Page 1 of Revenant's Fire

Chapter One

Sunny

Ishouldn’t be here. I should be at home preparing dinner or doing chores or helping Momma. Instead I’m sitting on a worn church pew, waiting. For him. Everyday at this time motorcycle pipes split the air before Revenant stomps in, his heavy black boots echoing off the wood floors and walls. Older. Tall. Broad. Dark both in coloring and mood. He’ll walk right by me, his piercing blue eyes holding mine as he dips his chin, heading straight for my father’s office. He’ll sit in there, where it smells like burnt coffee and wood polish, the walls barely containing his words as he confesses sins to my father. Some are his, others are from men he knew and loved and lost. I shouldn’t be here when he confesses, but I can’t help myself. I’ve not been able to help myself since Revenant came to Winlaw, following Gallows, the president of the Saint’s Outlaw MC. Some people say it’s a club for the broken. Maybe they’re right. Every one of the members carries scars from lives lived outside of this town.

Heavy footsteps thud to a stop in the doorway, hesitating a moment before starting up again. Slow. Steady. Measured. They grow louder, closer, the echo now working its way through my insides, my pulse matching the pace until they stop alongside me.

“Sunny,” Revenant’s voice rolls over me, my eyes closing involuntarily at the sound.

He’s here.

Revenant

The dark-haired beauty in her pretty sundress slowly turns her head to look up at me. The smooth column of her tanned throat on show as she tips her head back. Her wide brown eyes behind thick sooty lashes stare up at me, blinking owlishly for a split second before her full lips pull up into a smile that could almost light up a soul as dark as mine.

“Revenant, how are you?”

Her voice rolls over me, causing a slight shiver that I have to hide. I can’t let myself be affected by her. That’s a dangerous position to be in. A man like me has no business with the pastor’s daughter. With someone so fucking innocent and perfect.

“The usual,” I answer, before turning to look at her father’s office door. It’s right there, no more than five or six strides away and yet, my feet stay planted next to her pew.

Her head tilts as she considers my words. “Well, it could always be worse, couldn’t it?” My brow raises. What does she know about “worse”? “You could have crapped your pants on the way over. Imagine that all squished into your motorcycle seat as it vibrates away.” The little imp presses her lush pink lips together in a smirk and I’m shocked by the bark of laughter that escapes me.

She startles momentarily at my laughter, her eyes wide with wonder as the six and a half foot man-monster whoops with laughter. Must look so fucking funny because her giggles ring out, tinkling like damned wind chimes on a warm breeze.

“Revenant! I thought I heard your stomping,” Pastor Richards smirks at me from his office doorway.

My laughter subsides, and I gaze down at Sunny. Before I can stop myself I lay a hand gently on her shoulder, her skin warm and smooth beneath my hand. “Thank you, I haven't laughed like that since…before.”

Understanding flashes in her warm brown eyes before it's replaced with mischief. “Well, I’ll be here all week and don’t forget to tip your waitress.” She winks at up at me and I know in that very moment, with electricity running through my hand as it lays on her perfect skin, with that little wink, that little smirk, that I’m fucked. Well and truly fucked.

Sunny

He touched me! He laughed at my joke! And he has no idea that I have claimed him. Revenant is mine. Whether he knows it yet or not.

Chapter Two

Revenant

The wind blows through my hair as I ride through Winlaw. I don’t know how or when I ended up with a standing appointment with Pastor Richards. What I do know is that he is everything I thought I was. Raised Southern Baptist in a home that believed God would always have my back. Even after my first and second deployments, I still believed. I believed when I lost men in battle, I believed when I lay suffering in a military hospital bed, and I believed when I felt my humanity slip away. But now? Now I’m angry. I’m angry that God sat back and watched the suffering. I’m angry that the prayers and promises I made to my brothers in arms went unanswered. And now, in the aftermath what do I have? A standing appointment with a man who survived the trials God sent him with his faith intact.

Pastor Richards sits silent as he listens to my ramblings. Swinging between “why did God forsake me?” and “what the fuck is my purpose here?” He never answers. Never really says a word, just looks at me with eyes that see too much. Truth be told, I have no fucking clue why I keep coming. He never has an answer for me. Much like God these days I guess.

I turn onto the long gravel road that leads to the clubhouse. There are two ways on to the property. The main entrance, filled with pot holes and barely maintained, making the farm look like every other slightly run down property in Winlaw. And then there’s the club entrance. Hidden from the road, blink and you’d miss it. Smoother. Wider. Better for our sleds. It loops around the back of our clubhouse, an old barn that sits in the middle of the land that belongs to Gallows’ family. His mother Vera still lives on the property, in a big old farm house a ten minute walk away.

The place looks like any other farm in these parts. Until you look a little closer. Until you notice the satellites on the roof. The solar panels. The various ephemera that only preppers have the imagination to come up with and the knowledge to use.

My brothers’ bikes glint in the sunlight, lined up, facing the club’s road as if waiting for us to ride out at any moment. Backing in, I shut off my engine, tip my head back, close my eyes against the sun, and take a deep breath. Judging by the number of bikes here it looks like a full house, and I’m not sure I can be fucked facing everyone. Today’s session with Pastor Richards was particularly draining, even if the fucker hardly said a word.

“Shitty session?”

Mercy’s voice rolls over me enough to crack an eyelid open. “No worse than usual.”

“But no better either, huh?”

Tipping my head up I stare at her. She’s Prez’s older sister and a complete and utter bad bitch. An army medic with a story of her own, she isn’t one to back down from, well, near as fuck anything.

“You know how it goes,” I shrug, swinging a leg over my bike.