Untamed Heart (Ashland #2)

Prologue

DAKOTA

Nineteen Years Old

As I sat in the driver’s seat of the little car I’d scrimped and saved for years to buy the moment I turned eighteen, I stared out the windshield at the clubhouse in front of me, trying to find the courage to go inside.

My heart was racing and I was gripping the steering wheel so tight the aged, cracked leather creaked beneath my clammy palms.

This was it. The moment I’d been waiting for all these years had finally come.

I always thought I would be more excited to finally be getting out.

Instead, I was scared. Scared and sad. Because as miserable as things had been, I guess I still held on to the hope that things would change for the better.

However, the events that led me to sitting outside my father’s clubhouse made it clear that was never going to happen.

I felt like I’d been preparing for this most of my life.

It was why I drove around in a shitty used hatchback I bought for a song instead of the fancy, brand new car with all the bells and whistles my father tried to give me for my birthday the year prior.

That car would have technically belonged to him, and I needed something that was just mine.

Especially if I planned to take off in it.

Which was exactly what I was about to do.

I wouldn’t have put it past my mother to call the cops and report the car stolen.

That was the sort of petty, vindictive move she wouldn’t hesitate to make if it meant causing me more pain.

And it wasn’t like I could depend on my father to swoop in and save the day.

He was too busy burying his head in the sand—too busy with his stupid fucking club—to stop what had been happening right under his own roof.

He couldn’t be bothered.

That realization had been more painful than when I thought he was just too clueless to step in and help. That had been the day the last little kernel of hope I’d been clinging to that at least one of my parents loved me shriveled up and turned to dust.

His desire not to rock the boat and pretend everything was fine had meant my sister and I were stuck in a living nightmare we had no protection against while he lived it up with his so-called brothers.

They weren’t even his blood, yet they got more of him than my sister, Remy, or I ever had. They had all his loyalty and devotion, leaving nothing for his own daughters. That was just one of the reasons I despised the Iron Wraiths.

It was hard not to blame them when the man I’d once hero worshipped chose them over Remy and me time and time again.

Flipping the visor down, I looked at my reflection in the small mirror to make sure the concealer around my left eye and cheekbone was still doing its job.

There wasn’t anything I could do about the swelling, but at least the deep purple bruising wasn’t visible.

It wasn’t my first time hiding my mother’s treatment behind makeup, but it was damn sure going to be the last.

I turned the key to kill the ignition, and as soon as I did, the throbbing, pulsing sounds of the party coming from inside the clubhouse poured out.

I’d been here enough times in my life to be familiar with the layout.

My father used to bring Remy and me around all the time when we were little for family barbecues and cookouts, that sort of thing.

For the longest time I felt like I was a little biker princess because of how my dad and the other men in his club treated me and my sister.

Unfortunately that didn’t last. It wasn’t long before my mom put a stop to it, claiming kids had no place hanging around a bunch of rough bikers, half of whom had arrest records.

But I knew that was a lie. The truth was she’d seen how much we enjoyed it so she’d ripped it away.

Just like everything else good in our lives.

She hated competing with anyone for my dad’s attention, thinking she deserved every single bit of it for herself.

That was why she hated all the Iron Wraiths with a vengeance.

She’d always been bitter about his loyalty to them, and I lost count of the number of times I’d woken up in the middle of the night to the two of them shouting the house down, fighting about how much time Dad spent at the clubhouse instead of at home with her. Not her family. Just her.

It was also why she hated me and Remy. It didn’t matter that neither my sister nor I had gotten any real affection from our father in longer than I could remember.

As far as I could tell, he didn’t give a damn whether we were there or not.

That didn’t matter to her, though. In her mind, there had been a point in our lives where she felt like he’d given us more love than he’d given her.

And for that, our punishment was a lifetime of misery.

And tonight I’d finally reached the limit on what I could take. I was done.

