain,” he said quietly. “On the floor. Outside my door.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I was there.”
“You know what I thought when I saw it?” he asked. “First thought?”
“That I finally came to my senses?” she said, trying for a smirk that didn’t quite land.
“That you were gone,” he said. “Not for a ride. Not for a night to cool off. Just… gone. Out of us. Out of this.” He shook his head once. “I’ve taken bullets, broken bones, buried brothers. None of that hit like that stupid little noise your chain made when I picked it up.”
Ren’s chest tightened in a place that had nothing to do with cracked ribs.
“Then I realized you’d taken your bike,” he went on. “Then Eagle checked the cameras, saw you roll out alone. Then we heard the shots on the wind.”
He didn’t have to say the rest. She’d felt it — that storm in him, even unconscious.
“I wasn’t leaving the club,” she said. “I was leaving the conversation.”
“You could’ve just yelled at me like a normal person,” he said.
“What, and risk turning your office into a bonfire?” she said. “I was trying to be considerate.”
Eagle snorted softly. “That’s her version of considerate, huh.”
“Shut up, bird boy,” she muttered.
He smirked, but there was no heat in it.
Tater’s hand found hers on the blanket, fingers careful but firm. His thumb brushed across her knuckles, rough skin warm.
“I’m not gonna lie and say you didn’t scare the hell out of me,” he said. “Or that what happened out there didn’t piss me off. But I’m not saying any of that because you’re a ‘liability’ or a ‘problem’ or whatever word Eagle was throwing around.”
Eagle lifted his hands. “Hey, I’m right here.”
“I’m saying it because every time you go down, the whole club feels it,” Tater said, ignoring him. “And because I’m a selfish bastard who doesn’t know how to breathe without you anymore.”
That landed harder than any bullet.
Ren’s instinct was to deflect. Make a joke. Pretend it rolled right off. Instead, she let it sit for a second.
The dragon purred under my skin, pleased. “He’s ours.”
“Codependent much?” she said weakly.
“Shut up and take the fuckin’ compliment,” he said.
They fell into a quieter kind of silence then. Not comfortable exactly, but less jagged.
After a while, the ache in her ribs settled into a dull, steady burn. her eyelids felt heavy. The dragon pulsed warmth into the worst spots like a space heater fighting a draft.
“Any news from outside?” she asked, trying to stay awake.
“Hades Hellhounds went dark right after the hit,” Eagle said. “No bikes spotted near our lines, no poking at our gas station, nothing. Too quiet.”
“Licking their wounds,” Tater said. “Or lining up the next move.”
“You think they’re waiting to hit harder?” Ren asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “But they also know we’re pissed now. Any move they make, we’re gonna meet them with more than harsh language.”
“You gonna let me be there for that?” she asked.
He didn’t answer right away.
“Depends,” he said finally. “On if you can stand without falling on your face.”
“Pretty low bar.”
“For most people,” he said. “You, I’m raising it to ‘no internal organs visible’.”
She rolled her eyes. “Dictator.”
“President,” he corrected. “Heavy is the head, all that shit.”
The dragon snorted. It had opinions about kings and crowns.
She felt exhaustion dragging at her again, heavier this time. It was a different kind of pull — less like passing out, more like finally giving in.
Tater must’ve seen it. He squeezed her hand and stood.
“I gotta go run church,” he said. “The boys need to hear from me before rumors start breeding. You gonna be okay here for a bit?”
“I’d come with you if I could,” she said.
“I know.” He leaned down and brushed his lips against her forehead, just above the line of an old scar. “That’s half the problem.”
He straightened, picked up his cut from the back of the chair, slid into it. The weight settled across his shoulders like a question he already knew the answer to.
“Try to sleep,” he said. “Let the lizard work.”
“It’s a damn dragon,” she muttered.
“It can be whatever the hell it wants as long as it keeps you breathing,” he said, and then he was out the door, leaving the smell of leather and storm behind.
The door clicked shut.
Eagle lingered for a second, like he might say something else.
