Page 16 of Desert Loyalties

SKYE

Everyone’s good and drunk. Even the prospects are blitzed. The only sober ones are the officers and a handful of patched brothers, though most of the rest aren’t exactly falling-down drunk, they just keep the shots flowing and let the prospects drown.

I’m biting my rage as half-naked women climb on my bar, pouring poppers down throats and letting people do body shots off them. But that’s the point, get everyone drunk, distract the eyes, dull the minds.

That’s when the door to Ranger’s office slams open. A man storms out, Ranger and Caine hard on his heels. At first, no one notices. Then Caine shouts, “Locke! Talk to me, man!”

From the back, he doesn’t look like Locke. The party goers barely catch a glimpse of his back before he disappears out the front door. Perfect. Anyone turning to watch wouldn’t know the difference. And through the heavy bass, we all hear a bike roar to life outside.

Caine and Ranger reappear a minute later. Drake moves to them, low and tight, “What’s going on?”

Ranger shrugs, playing it cool. “Locke said he’s going nomad for a while.”

Drake arches a brow. “What the fuck happened?”

Ranger brushes it off. “We’ll deal with it tomorrow. Tonight’s your party. Enjoy it.”

Then he raises his voice. Someone kills the music.

“Tonight,” Ranger announces, loud and clear, “our brother Mandrake is taking the big step, claiming Skye as his old lady.”

The room erupts with whistles and whoops. I feel the heat of everyone’s eyes.

Ranger grins. “I personally think the fucker couldn’t have made a better choice.” Mickey steps up and hands him something.

Ranger holds up a leather cut. “That’s why,” he says, “I’d like to officially offer the property patch to her.”

“Mandrake,” he adds.

Drake steps forward, pulls Ranger into one of those rough bro-hugs men do when they don’t know how to express real emotion without hitting something.

He holds the jacket up so everyone sees it, Property of Mandrake in bold letters.

But what makes the room really shut up are the words stitched below the club’s name: Queen.

I step forward, and Drake slides the cut onto my shoulders. The cheers are deafening.

Ranger raises a hand, quieting the chaos. “As you can see… she’s the queen.”

Then, glancing at me with a half-apologetic smile, he adds, “I’ve got no intention of getting the ball and chain, but if I were , I’d want someone half as sharp as her.”

If anyone else said that, I’d have kicked them in the nuts. But it’s Ranger, so I just smirk.

He goes on. “Skye is now officially in charge of the women, a title for the woman who’s already earned it, and then some.”

A tray of shots gets passed around. Ranger picks his up. We all follow suit.

“To the Queen,” he says.

“Here, here,” we echo and shoot it back.

Since the real reason for the party’s out of the way, we actually let loose.

I party like I haven’t since college, shooting back shots, dancing, and laughing so hard my stomach hurts.

Even Drake relaxes. Not his usual brooding-watching-everyone self, but laughing, teasing, drinking.

The clubhouse turns into a mess of music, sex, smoke, and spilled liquor. We go until the sun comes up.

When we finally stumble back to our room, we’re still half-drunk, clothes half-off, hands all over each other. I think most of the others just pass out wherever they were standing.

Sometime early that morning, I hear Drake’s phone ring. I feel him slip out of bed, pressing a kiss to my head before I fade back into sleep.

I wake up alone. The bed’s empty, cold on his side. I fumble for my phone because my old man didn’t bother putting a damn clock in here.

My old man.

That makes me smile. I check the time. Almost noon.

Shit. Not exactly the best look for my first day as Queen Bitch, waking up alone, hair a mess, mascara smudged halfway down my cheek, and half the damn clubhouse probably still passed out in puddles of beer.

But still… I smile.

Because Queen ? I fuckin’ love that title.

I know how it sounds weird, usually the prez’s old lady is top-dog among women but as Ranger said, he has no intention of taking a woman any time soon. Like I said, people tell me shit when they’re drunk enough.

It started as a joke, really. I’d just laid Serena out flat for mouthing off and trying to act like she ran things. She thought blowing a couple brothers gave her authority. It didn’t. What it got her was a busted nose and a lesson in manners.

The other women? They were quiet for a second, then one of them, can’t even remember who, threw her arms out like we were on stage and shouted, “Hail Queen!”

I had grinned and gladly accepted it. What I didn’t expect was to turn around and see Drake standing there.

Back then, he couldn’t stand me. Not that I blamed him. I was chaos in eyeliner, fresh off a one-night mistake with Joker and still in the middle of a downward spiral I wasn’t ready to admit I was even in.

But instead of scowling or calling me a slut or dragging me off to chew me out, which, honestly, I kind of expected, he just… smiled. A slow, real smile. One of those rare ones he doesn’t give to just anyone. And in that moment, it was like the whole damn room fell away.

No judgment. No lecture. Just that damn smile.

Then he turned and walked off like it was nothing.

But it wasn’t nothing.

That smile? That was the thread. The first one that snared me. That tugged at the mess I’d become and said, Hey, maybe you’re not as broken as you think.

After that, things shifted. Slowly. Quietly.

The women saw it before I did, that I had pull.

That I had power. They started coming to me.

Listening. Trusting. And I leaned in. I stepped up.

And somewhere in the middle of managing booze orders, bandaging bruises, and breaking up fights before they turned deadly, I stopped screwing around.

Not because I had to. Because I didn’t need it anymore, the validation I looked for by screwing random men. I grew up. Without even realizing it, I’d found something real. Something steady. Something I didn’t think existed for people like me.

I found my anchor. My storm in leather and ink and impossible smiles.

I found my forever.

Everything isn’t fixed. Not even close.

The party’s over. The sun’s up. People are passed out in every corner of the clubhouse, and I’m lying in this big, warm bed that smells like him, staring at the ceiling, wide awake. The high of last night is still in my system, but under it, something darker stirs.

Reality.

I still have to deal with my “family.” Drake and my future at the Horsemen MC is still in the air.

The plan we’ve put into place; God, it could backfire so easily.

And if it does, it’s not just me who’ll go down.

It’ll be all of us. The club. Drake. People who’ve taken me in, protected me, believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.

My biggest fear right now, is the future. Thing is, I have committed a crime, unknowingly but a crime none the less.

Drake lost his family to a fire. A tragic accident he told me about. That’s why I haven’t told him. Why I couldn’t.

How could I? How do you look someone you love in the eye and say, hey, by the way, I know fire destroyed your life, me too. Only, I lit mine on purpose.

He won’t hate me, I know that. But what if he looks at me different when he finds out I’m not as clean as he believes.

I roll over in the empty bed, run my fingers over the spot where Drake’s body had been hours ago. It’s still warm. He’d kissed my forehead before he left, I remember that much. Whispered something I didn’t catch before I fell asleep.

He doesn’t know the real reason I changed my name. Why I was so terrified when my father found me. Why I couldn’t breathe when I saw that email from him.

He doesn’t know, that I killed my grandparents.