His Unwanted Peace Offering: Claiming Eleanor

Eleanor POV:

"You take off that Kidd patch, Eleanor, and ride into Iron Bastards territory as Dexter Fulton's claimed Old Lady, you're handing your neck to the unpredictable President of the Iron Bastards MC."

Damaris's steel-toed combat boot slammed against the rusted metal tool chest, the deafening clatter echoing through the concrete compound garage. She strode toward me, her leather vest heavy with road dust and the unmistakable scent of burnt motor oil and copper.

I didn't flinch. I looked her in the eye and said, "Everett and Alvy are already dead, Damaris. The alliance is bleeding out on Interstate 101. If I don't ride into the Bastards' territory tonight, the next thing crossing our border won't be a peace envoy-it'll be a convoy of iron and hollow-points. I'm not going there to die. I'm going to find out who sold them out."

My fingers remained curled around the collar of the worn leather cut hanging from the iron rack. The thick leather was stiff, scarred by years of asphalt runs and tavern brawls, bearing the Kidd family's twin-eagle crest on the back. For twenty years, that patch had been my armor. Today, it felt like an iron noose. If Dexter Fulton thought I was just a sacrifice, he was wrong. I pressed my lips together, frowned, and watched Damaris approach.

"So you're selling yourself to Dexter Fulton? And don't give me that poor-little-me look. As your ally, I won't pity you." Damaris snatched the cut from my hands, tossing it onto the grease-stained wooden workbench. A cloud of fine dust puffed into the air. Her knuckles were raw, scraped from yesterday's patrol. "He's a butcher, El. He ran the northern corridor by putting three rival charters in the ground. You think being his claimed Old Lady makes you safe? You'll be a hostage in a den of rabid dogs."

"I'm not looking for safety." I pulled my olive-drab duffel bag from beneath the bench. Inside, I had already started gathering information: the Bastards' route maps, Church schedules, and the name of the rat who fed Everett and Alvy to the cartel. I yanked the heavy brass zipper shut with a sharp, metallic zip. "I'm buying our people time-and I'm going to take his club apart from the inside."

"Look at me." Damaris caught my wrist, her grip like a vise. Her eyes burned with fierce, protective rage. "Don't play the martyr. You remember what happened to Clara Montgomery when she thought she could tame an Enforcer."

My pulse hitched. I pulled my arm free and turned to the bottom drawer of the rusted metal cabinet against the far wall. The drawer screeched as I yanked it open, pulling out a battered, leather-bound photo album.

I flipped the crumbling paper pages until I found the faded photograph. In the frame stood Jax Tucker-his Enforcer rocker bold across his chest, jaw set like granite-and beside him, Clara, her smile radiant and soft against the backdrop of roaring choppers.

"I remember," I murmured, my thumb tracing the cracked laminate over Jax's stern brow. "I was twelve when the cartel ambushed their chase on Route 9. The rain was coming down so hard the asphalt turned to grease."

Damaris leaned against the workbench, crossing her arms over her chest, the hard edge in her posture sagging slightly. "The cartel wanted payback for the hijacked shipment. They boxed them in with two semi-trucks."

"Jax kicked the door open before the cab crushed them," I whispered, the ghost of that night rising vividly in my mind. "He threw Clara onto the mud bank, shielding her with his own back while windshield glass blew out over his skull. He didn't even blink. He drew his Glock, firing blind into the headlights until the bastards backed off."

"And look how it ended," Damaris countered coldly, kicking a stray motorcycle tire across the concrete floor. "Jax destroyed himself, and Clara ended up in the dirt two years later. Fulton isn't Jax, El. Men wearing the Bastards' colors don't know how to protect. They only know how to conquer."

"Then I won't ask for protection," I said, shoving the album back into the darkness of the drawer and slamming it shut. "I'll make them need me."

Outside, the heavy thunder of twelve customized Twin-Cam Harley engines rattled the corrugated iron walls of the garage. The escort had arrived.

I grabbed the duffel bag, the strap digging deep into my shoulder muscle. Damaris stepped into my path, silent for three agonizing seconds, before pulling me into a fierce, suffocating embrace. Her leather vest ground against mine, hard and smelling of cedar and exhaust.

"Come back breathing," she hissed into my ear. "Or I burn their clubhouse to the foundation."

