Page 17 of Tyrant

Raiden told me about the club. I knew that Gray was president and that most of what I’d predicted that night had come true, but I’m so unprepared for the sight of his rough and feral in-your-face masculinity that my heart starts to palpitate unevenly in fear and reluctant awe.

I was so stupid to think that Gray wouldn’t come here.

“Sweetheart,” I whisper to Penny. “Could you go inside and get washed up? It’s time for a snack. Until I’m in though, you can play with your toys in the living room. After, maybe we can set up the blow-up pool in the backyard and cool off.”

“Okay, Mommy.” She doesn’t look at Gray again. She’s intimidated by him too.

Who on earth wouldn’t be? He now looks every inch the outlaw demon. Not a king, because he hated being called that. Not a god, because this is no god. This man looks so much closer to the devil. Because I’m an idiot, something wickedly hot starts to burn in my stomach. I’m instantly wet even though my heart is literally slamming in fear and it’s making all of me cold and clammy.

I watch Penny mount the three concrete steps, open the screen door, and disappear into the house. My dad would have come out here all those years ago, if he heard a bike pull up, but now he’s likely with my mom in Raiden’s old room on the main floor that has her hospital bed and all her medical supplies set up. Did he even hear the bike? He seems to have tunneled inside of himself. I thought my parents would carry on the way they were when I left, but I was wrong. They started to age and withdraw, to become unrecognizable. Time passes.Time is cruel. The world didn’t freeze. Nothing here stopped just because I left.

I can see Penny’s shadow through the door. I step closer to be sure. My dad brought up an old toybox filled with things I had as a kid. She starts to rifle through it. I turn, trying to force a mask in place to face Gray, but I don’t get the chance.

He storms up the sidewalk. I was wrong. Fuck, I was so wrong. He’s a god. An angry, terrifying god, ready to rain down justice and retribution on me.

He doesn’t stop until he’s in my space, towering over me, scarred lips curled back in a scowl. His hand shoots out and grasps my wrist before I can turn and run to the house for sanctuary. “What the fuck, Lark?” His eyes aren’t just green. I can pick out all the swimming gold flecks, the bright emerald whorl surrounding his pupil.

I lose my breath. My heart refuses to beat. Whatever limits there are for a body, I’ve reached them. Once, this man chased away all my demons and all my darkness and now he’s the thing I fear. His body a weapon, an army of leather clad bikers at his command. He owns this town. He could very easily own me, whether I’m willing or not.

I barely hear Gray’s words, and not just because his tone has dropped to something low and menacing. His lips form the familiar shape of his earlier question. “What the fuck?”

Chapter 7

Tyrant

The sun burns so bright and high in the sky, it coats the entire yard in watery golds. It glistens off Lark’s hair and eyes, illuminating the blue threads shot through the dark strands.

This woman could have been my everything.

Now, she’s nothing.

Worse than nothing, she’s aliar.

She shakes her head, refusing to meet my gaze. Her lips purse in denial. She has next to no makeup on and is covered in dirt. Her shorts have a wet, dirty mark on the bottom like she’s been sitting in the flowerbeds she’s been tackling. There are weeds strewn all over the grass and sidewalk. Her fingers are stained green and brown, dirt caked under the nails. A dirt smudge stands out stark against her pale skin. Her lashes are still impossibly long. She’s so tiny, her clothes flowing over her slight frame. I remember every single detail of her glorious figure. Motherhood hasn’t leant a new roundness to her body.

She looks almost exactly the way I remember. Still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Rage at my stupid bleeding insides festers and spills over. I can hardly breathe past the pain searing through my chest, writhing like a serpent coiled around my vital organs. A wolf ravages my belly, eating at me from the inside out. I was supposed to feel nothing after Lark left. It would be easier if I did. Numbness is far easier to live with.

I blink quickly before the heartache shows in my eyes. I can’t think of anything that would be more humiliating.

“What the fuck, what?” she hisses, hands curling defensively. “What are you even doing here?”

The roaring in my ears comes rushing back. I’m very aware that there is a little girl just through that screen door. A sweet little thing with a literal cherub’s face who looks so much like her mother that it slayed me the second I laid eyes on her.

It doesn’t end there. She’s not entirely her mother.

Her strange eyes are one hundred percent exactly the same shade as mine.

I point and take one menacing step closer. Lark doesn’t back down, but fear shimmers over her face like a startled bird darting off the surface of a pond. I don’t lower my hand, even when it nearly grazes her arm. I whisper, but there is nothing soft about my voice. “She’s mine.”

“No,” she whimpers, tossing her head back and forth, eyes huge, frothing like a whipped horse. “She’s not yours, Gray. Not yours at all.”

I’ve always listened to my gut. My instinct is telling me now that she’s lying. “You know that I own this town. It’s property of Satan’s Angels now. I ask the right person, pay what they want, and they confirm she’s mine, whether she is or isn’t.”

That provokes the fury of a baited and threatened mother bear. “Your arrogance is unbelievable! You just walk in and start making threats, insinuating that you’d take my daughter from me because five years ago, I decided that I wanted a different life for myself?”

“I get it now. It finally makes sense. She’s why you chose to leave. That text, a few weeks after we… and then you moved. Straight up ran. You covered your tracks, but not well enough.” I step closer, until our panted breaths mingle. “She’s mine. If you never wanted me to find out, then you never should have come back here.”

“She’s not yours. And I didn’t have a choice. My mother is dying.” She indicates the choked flower gardens. “This is the one thing my mom wants before she passes and I’m going to give it to her. You’re wasting time I don’t have. Please leave.”

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