Chapter 10
County Eighteen
The bar sat alone on the edge of County Eighteen like it’d been dropped there and forgotten. Flat-roofed, one flickering beer sign in the window, gravel lot half mud, half broken glass.
The Hades Hellhounds used it as a halfway house when they didn’t want to be seen riding into town patched. Ren knew that much from old rumors. The dragon didn’t care about their habits. It cared about the smell.
Under cheap fried food and stale beer, there was that sour tang of arrogance.
Predator stink.
They killed their engines at the mouth of the lot. Quiet spread, thick and heavy. A single pickup sat by the dumpster. No bikes. Too neat.
“Don’t like it,” Eagle muttered near the front.
“Too late,” Ren said under her breath.
Tater looked back at us over his shoulder. His visor was up; his eyes were flat gray stone.
“Remember the rules,” he said. “We walk in calm. We walk out loud if we have to. No one starts shooting unless I say so.”
“And if they start it?” Mouse called.
“Then we finish it.”
The dragon stretched under my ribs. “Let me taste them.”
“Soon,” she told it.
They dismounted in a line, spreading into a loose V without thinking about it.
Years of fights had taught Their bodies the dance.
Ren’s leg screamed the second her boot hit gravel, but she didn’t let it show.
The hoodie hid the worst of the bandages.
The cut over it told anyone looking where she belonged.
Ren caught Tater’s eye as they moved toward the door. He gave the smallest nod.
Ren could hear the bar before she saw it fully—pool balls clacking, a woman laughing too loud, a jukebox trying and failing to drown out bad country warbling from someone’s phone. Normal noise.
Too normal.
Tater pushed the door open.
The smell hit like a slap—grease, beer, old smoke, and that Hellhound stink, under everything, like mold.
Heads turned. The place went from rowdy to quiet in three seconds flat.
Four men at the bar. Two at a corner table. One standing by the back hallway that must’ve led to offices or a storage room. They wore neutral clothes—denim, flannel, work boots. No colors on display. But you could see the club in their posture, in their eyes.
One of them smirked when he saw them. Big guy. Black beard, buzz cut, eyes like polished stones. His gaze slid right past Tater and locked on Ren.
“There she is,” he said. “The miracle girl.”
She didn’t flinch. “You got religion since last night?”
He laughed. “We all saw you on the screen, sweetheart. Heard you scream. That was beautiful.”
The dragon snarled. Heat crawled under her skin, hungry.
“Let me out.”
“Not yet,” she told it.
Tater stepped up, just enough to put himself half in front of her without making it look like he was hiding her.
“You boys run out of churches to vandalize?” he asked.
The bearded Hellhound spread his hands, all casual. “We’re just enjoying the local talent. Heard this bar serves anybody with money. Thought maybe they’d make an exception for royalty.”
He dragged out the word royalty like an insult. A couple of the others snickered.
Royal Bastards. Their favorite joke.
Eagle moved up on Ren’s other side. Brick and Mouse fanned out, blocking the door’s line of sight. The bartender backed up slowly, eyes going wide, hands raised.
“We can do this civil,” Tater said. “You pack up, walk out, stay off our roads. We pretend last night was an accident.”
Beard snorted. “You call that an accident? You sent your dragon out for a midnight snack on our boys and now you wanna talk… fuckin’ peace?”
He leaned on the bar, close enough to the nearest guy that he could grab a bottle if he wanted.
“She was alone,” Tater said. “You set a trap. You tried to take something that’s mine. You failed. That’s the only part that matters to me.”
Beard’s gaze slid to me again. He didn’t look at Tater when he said, “You sure about that? ‘Cause from where we’re standing, she was almost ours.”
The dragon pushed against her ribs like a fist. Ren’s palm tingled.
“You got something to say to me,” she said, stepping out from behind Tater, “say it to my face, not over his shoulder.”
“Ren,” Tater warned.
Ren ignored him.
Beard’s smile widened. “That’s what I like about you. You come when called.”
“I didn’t come when you called,” she said. “I came because you shot at me. Slight difference.”
“Semantics,” he said. “Point is, you came alone. You always do that when you’re mad at your man?”
The room cooled a few degrees.
There it was. Inside information. The dragon tasted it like blood.
“He knows too much,” it said.
Ren felt all the Bastards shift beside her at once—small movements, fists clenching, weight shifting forward. Tater stilled instead. Stillness, with him, meant something was breaking.
“How you know she was alone?” he asked, voice quiet.
Beard shrugged. “We watch. We listen.” His eyes flicked past us, toward the back hallway for a fraction of a second. “Friends in low places.”
There. A clue. Quick as a flash, gone.
Ren followed that glance. The guy near the back hallway tensed, then relaxed when he saw her looking.
He had his hands in his pockets. No patch.
No ink. But something about the way he stood—the straight spine, the way he kept one shoulder slightly turned toward the door like he was used to watching exits—it tugged at me.
He smelled familiar.
Not Hellhound.
Leather and cheap cologne and the faint metallic tang of someone who spent too much time near their toolshed.
Ren’s stomach dropped.
“One of yours,” the dragon hissed.
She didn’t know who yet, not by name. Not by patch. But that scent was from their side of the line.
“Enough talking,” Eagle said, voice sharper than the air. “You got something that belongs to us, or are we just here to listen to you flap your gums?”