As I pulled the door open and stepped inside, I realized those family parties we’d attended as kids were downright wholesome in comparison to the rager happening at that very moment.

Uncertainty had my stomach tangled up in knots like a thousand strands of Christmas lights that had been haphazardly tossed into a box in the garage.

The large, open space was full of people.

Some of the faces were familiar. I recognized the guys who’d been in the club with my father.

But at least half of them were strangers, and most of those were women.

I wormed my way through the mass of people, my nose scrunching at the unpleasant scent of sweat, beer, and cigarette smoke that filled the room.

Hard, heavy music blasted from the jukebox at a decibel that should have made my ears bleed, and the soles of my sneakers squeaked and slurped with each step I took across the sticky floor.

“Yo. If it isn’t Little Riley.”

I turned at the sound of the nickname my father’s club members had been using since I was a little girl. Cortland Pope Jr, son of the current club president and my dad’s best friend.

I tilted my chin in his direction. “Pope,” I greeted, using the only name he went by.

His smile was polite, if not a bit bemused. I hardly ever came around anymore, and I was sure my father hadn’t bothered explaining to any of them why that was.

His brows tugged together in at the middle, his head canting to the side. “Pops know you’re here, darlin’?”

Pops was what they all called my father instead of using his real name, Ezra.

“No.” I doubted he knew anything about me, least of all, that I was in the same building he was in.

“It’s not really his business anyway, since I’m an adult and all,” I bit out, arching a brow at him in challenge.

Most people were intimidated by Pope. Understandably so.

I mean, the guy was huge and could look scary as hell when he wanted to.

But despite the several years between us, I’d spent enough time with him when I was little to know he had a much softer center than people gave him credit for.

He held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, not tryin’ to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. Just thought I’d warn you. This is a patch party for our prospects. Might be a little too rough for you.”

Oh, if this guy only knew what I was capable of handling. I didn’t bother saying so. “I’m not staying. I just need to talk to Roe.” My attention slid from Pope as I scanned the room for the one and only person I wanted to see, but I couldn’t find him. “Do you know where he is?”

If anyone knew where he would be, it was Pope.

The two of them were so damn close, it was a wonder they weren’t fused at the hip.

They’d prospected together, become full-blown Wraiths together, and I’d heard plenty of talk of where they planned to take the club in the future once Pope wore the president’s patch.

The humor that had been in his expression a moment ago slowly melted away, and I could have sworn his eyes bounced down to my injured cheek before returning to my own. “Last I saw, he went to take a piss.” He paused, his gaze scrutinizing. “Everything okay, Dakota? If something’s wrong—”

I forced my mouth into a phony smile and shook my head. “I’m fine. I just need to find Roe.” I raised both my brows in silent question. The faster I found him, the faster I could get the hell out of this clubhouse and this town and never look back.

Pope’s eyes drifted to something over my shoulder, and a moment later he pointed in that direction.

I turned just in time to see Roe stagger into the room, buttoning his fly like he’d just gotten done doing exactly what Pope said.

His head lifted, his penetrating dark blue gaze locking with mine instantly, like he sensed me as soon as he walked into the room.

Confusion marred his brow for just a second before it washed away, replaced with that same wide, panty-melting smile that never failed to make my knees feel wobbly.

That very smile was why I’d fallen in love with him the instant he walked into my life.

It was why I’d carried a torch for Roe for years before I finally turned eighteen and found the courage to make my move.

The only time I’d been able to breathe fully in the past nineteen years was when he smiled at me like that, and at that very second, I felt my ribs expanding and my lungs filling with air.

“Roe.” I said his name on an exhale of relief.

That was what it felt like every time I saw him.

Pure relief. Like things were finally good.

He was the only source of happiness in my life, and other than Remy, the one person I loved above anyone else. If it wasn’t for him, I wasn’t sure I would have survived this long.

“Honey Bee?”

My heart flipped at the endearment. The rest of the guys might have called me Little Riley, but Roe had always called me Honey Bee. Only him.