Chapter 3

Ariana POV:

I tumbled through the restroom's back window into a dark alley lined with dented trash cans. The cold night wind hit my cheeks, my heart still hammering against my ribs from that blood-soaked kiss.

Brushing dust off my jacket, my hand bumped against something heavy inside my right pocket.

Under the yellow glow of a streetlamp, I pulled out a fire opal collar pin carved with a dark wolf crest, its silver-free iron rim stained with his drying blood. As I stared at the stone, the memory of his hoarse whisper right before I pulled away echoed in my ears: "Gomez. Remember the price of saving me."

He had recognized my family name just from the faint trace of winter cedar under my Omega scent.

Clenching the pin in my fist, I walked three miles down the shoulder of the highway until I reached an auto repair shop and climbed the exterior stairs to the second-floor apartment. I knocked three times.

Kacy Hernandez pulled the door open in her silk pajamas. As the Iron Claws' Treasurer and club lawyer, Kacy held the ledgers for the Club Fund—the central pot of money that paid for gas, bail, and monthly tribute—and she was the only true friend I had. Taking one look at my pale face and my mother's medical box, she stepped aside. "Get in here."

I collapsed onto her worn leather sofa, gulped down half a glass of ice water, and told her everything that had happened in the garage with Cleon.

Kacy rolled her eyes hard and slapped her thigh with one hand. "That blind idiot Alpha! Who does he think keeps his bike running? Without your salves and parts, the Iron Claws' maintenance budget is going to bleed dry before the next full moon!"

"I settled the ledger. We're done," I said, closing my eyes and keeping the dangerous stranger in the dive bar to myself.

Kacy tossed a clean towel and clothes onto my lap. "Take a hot shower. The spare key to this apartment is on the table. You have a room with a lock here for as long as you want."

The next morning, my phone buzzed relentlessly on the rug, flashing Cleon's name. I hit decline, blocked his number without a second thought, and tossed the phone onto the sofa.

"The old cook from the Iron Claws' main house, Brenda, just texted me," Kacy said, walking out of the kitchen with a mug of coffee. "Cleon smashed a whiskey glass against the wall when he found out you actually left the compound. Jazmyne told him you'd come crawling back to wash bikes once you went hungry, and yet he's already holding his stomach complaining of cramps."

I pulled on Kacy's borrowed black leather jacket and tight jeans, looking at my oil-free hands in the hallway mirror. "Let him rot."

"Come on. To celebrate your freedom from that family of leeches, I'm buying you the most expensive club sandwich on the highway," Kacy said, twirling her truck keys.

We climbed into her modified Ford pickup and merged onto the interstate toward an old-school Biker Diner a few miles out. Along the way, column after column of heavy motorcycles roared past in the opposite lane. Every rider wore matching black leather Cuts, riding in strict bloodline formation—an Alpha leading at the point, Betas flanking behind.

"What's going on today?" Kacy frowned, easing off the gas. "Why are so many patched warriors heading into our sector?"

I rolled down the window an inch. The wind carried a suffocating wave of high-ranking dominance that made the hair on my arms stand up. "I don't know, but keep your head down."

My fingers curled around the fire opal pin hidden deep in my pocket.

Kacy pulled into the diner's gravel lot. When I pushed open the glass door, the usual clatter of silverware and the rock music from the jukebox were dead silent.

Every head in the diner turned toward us with the cold, calculating stare of predators. The men sitting at the counter and booths were massive, radiating the thick scents of prime Alphas and Betas. On their backs sat the three-piece Patch that made every outlaw club across three states tremble—the Emperor's Mother Chapter, the apex pack that ruled the alliance and collected monthly tribute.

Kacy instinctively stepped half a pace in front of me, her fingers slipping into her purse for her stun gun.

At the very back of the diner, in the deepest red leather booth reserved for the highest bloodline, a man slowly turned his head.

He wore a crisp dark shirt with the collar unbuttoned, revealing the jagged old silver scar across his collarbone that I had touched just last night. His cold gray eyes cut through the crowd and pinned me to the doorway, the corner of his mouth lifting in a slow, certain smirk.