Page 90 of 12 Months of Mayhem

I felt stronger about what someone would do to show me they cared rather than how expensive their gifts were.

And he was risking it all.

His patch, his standing with his club, a war with my father—and his life to top things off.

The Exiled Eight MC and Hell’s Bandits MC weren’t what you would call sworn enemies or anything like that, but there’d been tension between the clubs before. Dad would never give me all the details, and neither would Mason, but from what I could gather, it was bad enough that neither would see the two of us dating as something positive.

It was that whole Romeo and Juliet kind of story, except I hoped maybe neither of us had to die in the end.

But I honestly couldn’t say for sure.

“You keep looking at that patch like it’s going to bite you,” Mason said, his voice low and teasing as his hand brushed mine where it rested against his chest.

“One day it will, I’m sure. Right in the ass,” I shot back, trying to sound braver than I felt. The truth was it wasn’t the patch I was scared of. It was what it represented—the line I kept crossing every time I saw him, the line we weren’t supposed to be anywhere near.

He tilted his head, his gaze softening. “We’ve got time, Calli,” he insisted, hooking his finger under my chin to lift my eyes to meet his. His heat, his scent—leather, smoke, and something distinctly him—wrapped around me, and I couldn’t stop myself from leaning in, craving it like I always did. “All we’ve got is fucking time. And we’ll take every minute, hour, day, month, or damn year until we figure out how to make this shit work.”

I swallowed hard, falling back against the side of his truck. “I don’t want it to take another minute. Or hour. Or day,” I complained, knowing I was acting like a pouty child.

He pressed against me, his hand cradling my jaw as he drew my lips to meet his. They barely brushed, our breaths mingling and my heart racing. “One day, I’m gonna claim you,” he whispered, gathering my hair in his hand as he pulled it back from my face. “One day, you’ll wear my patch for the rest of your life. So, if we have to wait another minute. Hour. However long, it will be so fucking worth it.”

His hand curved down around my ass, hooking under my legs and lifting me off the ground. I wrapped them around his waist and held tight to his neck, pressing my forehead to his. “Mason…” I whispered, trying to find the words—something to say, but they were all lost in my throat.

I grew up in this world. I knew the importance of patches and just how much power they held. Club life and its customs were inherently a part of me.

But being Mason’s old lady and wearing his property patch would mean a lot of changes and a lot of choices, some of which I couldn’t even fathom approaching right now in a way that wouldn’t cause more issues and problems between our clubs.

And yet, it didn’t make me want it any fucking less.

In fact, suddenly, the patch on his club cut wasn’t so scary.

I dropped my hand to his chest, brushing my fingers over the embroidered letters. “You think this would look good on me?”

The look in his eyes shifted, something raw and uncontainable sparking behind them. A smile spread across his face, wide and genuine, a rare glimpse of unguarded happiness that stole my breath away. His arms tightened around me as if to anchor himself to the moment, and he pressed a fierce kiss to my forehead, his voice husky with emotion.

“Good? Baby, it’d be fucking everything. You’d be everything.”

For that second, that one perfect, shattering second, I felt it—a surge of hope so strong, it almost made me believe that one day, it might just be enough.

“Only time will tell, though, right?” I whispered, nuzzling my face into his neck where I could feel his heart beating, the constant, reassuring thud.

“Speaking of time,” he murmured, and I let out a disappointed groan as he lowered me to my feet.

“How about we leave right now, take the road out of town, and see how far we can get before they find us?” I joked, though a part of me desperately wanted him to say, “okay.”

Instead, he chuckled. “Get in the truck, princess.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head before reaching for the door handle. “Let’s get you back to your tent before you turn into a fucking pumpkin.”

Reluctantly, I slid into the passenger seat, and we settled into a comfortable silence as he drove me toward the Exiled Eight’s camping grounds, nestled on the outskirts of town. Maybe I should have been worried by the ease of it all, the way we looked at the future with a quiet hope as if time were on our side, as if everything would eventually fall into place.

Because, unfortunately, we were wrong.

CHAPTER TWO

Calli

Twelve Years Later

“Calliope,” Dad gruffed, stepping up behind me and pressing a kiss to the back of my head. His heavy hand rested briefly on my shoulder, grounding me in a way only he could.

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