Page 1 of Loki’s Spellbinder (Hunters Creek Archangel’s Warriors MC #14)

I followed the group of bikers from Eatonton, Georgia, to Hunters Creek, Tennessee.

It might sound like a considerable journey to some—three and a half hours—but I found it to be just what I needed.

I could relax, listen to music, and let my worries float away.

The crash truck was bringing up the rear, so if any of the bikes or my car got into trouble or broke down, they’d stop and see what the issue was.

If it was simple and they could fix it with the tools and a small collection of spare parts they carried with them, all the better.

If not, they’d put the bike in the back and bring it home.

A car like mine would be harder to transport.

We’d likely have to call a tow truck if they couldn’t fix it.

For this trip, though, I had a passenger.

My mom was riding with me. I’d tried to get her to ride with her old man, Rage, on the back of his bike.

I knew how much she loved it, and he preferred her to be with him, but she insisted I shouldn’t be alone.

Rage’s solution was to ride next to us or right behind us, so he could always keep an eye on her and me.

He’d smile, blow her kisses, and wave. She tried to pretend she didn’t love it, but her giggles and secret smiles told the story.

Was it terrible to be a little jealous of your mom?

I felt guilty whenever those thoughts and feelings came over me.

If anyone deserved to be happy and have someone adore her, it was Mom.

After what she’d put up with for years from my sperm donor, or I should say our sperm donor, since he had been my brother, Hayes’s father, too, she should never be sad another day in her life.

Hell was a mild term for her life. Our donor dad, DD, for short, had been abusive both mentally and physically to her and us kids.

Mom got the brunt of it because she shielded Hayes and me.

I was a close second, with Hayes being the one who got the least, especially as he got older.

By then, DD had been trying to raise his son to follow in his footsteps in all ways.

Women in his world weren’t even second-class citizens.

She was finally free of him when Hayes was fifteen and I was ten.

DD had the decency to die in a work incident, which left us with money that allowed Mom to buy herself a restaurant, which had been her dream.

And Hayes and I had money to go to college.

That was the one thing I could say I had ever gotten from the man that I appreciated.

I hadn’t shed a tear at his funeral. My brother had.

After DD died, Mom had nothing to do with men. She was attractive and got male attention all the time. However, she turned men down left and right. She said she had no desire for a man, nor did she need one. That was until she was taken to Eatonton four years ago for her protection.

She’d helped a young woman hiding from her stepbrother, who had raped her. The woman, Rylan, eventually left Mom and was reunited with the man to whom her baby belonged, Maverick. The stepbrother had visited Mom, searching for Rylan. He hadn’t been friendly, and he’d hurt her.

Maverick’s club, the Archangel’s Warriors MC, in Hunters Creek, where we were headed, had asked their friends in Eatonton, another MC called the Pagan Souls, to assist in protecting Mom until they could handle the bastard.

The Pagans had her come to their clubhouse.

At the time, Mom lived in Smyrna, Georgia.

Rage, the former club president of the Lake Oconee chapter and father of the current chapter president, took one look at Mom and claimed her as his old lady.

Mom had told him, ‘No way,’ and what began as denial grew into more.

She admitted to me later that she had been instantly attracted to him.

However, her fear of getting involved with another abusive prick had her saying no.

Eventually, he wore her down, but just to mess with him, she would still, to this day, deny she is his old lady and pretend to flirt with the guys in other friendly clubs.

She loved to see him get riled up. She’d admitted it made him even hotter in the bedroom.

I told her that I didn’t need to know that part.

That was where my jealousy came in. Not only did Rage adore and love her, but he treated her like a queen.

As if that wasn’t enough, Wrath, Rage’s son, and their entire club loved Mom.

However, I couldn’t complain since they had adopted me as part of their club family, and I was declared the little sister Wrath had always wanted.

I was closer to him than my actual brother.

Daddy Rage always had time for me and extended his love and care to me—something my dad had never done.

I wondered what it would be like to have someone so in love with you that they couldn’t live without you and would do anything to make you happy and protect you no matter what.

