It would make for one hell of a spectacle when the time came, and I knew if Reaper could have filmed that shit and sold it as entertainment, he would have.
Maybe he did.
But the fucked-up part of the fight wasn’t the fact that it pitted men who were supposed to be brothers against each other.
No.
It was the fact that each man had to put up collateral and that collateral was only accepted in the form of a woman. If you lost, the winner could claim a fuck from your woman. If you won the entire fight, you could have your pick of as many of the girls as you pleased for one night only.
It was disgusting. Barbaric in the extreme. But the MC was famous for it through North America. Men prospected the club just for a chance to participate and brothers from other clubs petitioned Reaper for an invite like most politicians campaigned for President.
It was a biker’s Olympics.
Only the gold medal was pussy in any form you wanted it.
Most brothers picked up trailer trash or hookers as collateral, but Reaper liked it best if you had an Old Lady that you used her. He thought it bred unity throughout the club, a warped rendition of the philosophy ‘what’s mine is yours.’
It was my first time participating in the fight because only patched-in members were granted the honour and I’d only made that rank nine months before.
But I’d watched two of those fights to their very bloody end.
Brothers had died and so many women had been offered up as bounty it made me physically ill to think about it.
“Not puttin’ you up,” I told Laken for the twelfth time, pressing my lips to her silky black hair in order to do so.
I hadn’t spent much time with her in the last six weeks, something she was officially done putting up with. She’d showed at my house that morning, thankfully while Harleigh Rose was out with Wrath, and demanded to spend the day with me.
I’d narrowly avoided fucking her by dragging her around Vancouver for hours, taking her for Earnest Ice Cream, walking along the sea wall and making out with her in Stanley Park. I’d never taken her on a date like that and she was fucking thrilled.
Obviously, I didn’t tell her that I’d taken Harleigh Rose on the same one the day before, that my rebel girl loved Earnest’s whiskey hazelnut flavor, and that when we’d sat beside the ocean she’d kept one hand in mine and the other twisted in Hero’s silky fur, her face contented because she was with two of her men even though the other had excommunicated her.
It had been reckless to take her on a date like that, but after all she’d been through, I’d wanted to spoil her.
My eyes searched for her in the backyard, the air filled with the haze of weed smoke and the burn of the huge fire on the other side of the lawn.
She was under Wrath’s enormous arm, tucked into his side like she was made for him, tall enough that he didn’t have to bend in half to touch his lips to hers the way he was doing then.
My heart burned with rage even though I knew it was just a ruse, even though I currently had a woman under my arm myself.
Laken pressed into me, grabbed my face with one hand and glared up at me. “You think I don’t see you always lookin’ at my girl Harleigh, think again, Lion. I’m not educated, but I’m not dumb neither. I’m your Old Lady and it’s thanks to me you got your cut at all, so how about a little gratitude?”
I snarled at her, half-biker persona, half because I hated that I needed her. Reaper still didn’t trust me much and whatever trust I’d earned, Laken was right, it’d come through her.
“Why the fuck you think I don’t want you bein’ fucked by some other guy or fuckin’ multiple guys tonight? Don’t want that for my girl.”
I didn’t, but I meant the girl across the yard, the one Wrath was putting up for collateral because she was his and Reaper had ordered it.
The burn in my heart spread through my chest and down into my gut where it started to blaze.
There was no fuckin’ way I could stand by and let Harleigh Rose get fucked by one of these psychotic fuckers.
She’d only avoided it in the past because Cricket, somehow, had kept her away.
His one redeeming quality.
Now, I had to count on Wrath winning The Fight to keep Harleigh Rose safe.
“It’s my duty,” Laken told me, pulling my focus back to her. “It’s my honour as your Old Lady.”
“That shit is just straight up fucked, Laken,” I told her.
“It’s tradition,” she seethed.
I wondered how many deplorable things were done for the sake of tradition. The Chinese had used it as justification for foot-binding, the horrible act of tying a woman’s feet to stunt their growth, the Aztecs had used it as a motive for sacrificing humans to their antiquated Gods. My own family had turned wiping out biker gangs into a kind of legacy even though The Fallen did more good than harm within the community, and many outlaw biker cultures used it as a reason to indiscriminately share their women regardless of getting their permission.