It was one of the first times I’d seen her without Prince since she and King had returned from Alaska, and the beauty of her dolled-up biker style took my breath away.
“You look like a Disney Princess in the middle of a teenage rebellion,” I told her, noting her heavy eyeliner, painted-on jeans, and the little white crop top straining at her breasts.
She laughed, sliding an arm around my hips. “Baby-free, honey, I gotta make the most of it. The goal is always to get King to take me before we even leave the house and again during the party.” She leaned in conspiratorially, so much more open and freer than I’d ever known her to be before she married King. “So far, we are one for two.”
“Oh, my goodness.” I laughed at her as she ushered me into the party through the masses of bodies already smoking, drinking, and dancing to the music Curtains was playing through the surround speakers.
The winter air was biting, but the party still raged on the blacktop outside the clubhouse, lit with Christmas lights strung by old ladies that reflected off the rows of Harley Davidson motorcycles lined up like dominos to the side of Hephaestus Auto.
It was the first night in so many that the entire club let loose to party and relax. We didn’t get many nights without worries, not when we were in or associated with one of the most notorious criminal motorcycle gangs in North America, but when we did, we let loose.
Within two hours, half a dozen brothers were fighting for bets on the tarmac, still more throwing knives at Priest’s old wooden cross in the back with blindfolds on and beers in their hand. Women were half-naked and grinding on men’s laps or working one of two poles set up in the clubhouse, two of them putting on quite the show at the bar where my cousin, Carson, the new prospect and in a very committed relationship with another man, looked incredibly ill at ease serving around their mostly naked, writhing bodies.
I was used to it all.
A den of iniquity if ever I’d seen the definition of it.
Low rock pulsed through the space, my heartbeat thrumming to the same tempo as if I’d been entranced. I danced with my girls, with Lila dressed in all fringe, Maja with her Farrah Fawcett hairdo, and Hannah in a pair of assless leather chaps, only a sequined set of panties beneath it.
Priest didn’t dance, and I didn’t ask him to, but his dark eyes watched me from the bar where he sat with Bat, Dane, and Wrath shooting the shit, and when a man from the T-Squad tried to claim me, Priest was out of his seat in a heartbeat.
The poor T-Squad brother took one look at Priest barreling toward him and turned on his heel to get the hell away from me as fast as he could.
I laughed and laughed, spinning in the mass of bodies, a little tipsy, but mostly just relieved to have one moment of fun, one second of total freedom I could only feel with The Fallen.
With Priest.
This was the reason I’d grown bored of being a good girl, they never had anywhere near as much fun as the bad ones.
Priest arrived at my side, instantly slotting a hand into the back of my hair and fisting tight to pin my head in place. A second later, his mouth was on me, eating at my mouth, devouring the lingering laughter from my tongue until I forgot everything but the press of his body, hard and honed as a human weapon, against mine.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Axe-Man grunted from beside us, but he didn’t look sorry.
For the first time since I’d known him, he looked ill at ease, his big body hunched and his Nordic features dark.
Priest went into predator mode against me, his body moving into a tight lean like a whip about to strike out. “What’s up?”
“Can’t get a hold’a Cleo,” he muttered, running a hand through his curling blond mane. “Said she had someone to see ’fore she joined us, but that was hours ago. Not like her to just not show up. You think I’m worryin’ over nothin’?”
“No,” Priest and I said simultaneously.
Then my man continued, “Bat was sayin’ Amelia didn’t come home this afternoon either. Said she was havin’ a meetin’ at church or some shit.”
We all stared at each other, the party forgotten in the sudden thick, ominous silence descending upon us. As one, we moved to Bat at the bar.
He saw us coming, his posture changing from a slouch against the mahogany bar, leaning into Dane, to the erect stature of a soldier about to be called to duty.
“What’s up?” he asked instantly.
“Both Cleo and Amelia are missin’,” Axe-Man said, worry high in his usually gruff tone.