Chapter 15 The Chain
The Chain
The chain wasn’t hard to find.
Nothing ever is when you know what to take.
He’d followed them that night—kept to the dark roads, low lights, quiet engine. Watched from the tree line as the Hades Hellhounds dragged their wounded out, sirens in the distance. He saw her—Ren—bleeding but alive, clinging to that bastard president like she belonged there.
He waited until the bikes were gone, until the smoke cleared and the silence started to settle. Then he walked into the wreckage.
The smell of gunpowder and blood still hung thick in the air.
Tables overturned.
Bodies cooling.
And in the middle of it, near a smear of her blood, something small glinted on the floor.
A chain.
He crouched down, lifted it with two fingers. Still warm. Still hers.
He turned it over, tracing the little burn mark near the clasp.
Now it smelled like him.
Oil. Leather. Smoke.
The Royal Bastards president.
Shadow’s jaw clenched.
“She left it for him,” he muttered, voice low. “Thought she could walk away clean.”
He pocketed it. Felt the weight settle against his chest like old sin.
When he finally looked up, one of the dead men on the floor had a Bastards patch half torn from his cut—Tater’s crew. The sight made Shadow smile.
“Guess I know who to visit first,” he said.
And before he left, he kicked the door open again, just to hear it bang against the wall. Just to make sure the ghosts knew he’d been there.
He found Tater’s trail easy.
The Bastards always leave tracks.
Gas receipts. Dust. The faint echo of patched engines heading north out of town.
He followed until the road turned quiet, until the night swallowed the sound of every other bike but one.
The president’s Harley was parked outside an old motel, back corner, away from the lights. A man like Tater didn’t need to hide—he just preferred no one see the mess.
Shadow killed his engine two blocks away, rolled the rest of the distance silent.
When he saw the door cracked open, his pulse didn’t spike. He didn’t rush. He just smiled.
He slipped inside like smoke.
Tater wasn’t there. The bed was made military neat, but the smell told him everything—oil, whiskey, leather, and faintly, her.
Shadow’s hand went to the chain around his neck. He closed his fist around it until it bit into his skin.
“She marked you,” he whispered to the empty room. “My little dragon left a scent.”
He looked around once more, eyes landing on the photo half-tucked under the lamp—a grainy shot, maybe a few months old. The Reapers lined up beside their bikes, and right in the middle, Tater’s arm slung loose over Ren’s shoulder. Not possessive. Not claiming. Just comfortable.
It infuriated him.
That calmness.
That ease.
He tore the picture in half, pocketed her side, and left the rest burning in the trash can.
By the time he was back on the road, the chain was cold again, but his mind wasn’t.
Every mile north, every mile closer to the ridge, he whispered the same thing to himself, over and over, until it became a vow.
“She forgot what she is. I’ll remind her.”
Lightning flared across the horizon ahead—white veins crawling through the dark—and for a heartbeat, he swore he saw the shape of wings stretched wide against the clouds.
He smiled.
“Soon, pretty thing. We finish what you started.”
He didn’t have to wait long to find one of Tater’s men.
The RBMC was predictable that way—honor before reason. They always circled back for their own.
The kid’s name was Finch. Barely patched, still too green to understand that loyalty can get you killed. Shadow found him limping out of a roadside bar before dawn, a bruised cut hanging off his shoulder.
The boy never saw him coming.
Shadow stepped out of the alley, quiet as a confession. The chain gleamed in his fist under the flickering neon.
“You ride with the Bastards?”
Finch froze. “Who’s asking?”
Shadow’s smile was all teeth. “Just a man looking for his girl.”
He moved faster than the kid could flinch—one strike, clean and surgical. The knife went in under the ribs. Finch gasped, the sound was small and broken.
Shadow caught him before he hit the ground, whispered against his ear, “Tell your president—she’s not his to save.”
He left him breathing, barely. Enough to deliver the message.
By sunrise, the chain was slick with someone else’s blood. Shadow cleaned it, hung it around his neck again, and rode north toward the ridge.
The dragon mark still burned in his memory, the one that flared gold across her throat the night she finally turned on him. He’d been dreaming of that glow ever since.
And now she’d led him straight to the man who thought he could keep her.
Perfect.
He twisted the throttle, grinning into the wind, rain already gathering on the horizon.
“Hold on to her, Tater,” he murmured. “Let’s see how long you last.”