My momma hadn’t gone to the principal to speak about bullying. Nope, she’d followed Maisy around for a while, taken pictures of her, then had sent them to Maisy’s parents with a letter, informing them that they needed to better educate their daughter about what being a ‘slut’ actually meant.
That was just one of the ways my helicopter mother-cum-biker princess had terrorized my school. It was probably no wonder that the only friends I had were in the MC. Everyone else was too scared to get on the wrong side of Lucie ‘Lucifer’ Steeler.
I hitched a shoulder. “It’s all good.”
“No. It isn’t. I wish I’d been old enough to shoot Aaron myself,” Saint rasped, finally curling upright into a seated position so he could glower—either at me or at life in general, I wasn’t sure which.
“Wouldn’t have done me any good. Ink got him good and I still have nightmares.”
Still couldn’t leave home for more than a day’s work, let alone leaving the town, without wanting to die inside from crippling fear.
Still had to sleep near the clubhouse, on the floor under my bed, and even then I had nightmares, but they were better than the night terrors that came from being away from this place.
Still couldn’t close my eyes without seeing Aaron’s face that one last time.
Those things were the trials of my life, but they weren’t everything.
There was joy too. Plenty of it. It came in the form of Saint and Keys, and Ink too. When he’d stop shutting me out, that is.
“Ink got Aaron. Got me out, too.” That had rubbed my daddies raw, because they’d wanted to be my saviors, but instead, Ink had. “Just because he’s dead doesn’t take away from the fact I’m still as scared now as I was back then.”
Knowing that you could be taken from your bed, under your parents’ noses, out of the safety of a compound manned by MC brothers, most of whom had served time or had been in the armed forces at some point, was enough to terrify anyone.
Or so my therapist had assured me.
A thousand times over the years.
“I hate that it’s holding you back, Ama,” Saint grumbled, sincerity bleeding from his words as he looked at me—really looked at me.
For the first time, it was like I was someone else. Not just his friend. Not just his Prez’s daughter.
What he saw, I wasn’t sure, and though his tone was loaded with pity, that wasn’t what was in his eyes.
“It isn’t all bad,” I replied softly. “Four years away from home would probably kill my dads.”
“Us, too,” Keys groused, staring up at the sky again.
“Why?” I asked, my heart racing with excitement.
He sighed. “Never mind.”
And I loathed myself for being too chicken shit to press for more, to make him explain why he’d miss me. When they switched to talk of some stupid game they’d watched last night, I knew I’d lost the thread of conversation and returned to my drawing.
It wasn’t much, but it was something.
❖
Ink
As I looked out of the common room and over the hills in the distance, I saw the three of them.
Picture perfect.
All tucked in a circle, with Amaryllis holding her pencil in her hand and a pad on her lap, while Saint and Keys were slouched back, sunning themselves as she drew them.
It reminded me of one of my favorite paintings. Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. Yeah, I knew it was an odd choice for a biker, but fuck, I couldn’t be stereotyped. The painting depicted an indolent picnic and two men lounging back with a nude woman at their side.
Of course, Ama wasn’t nude. If she was, Wolfe or one of her fathers would undoubtedly chop Saint and Keys into tiny pieces, but there was a sensuality about the scene, an ease and peace that made me long to go over there and join in.
But I wasn’t eighteen anymore.
Fuck, I wasn’t even thirty.
I was thirty-fucking-seven. Too old to be lounging back in the yard. Too old to be hanging around with kids who were young enough to be my kids. Well, all except for Saint. He was twenty-four.
So, with all that in mind, why did I want to be out there?
Why was that the only place I wanted to be?
My stomach churned with want, and the sheer longing to be out there. It hit me hard enough that I pressed my forehead to the glass. The chill of it bit into my heated