Page 80 of The Savage Outlaw

“I know. Are you afraid of that?”

“I’m not afraid of anything. But you do make me nervous, Eden. Forever? I can handle forever. In this life though, forever seems to be on a countdown faster than others.”

“That’s fine. I know what I want, Priest.”

“The rules for the ink… I get to pick the spot. Anywhere I want. And it’s in front of people.”

Eden nodded. Her heart climbed up into her throat. She was never so sure of something, yet afraid of something at the same time. Priest scared the fuck out of her.

Yet she wanted to wear his ink… marry him… give him children if he wanted… anything to make the man who saved her feel just as safe as she did.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The table naturally went quiet.

Custer stood up.

“Please, old man, no,” Monte said. “Stop drinking that moonshine. You have no liver as it is.”

“He’s got a point,” Cyrus said. “Stick to whiskey, Custer. It’s better for you.”

Everyone at the table chuckled.

Cyrus pointed to Darrow.

“Everything is handled,” Darrow said. “For one perfect second here, things feel quiet. Or I should sayquieter. Our rodent issue is officially gone. I guess you can say the goodDoctordid his job as needed.”

All eyes went to Priest. He had nothing to say. It was done. It was over.

“Everything on my end is taken care of,” Cyrus said. “Again, our brothers inSOFRAN, SOFRAS,andSOFRAEall offer their support. All three were ready to come out here to work with us. I debated having a few, but it’s best everyone stay where they are. We move forward. And I think as we move forward, we need to start talking about the three empty seats at our table.”

Linc’s spine stiffened. “Prez…”

“I get it,” Cyrus said, lifting his left hand. “I fucking get it. We have two seats that rightfully belong to someone else. We can’t sit here with a lessened table forever. It’s not what anyone wants to hear.”

“At the very least we have one seat that needs to be rightfully filled,” Priest said. “I think we all can agree who deserves the seat.”

There was a collective nod at the table.

“We’ll hold a vote soon then,” Cyrus said. “We have something else to deal with right now. As we put this mess behind us, I want to remind everyone at this table and I’ll remind everyone wearing the leather cut what it fucking means. I hope I never seeDr. Smileagain.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. Everyone looked around at one another. This was the hard part of the life. Of the club. You never knew who anyone really was. Things happened.

There were three empty chairs at the table and all three had different reasons why they were empty. For Linc, one of the chairs was personal. Too damn personal. His best friend since childhood—Javen—sitting in jail. The chair could not sit empty forever.

“Okay, next item to bring up,” Cyrus said. “Something on a better note. We don’t need a vote on this. I just wanted to say it. I never thought in my wildest dreams something like this would happen. Priest has decided to ink up a woman.”

“Holy shit,” Slade called out. “How hard did you hit your head, brother?”

“That’s a nice fucking thing to say to me,” Priest growled.

“Congrats,” Deed said. “It’s the nurse, right? She’s beautiful. And she’s a badass. I heard what she did to your wife.”

“She’s got a streak like Mara,” Darrow said with a smile. “They get along nicely too.”

“Are you trying to set up a four way?” Linc asked.

“What?” Darrow called out. “Priest is not going anywhere near Mara!”

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