Beard shook his head. “You Bastards. Always in a hurry.” He straightened, hand brushing the bar top. “Man can’t even have a drink in peace anymore.”
He grabbed a bottle by the neck and swung.
Eagle was already moving. The bottle shattered on the table where his head had been. Brick lunged; Mouse ducked. The room erupted.
The first punch rocked through her bruised ribs so hard she saw white, even though it wasn’t aimed at her. The dragon recoiled, then expanded, pushing heat into every nerve, burning the edges of the pain away.
“Now,” it said.
I let it.
Fire slid under Ren’s skin like molten metal. It didn’t explode outward, not yet. It hugged her muscles, laced her bones. Her fingers crackled with barely contained heat.
The guy closest to her swung wide. Ren sidestepped, caught his wrist, twisted, felt the joint strain and pop. He screamed, tried to bring his other fist around. Ren slammed her forehead into his nose. Bone crunched. Blood sprayed.
The room was a blur of Bastards and Hades Hellhounds and panicked civilians scrambling for the back door. Tater had Beard by the collar, slamming him into the bar hard enough to rattle every glass still standing. Eagle had another guy pinned, his forearm digging into his throat.
Through it all, she kept flicking my eyes toward the back hallway.
That man still stood there.
Watching.
Not moving to help his supposed brothers. Not moving to run. Just… watching.
And in his stance, in the angle of his head, she recognized something so small it hurt—
the way a Bastard prospects himself up, trying to look older.
The way one of the younger patches always stood when Tater was talking, like he wanted to be ready if his President called his name.
Ren didn’t say it out loud. Not yet. Her throat closed around it.
He saw her staring and looked away.
Coward.
A Hellhound grabbed my her from the side. She felt the jerk, the drag of muscle over muscle. She spun, letting the dragon guide her weight. Heat flared around her elbow, just enough to sear through his sleeve. He screamed, jerking his hand back, skin reddened and blistering.
She didn’t feel bad.
Ren caught a glimpse of Tater out of the corner of her eye. Beard had pulled a knife. The blade flashed toward Tater’s ribs. Tater blocked, but the edge kissed his side. Blood bloomed dark on his shirt.
The dragon roared like someone had stabbed it.
Everything went red for a heartbeat. She pushed the fire down, fighting not to shift fully. The med wrap around her ribs strained.
“Ren!” Tater snapped, sensing it without even looking.
“I’ve got it,” she ground out.
“You’re supposed to be middle of the pack,” he snarled, punching Beard hard enough to send him sprawling. “This is not middle.”
“Tell him that,” she said, ducking another swing.
Another bottle shattered somewhere, glass raining down. The jukebox died mid-song. The bar lights flickered, then steadied.
The guy by the hallway finally moved.
That’s when she caught the scent of another she had believed to be long gone.
They slipped through the back door like two little bitches.
Ren’s gut twisted. She wanted to go after them, tear the truth right out of their damn throats. The dragon liked that idea. “Hunt,” it urged.
But they weren’t done there yet.
A Hellhound came at her with a pool cue like a spear. She grabbed it mid-swing. The wood scorched where her hands closed around it, flames licking up the grain. His eyes widened.
“Holy—”
She snapped the stick in half and drove the blunt end into his gut. He folded. She let the burning halves clatter to the floor.
“Tater!” Eagle shouted. “We gotta move!”
He was right. Sirens were a distant echo now, faint but coming closer. No way the locals had missed this much noise.
Tater drove his fist into Beard’s face one last time. Beard dropped like a sack of meat, hitting the floor with a wet thud.
Tater grabbed the front of his shirt, dragged him up an inch. “Next time you send for my old lady,” he rasped, “you better bring a bigger shovel.”
Beard spit blood laughed weakly. “You think this is about her?” he wheezed. “She’s just the flame. You ain’t seen the hand holding the match yet.”
Then he slumped, out cold.
Ren stepped closer, fire still crawling across her skin.
“What hand?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer. Didn’t hear. He had gone to dreamland or worse. The dragon didn’t care which. It wanted to finish the job.
The chain slipped from Taters pocket and landed silently on the floor, they had no idea.
“Burn him,” it said.
“Not here,” she muttered.
“Out!” Eagle barked. “Everybody out! Cops’ll be on us in three!”
They moved.
Ren backed toward the door, keeping her eyes on the fallen Hades Hellhounds. The back hallway door swung a little, still settling where the traitors had slipped out. Her leg throbbed with every step. The bandages under her hoodie felt too tight.
Tater grabbed her wrist, dragging Ren into the cool night air.
Gravel crunched as men scrambled for bikes. Engines fired, one after another. The lot filled with light and noise.
Ren swung a leg over hers; teeth gritted against the pain. The dragon pushed strength into her muscles, holding her upright.
“What happened to ‘no hero shit’?” Tater shouted over the engines.
“I followed orders,” she yelled back. “I stayed on my feet.”
“Debatable!”
They tore out of the lot as the first siren wailed closer, blue-red glow starting to stain the sky behind them.
As they hit the highway, the dragon finally settled, sated for now. But her mind didn’t.
She kept seeing those men by the hallway. The they stood. The way they slipped out the back while everyone else was bleeding. The way their scent nagged at her—familiar in all the worst ways.
Not just a traitor.
A patched one.