Page 2 of Saber's Surrender

“With brutal force.” She snorts, giving me the evil-eye.

“You’re the one that made things harder than they had to be,” I remind her. “It’s not my fault that you wouldn’t stop yelling at me long enough to see reason.”

“Reason?” she whispers before the volume goes up in her voice and she begins screeching louder than a motherfucking crow, “Reason? You… you… you’re a snake!”

Feeling childish and like hitting home, I purposely stammer the same way she just did when I hit the target, saying, “And you… you… you are a child stealing cunt!”

Should I feel bad about using the C word on her? Maybe, if she were any other woman than who she is I would be ashamed of myself. But my hate for her is still as strong today as it was the day that she refused to even look at our son when she signed the papers, giving him away to strangers. It’s been hard to wake up each morning and close my eyes each night not knowing if he’s been taken care of. There are so many things that plague me, and I have nightmares not knowing several key things about him.

What were his parents like toward him?

Did they treat him like their own?

Has he known hunger?

Has he known love?

Is he safe?

Is he dead or alive?

Each and every night I dream of him. I never see his face because I don’t know what he looks like, but the dreams are never good ones. I see him on the streets begging for scraps of food. Beaten within an inch of his life for not doing something his ‘parents’ wanted him to as a boy or young teen. Tossed in a closet and ignored like that damn program I watched once about the same sort of scenario and the adoptive parents went on to have other biological children, and the adoptee became an obligation to them that they no longer wanted. That kid was so damn malnourished and his health had been ignored for too damn long that he eventually perished from his lack of care.

So no, Foxy deserves every ounce of my ire because she’s the cause of it. I even begged her to let me raise him as a single dad, but she outright refused. She wanted him to have both parents in his life raising him side by side.

She didn’t come right out and say it back then, but it was implied that I wasn’t enough. Not that it should surprise me considering that’s the way I’ve always been viewed by my foster parents and other children that resided in that home, outside of who was, during that time period, my Foxy Roxy, she didn’t see me in the same light as the rest of them did. She always, back then, made me feel important, valued, and worthy.

“Fuck you,” she says, her chin wobbling. She slams the chart down on the counter and scurries from the room.

“Yeah. Fuck you too,” I mumble, picking up the chart so I can jot down the notes from today’s appointment. I notate what we need to add to Naveah’s diet and how I think we should adjust her diet. I know that Dragon will want to see this report later, so I input as many details as I can onto her growth chart. Foxy will have to fill in the blanks later. I know that she’ll be back to wrap things up once I’m gone so I quickly put the supplies away, discard the trash, and head out. I need to do my rounds at the hospital anyway before I can come back and unwind with my brothers.

As I head out and am about to mount my bike, Wrecker comes out from the shadows and says, “At some point, you and Roxy need to sit down and hash your past out, brother.”

“There’s nothing to hash out,brother,” I argue, spitting out the word brother in my haste to get the fuck out of here and his all-seeing bullshit.

It’s freaky that he knows things he shouldn’t and isn’t afraid to call us out when he thinks we're in the wrong. One day, he’s going to put his nose in someone’s business and pay the price for doing so.

“You need to reach out to your cousin,” Wrecker says, changing the topic. “He’s back in town and it’s time for him to pay his penance for what he tried to do to my old lady.”

“Fucker’s not related to me by blood, so do with him as you wish,” I spit out, pushing the start button on my bike and twisting the throttle. Soon enough, the roar of my bike drowns out whatever response he had and I give him a quick nod as I shoot out of my designated spot and let the wind become my therapy.

CHAPTER

ONE

Roxy

When I gotthe hell out of the infirmary as rapidly as my feet would allow me, I held back the sobs that were racking my chest. Holding them in was painful, but there’s no way in hell I’d allow these men to see how true his words hit me.

I’ve carried the guilt of putting our son up for adoption since I signed on the dotted line. Weston thinks I did it to hurt him, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I did it for my boy. As his mother, I wanted the best for him and in my heart of hearts, the choice I made I believed was exactly that.

However, even though I believed wholeheartedly that what I was doing was for the best for all three of us, that doesn’t abolish the remorse I carry. I was worried about resenting Weston, but it’s ended up being the other way around.

The day he walked away from me in the birthing room and signed up for the military, I knew his resentment ran deep, I just didn’t realize at the time how deep that ran until he found me and forced me to become the pediatric specialist for the Imperial Knights Motorcycle Club.

They’ve recently faced some challenges and had to make some hard decisions. One of those meant they had to change their club name, and I just so happened to be here during the thick of it all. I’ve known hardship and fear throughout my life, but having my hand forced and being tossed into the lion's den so to speak, has been the most frightening thing I’ve faced to date.

I’ve watched television and in my downtime, I’ve even read some motorcycle club romances, but none of those prepared me for what it’s like in real life. I expected some rude and rowdy men, but the fact that they function like one big blended family was something completely unexpected.

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