I’d never found a guy like Rage. Sure, I’d had a few boyfriends over the years, but they came nowhere close to Rage, or how Wrath was with his old lady, Jalisa.

Wrath met Jalisa four months ago, and it was love at first sight.

There had been some rough spots they had to handle with her father’s club and an outlaw one, but they were both devoted and in love with each other.

Jalisa, or Lunatic as she was lovingly called, was a riot, and I had the best time with her.

She was fast becoming the sister I never had.

I was kind of like Mom, I guess. I couldn’t fully trust a man not to hurt me physically and emotionally, although, on the physical side of it, I’d learned after DD died how to defend myself.

But sometimes, the emotional hurt was worse than the physical pain.

The men I had given a chance to had shown me they weren’t worth the effort.

Plus, none of them made me burn with desire.

Thinking of burning made my mind jump to the one man who I can now say made me feel ablaze.

He made me want to get to know him better.

However, it was hard to do when he lived hours away in another state.

I didn’t have time for a relationship that would require me to spend so much time driving back and forth to see the guy.

If he lived closer, would he be like so many others after a longer acquaintance?

Or would he even find me attractive? Our few interactions left me baffled on that score.

Once or twice, I got the feeling he might be interested in me, but then it was gone.

This weekend might finally answer that question for me one way or the other.

“Earth to Brae, Earth to Brae.” Mom’s voice brought me out of my head.

I glanced over to find her staring at me. She wore a slight frown. “Yes, Mom.”

“You’ve been too quiet for the past twenty minutes. Is something bothering you? You know, you can talk to me, no matter what it is.”

I reached over and squeezed her hand as I smiled at her. “I know I can. I was just lost in my thoughts. Sorry.”

“Are you thinking about work? If so, stop it. You need this break.”

“I do need the break, and no, it has nothing to do with work.”

“Then tell me what you were thinking about,” she insisted.

If I refused, she’d keep prodding until she got it out of me and would think it was a bigger issue than it was.

“I was thinking about how you met Rage and the relationship the two of you have. I wish you’d found him years ago, Mom. Or better yet, that he was our real dad. We would’ve grown up in the biker life, but I don’t see that as bad, or at least not with the Pagans and those clubs like theirs.”

“Honey, I totally agree with the wish that I’d found him sooner. And if he’d been your dad, what would it have been like for you and your brother? I regret that I never got you away from your dad.” Her tone was sad and slightly guilty.

“You tried. He kept dragging you back and making it worse. He was protected by those assholes he worked with. It was a form of the blue wall of silence. Just because he was a cop, they protected him, not his wife and kids,” I snapped.

I hated seeing injustice like that. It was one of the reasons I was so determined to be a lawyer—and not just any kind of lawyer. I wanted to be a trial lawyer who put those who deserved it behind bars.

“I know, but maybe I should’ve reported it to another town’s law enforcement. I had no idea how far his reach was. It scared me.”

“Mom, I’m not blaming you. You did your best, and it could’ve been much worse.

I’m just wondering if there’s a guy out there who would ever look at and treat me the way Rage looks at and treats you, and Wrath does Jalisa.

It’s hard not to be jealous of you two.” I grinned to take the sting out of my confession.

“Oh, honey, yes, I have no doubt there’s a man like that out there.

As weird as most people would think this is, you’re more than likely to find that person in one of the clubs the Souls or their friends are in.

You’ve heard enough about the outlaw clubs to know they’re not the way to go.

But the Pagans, Warriors, Punishers, Marauders, and Horsemen are a different breed.

And I know there has to be more out there. ”

Again, my thoughts jumped to the Warrior I was looking forward to seeing. The closer we got to Hunters Creek, the more excited I grew. It had been a while since my last peek. God, that made me sound like a stalker.

“Who knows, but I can tell you that, as good-looking and sexy as Wrath’s guys are, no way would it ever be one of them. They feel like brothers, and that’s just yuck.” I made a face.