"Count on it," I said, stepping back and pulling my full-face black helmet over my head. "Even if I have to play his Old Lady, I won't lose to that brute."

I slammed the visor down, locking the noise inside. Pushing open the heavy garage door, the harsh afternoon sun blinded me for a second. Diesel Knight sat atop a matte-black Road Glide, nodding once toward the empty rear pillion.

I threw my leg over the machine, my gloved hands locking onto the cold steel grab bars behind me. Diesel twisted the throttle, and with an earth-shattering roar, our pack surged onto the open highway, leaving a black trail of rubber and burning fuel behind us.

Eleanor POV:

The wind tore at my jacket like a pack of wolves, and the convoy sharply banked into the switchbacks of Dead Man's Ridge. Below us, the sheer drop plunged into the pine-choked canyon, yawning open like a grave.

My arms ached from bracing against the machine's violent vibrations. My companion ahead of me, Diesel, was also a member of the Iron Bastards escort, constantly braking and accelerating; I thought he didn't know how to ride at all. If I had a gun right now, I would definitely shoot out his rear tire just to make him suffer.

Worse, I even wanted to take off my helmet and scream into the wind just to vent my anger. Damaris called this behavior "road rage." She said I rode like I was possessed, as if I had to get myself killed. Maybe.

My thoughts retreated into the romantic legend that every girl in our compound grew up hearing.

Jax and Clara had also gone over a cliff, just like us now.

Twenty years ago, when the cartel's truck hit Jax's rear bumper, his battered pickup smashed straight through the rusted guardrail. I could imagine that terrifying fall-as the cab crumpled, Jax kicked the door open, his Glock barking into the blinding headlights until the world spun sideways.

The truck exploded into a fireball twenty yards away, scorching the hemlocks. Jax dragged Clara from the burning wreckage, his left leg shredded, the femoral artery barely missed, bone splintering through denim. He didn't stop to set the bone. He tore his flannel shirt into strips, bound the bleeding wound, and hoisted Clara into his arms, limping into the pitch-black woods while the cartel's searchlights combed the ridge.

Three miles deep, they found a deserted logger's cabin. By midnight, the mountain air had plummeted below freezing. Clara was soaked, cyanotic, her lips turning the color of bruised plums as hypothermia seized her chest.

Jax's lighter sparked twice and died in the damp. He didn't waste breath cursing. He stripped off his soaked, blood-caked leather cut, discarded the remnants of his ruined shirt, and dragged Clara's cold, stiff body onto the moldy wooden cot.

He pinned her beneath him, using his bare skin, his feverish blood, to force life back into her failing pulse. His rough stubble scraped her temple as he growled into her hair: "Stay awake, Clara. You don't get to die on me."

He held her through the long, agonizing dark while the torn nerves in his shattered leg screamed in agony, his sweat dripping onto her cold cheeks. When dawn finally broke through the rotting timber, Clara's breathing was steady. Jax was gray as ash, half-dead from shock and blood loss, but his arms never loosened.

What a grand drama of redemption and faith. If it were me, I'd just put a bullet through Jax's head, because I have road rage.

The Harley lurched violently, throwing me forward, my helmet cracking against Diesel's back armor with a sharp sound, snapping me back to the brutal present.

We had cleared the ridge. Ahead, planted firmly on the gravel shoulder of the highway, stood the Iron Bastards MC boundary marker.

It was a terrifying totem-a massive iron skull welded from twisted exhaust pipes and rusted chains, its hollow eye sockets staring down the asphalt.

"End of the line, Queenie," Diesel shouted over his shoulder, his boots skidding across the gravel as he killed the engine.

Three heavy cruisers sat idling under the skull's shadow, their riders slouched over ape-hanger handlebars. The man in front wore a sleeveless denim vest with no top rocker-a Prospect, his face scarred with acne and arrogance.

He revved his throttle twice, an obnoxious, deafening crackle that made the hair on my arms stand up.

"Look what the postman brought," the Prospect sneered, spitting a stream of brown tobacco juice onto the tire of Diesel's bike. "The Kidd family's prize heifer, delivered right on schedule."

Diesel's hand snapped to the Ka-Bar knife strapped to his thigh, his frame tensing like a coiled spring.

I slapped my palm hard against Diesel's shoulder armor, leaning forward. "Stand down, Diesel. We don't draw steel on their threshold."