“What?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Just wanted to see you with my own eyes before I left. Makes it easier to tell the others you’re not dead.”
“How touching,” she said.
“Don’t get used to it,” he said. Then, he was more serious, “You know they’re gonna blame you.”
“The Hades Hellhounds?” she asked. “Or our boys?”
“Both,” he said. “Different ways.”
“I can take it.”
“I know you can,” he said. “That’s what scares me.”
Before she could unpack that, he stepped out and closed the door behind him.
The med room felt bigger and smaller at the same time without them in it. The hum of the light grew loud again. Somewhere down the hall, a bike revved, brothers shouting over each other. The scent of coffee drifted in, mingling with alcohol wipes and old sweat.
She turned her head, slowly, carefully, to look at her side.
The bandage was tight. She lifted the edge with her fingertips, just enough to see.
The wound was ugly — angry red with darker crusted edges where the bullet had kissed through. But in the center, faint threads of gold light ran like veins, spreading out, shallow but real, knitting bone and muscle in patterns no doctor’d recognize.
“You’re gonna leave a mark, huh,” she whispered.
“Many,” the dragon said.
“Good,” she said. “Then I don’t forget.”
Ren let the bandage fall back. The dragon’s warmth spread wider, curling through her chest, her ribs, and her leg.
“Why’d you keep me alive?” she asked it, not for the first time.
“You’re mine,” it said simply. “And I’m his.”
The thought jolted Ren.
“You like him,” she murmured. “That’s new.”
“He keeps you breathing,” it said. “He doesn’t run from fire. He doesn’t try to cut me out. And he is not afraid to bleed.”
She thought of Tater in that clearing, boots sliding in mud, eyes wide when he saw the bodies. His hands on her face. The way his voice had cracked when he said her name.
“Yeah,” she said. “He’s something.”
The dragon settled, its presence heavy and content for once.
Ren’s eyes drifted shut again.
This time, the sleep that came was thick but not empty. It was threaded with memories — flashes of older fights, older scars.
Different med room, different night. A bottle to the face in a bar two towns she’d put three guys down and the fourth had caught her off-guard with glass. Woke up on the same cot, lip stitched, eye purple, shoulder wrapped.
Tater had been there then too, leaning in that same damn chair, boots propped on the edge of the bed.
“You drool when you’re knocked out,” he’d said.
“So do you,” she’d shot back.
“Yeah,” he’d said. “I know.”
They laughed then. Easier laughs. Before titles. Before presidents, dragons, and war.
Another flash. A motel room with peeling wallpaper. Ren’s first partial shift in front of him — bone breaking, skin tearing, scales pushing through as fire roared around them. She’d expected him to scream, to run, to shoot.
Instead, he’d sat on the edge of the bathtub after, holding a towel to her bleeding gums, saying, “Next time, let’s try that somewhere without sprinklers.”
No fear. Just that same stubborn acceptance, like he’d decided already, and the rest of the world could catch up or get out of the way.
Voices tugged at the edge of her awareness again — distant, muffled, through a wall. The chapel probably. Tater’s voice rolling over the others, firm, steady, giving orders. Eagle’s cutting in with coordination. A murmur of agreement, a rumble of anger.
The family was gearing up for something.
Ren tried to roll onto her side to listen better. Pain shot through her ribs so sharp she saw white for a second. The dragon hissed, then pushed warmth into the break.
“Stay down,” it ordered.
“I hate staying down,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Gonna do it anyway though, huh.”
For now.
She let herself sink back.
Ren thought about the video — her in the clearing, burning. Someone holding a phone with shaking hands, catching just enough to make her a legend or a target or both.
“Let them watch,” she murmured.
The dragon purred. “We’ll give them a better show next time.”
Ren smiled, small and mean.
“Yeah,” she said. “We fuckin’ will.”
Her eyes closed again, this time dragged under by exhaustion that even dragon fire couldn’t hold back.
Somewhere, outside, thunder rolled.
Or maybe it was just bikes.
Either way, something was coming.
And next time, she wouldn’t be on her knees.