Page 64 of Dravin

He shakes his head, but I can tell he’s getting used to me. Is half of what I come up with said just for shock value because he needs to be shocked? Of course. “The things you say.”

“Do you want to wash my mouth out with soap? Or maybe something else?”

“It’s Viking.”

“Oh. Right. I think I did know that.” The guys called him that weeks ago at Crow’s tattoo shop. “But why Viking? You don’t look like one at all unless you’re a punk rock badass biker Viking who just happens to have emo hair.”

“Vikings moved all around. They explored. They conquered. They were fearless, battle hardened warriors. But mostly because they were so nomadic. I’ve never stayed in one place for very long.”

“But you’ve wanted to.” He nods. The silence gets heavy. I offer him my pinkie finger, smiling to break the tension. “If this is where you want to be and it’s still where you want to be next month or next year, we’ll make it work. I swear it.”

He grasps my hand in his, swallowing my finger, binding us together with the weight of the same promise he made my brother. There’s nothing childish about it.

He’ll be here. He’ll fight for me. He’ll protect me. I already know all of those things. This is more. Dravin was all around me before, but he was never at my side.

Now, he is.

Chapter 13

Dravin

It normally takes around six months to get a bike license in Washington State, but one happened to just materialize for me when I wanted it. I didn’t use one of my contacts. Wizard actually did. He had it made out under the one ID I’ve ever carried over. Dravin isn’t my real name, but it’s the identity I’ve kept longer than most. I have a handful of them, but it’s what the guys at the club called me before they used Viking.

I kept Dravin just for Kael. It was the first name I ever gave her. To her, that name was associated with me being an overbearing asshole, bursting into her world like a grim reaper, but that name also meant safety, security, and comfort in the smallest measures. For her, I’d do small measures. It meant something to both of us. It was a carryover from our last life, the way she used Calliope even though I told her not to.

The name’s safe. It hasn’t been burned. I check daily.

Even though everything’s changed, my world rearranged and scrambled, I can’t let myself slip. I have to maintain the old me, even if I give way to a man I never thought I could be—someone who has a permanent place to call home, a solid foundation, and a group of men who could become like family, and very much already are. I can’t give up my old life or my old habits. Being that man keeps us alive. I can’t just stop being cautious.

Kael knows that, but she’s also frustrated with what she probably sees as slow progress. I haven’t told the club the truth yet. I can’t just go from being Kael’s protector to being her boyfriend. The idea is absurd. I haven’t asked for more time apart, and I’ve gone to her place a few times, but I haven’t allowed myself to abandon control again. She’s been patient, just sitting and talking, offering me cups of tea or a meal. I guess that we’re getting to know each other properly, though it’s hard when I can’t tell her much about my past and I have no idea how to talk about a future.

She talks. I listen. Some of the stories I already know from Marcus. Many, I’ve heard for the first time.

She didn’t ask me until last night if I’d changed my mind. I promised her that I hadn’t, that I was just taking care of things that needed to be taken care of before I felt any semblance of my own freedom. She nodded tightly and didn’t push, but there was no mistaking the hurt, the small amount of doubt, and the sizzling lust in her gaze.

She’s put her faith in me, but how much longer before that’s shaken?

The ground shaking beneath me as I ride near the back of a pack of chrome and leather beasts feels like a metaphor for my larger world. The men surrounding me—untamed, bearded, sporting their leather vests with the club emblem, some of them rough as they come, men of all ages, from all corners and all backgrounds—guide those massive bikes with practiced ease. They’re comfortable here, out on the road, under the hot sun with the wind screaming all around, in ways they’ll never be at ease anywhere else. They find peace in the violence and calm in the chaos. They’re a group of hardened poets.

It’s an honor to be a part of this.

There’s more than a small part of me that wants to stay, to be grounded here, to belong, to carve out the true meaning of home on the walls of my empty, untethered heart, but how can I do that without Kael and how would I ever ask her to understand what she wants unless she’s given total freedom to make that decision?

My instincts are sharper than ever. I can’t relax or throw myself into the wild freedom of this when it’s my first ride, and especially not with a thousand unanswered questions and intrusive thoughts banging around in my skull constantly.

There wasn’t a single man in the club who didn’t have a hand in making this day a reality. No matter what’s been weighing heavily on me or how far I’ve retreated into my oversaturated brain, this isn’t about me. I want to let go of all of that just for this afternoon and enjoy it for the gift that it is.

The antique Triumph purring beneath me is nothing short of a work of art. Pieced together lovingly, it was restored so quickly because it had the full force of the club behind it.

Even if the bike had been for me, they would have helped. The club owns a large garage and several of the guys are mechanics by trade. Of course, everyone has a common interest in bikes. Right from piecing together what I had into some semblance of order, to sourcing parts, then putting it all back together, finding an engine and restoring that, to the end paint job, this was a true project of love.

The bike is living proof that this club is beyond special.

I’ve traveled all over this planet and I’ve found few men as rough, but as kind at heart as the men I’ve found here.

My new family.

I said I was at the back of the pack, and I am, but behind us is Willa’s pink station wagon. She happily agreed to come with us. Her man, Atlas, was a big part of getting this bike finished. He works at the garage, and he not only cleared other projects to make time for it, he spent many late nights working on it. A few of the other guys did too, and their old ladies often popped in.

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