I stepped off the rear pegs, my combat boots hitting the dirt with a solid thud. I stared straight at the Prospect through my tinted visor, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing my eyes.

"Tell Fulton I'm here," I said, my voice cutting through the idling engines like a blade. "And tell him to teach his dogs how to heel."

Eleanor POV:

The Prospect's smirk vanished, replaced by an ugly, twitching scowl. He stepped off his bike, his thumbs hooked insolently into his belt loops.

"You've got a mouth on you, Princess," he muttered, stepping close enough that I could smell stale energy drinks and unwashed denim. His gaze crawled over me, slow and greasy. "Pretty, too. Shame. Let's see if you talk that loud when the Prez gets bored of you."

I let my shoulders sag a little. Widened my eyes, pressed my lips together, put on a pitiful, delicate look. "I'm so scared!" Then my voice suddenly turned cold, mocking. "You'd better pray your Prez finds me boring. Otherwise, the teeth he pulls will be yours."

"Back up, boy," Diesel growled, the big Enforcer stepping into the Prospect's space like a brick wall. "Before I take your teeth as a souvenir for your boss."

"Enough," I said coldly, no longer in the mood to play. I placed myself between them. Glancing at the knives and shotguns on their belts, I turned to the two patched members flanking the Prospect. "Lead the way."

They boxed us in. Two Bastards in front, one behind, our small convoy moving like a chain gang down the cracked two-lane blacktop toward their compound.

The closer we got, the more I remembered the legendary Jax Tucker. The same romantic story, except his ending was cruel.

Jax had survived that frozen night in the cabin. He had carried Clara ten brutal miles down the mountain on a shattered leg, using a fallen branch as a crutch, leaving a crimson trail in the mud. When the search party found them, Jax collapsed in the gravel, his arms still locking Clara safe against his ribs.

The club medics had cut away his jeans, and the verdict was merciless: permanent nerve death. He would walk with an iron brace and a crippling limp for the rest of his days.

In the infirmary two weeks later, Clara had knelt by his bedside, tears streaming down her bruised face, begging to take his patch, swearing she would be his Old Lady forever.

Jax had looked at her with eyes turned to pure granite.

He had ripped his hand from hers with such force she stumbled backward. "Look at me!" he had roared, his voice echoing off the corrugated iron walls. "I'm a cripple! An Enforcer who can't mount a bike without a brace is a dead man on the road. I can't protect you. Get the hell out and find a real man."

He drove her away to save her from his own ruin. It was the toxic, arrogant nobility of outlaw men-they'd rather tear your heart out than let you see them bleed.

Jax was crippled protecting a woman; Clara waited to be protected until the end of her life. I was different from Clara. I came to their Prez with a plan, and from the very beginning, all I wanted was blood and revenge-not love.

A sharp hiss of air brakes shattered my thoughts as our bikes rolled through the Bastards' compound gates.

The fortress was a sprawling concrete bunker surrounded by ten-foot chain-link topped with razor wire. The courtyard was pure chaos. Engines revving on dyno stands, half-naked Sweetbutts laughing over bottles of cheap bourbon on the clubhouse porch, and dozens of fully patched 1%ers leaning against workbenches, their cold eyes tracking my arrival.

I let the patched members size me up like cargo, and while they were busy guessing who I was, I was already mapping the terrain in my head. I needed to find the emergency exits-my way out.

Diesel killed the engine. The silence that followed was suffocating.

"Prez is on the second floor," the lead patched member said, jerking his chin toward the heavy steel fire door of the main building. "Leave the bag. He said you come up alone."

Diesel grabbed my arm, his jaw tight. "Eleanor-"

I reached up and touched his wrist, pressing down on his trembling hand. "Wait by the bikes," I commanded, keeping my chin level. "Keep the engines warm. Don't let them die."

I turned my back on the staring crowd, my boots crunching over the gravel. I pushed through the heavy door. The smell of stale beer, gun oil, and industrial disinfectant washed over me, accompanied by the muffled bass of heavy metal vibrating through the floorboards.

I walked past the crowded downstairs bar without glancing left or right, feeling every predatory gaze burning into my skin. At the foot of the dark wooden staircase leading to the private quarters, I paused, drawing a single, deep breath into my lungs.

Up there was Dexter Fulton. The man who owned these roads. The man who had demanded me as the price of peace. I had come here for him. And he had no right to decide whether I stayed or left.

I placed my boot on the first step.