ALEXEI - Part One

ALEXEI - PART ONE

This is set while Nash and Locke are partying at the Sea Rave festival. Remember the O'Brian Horde are collectively banned by the organisers for various violent offences. Ditto Embry. But I do so love being invited into Alexei's head.

I was spending too much time with Saint. My heart told me such a thing was not possible, but as I parked my car on a darkened street half a mile away from where I wanted to be and walked the rest of the way for fun, it was the only explanation I could come up with.

You could blame Veles.

It was true. I had spent much time outside with Folk too, but as much fondness as I had for my brother-in-arms, it was only Saint's influence that made me enjoy the wind in my face and the damp air saturating my lungs.

A strange thing for a man afraid of the water. But then, many things about Saint were strange, and I had given up trying to decipher him.

I loved him.

He loved me.

And together we loved a man with a heart the size of six men.

Cam .

I moved through the shadows with my first love on my mind. His strong, unyielding frame. The whisky and leather scent that permeated his tattooed skin, despite the fact that, when given the choice, he drank only beer and rum.

His heartfelt gaze.

No one had ever looked at me like he did. The way he still did, even after seeing the very worst of me.

He has not seen the worst . A devil in my soul that would not be silenced, but I had become a man who could believe the devil was wrong.

Cam's home appeared in the distance, the lights of his beach-front cottage twinkling against the night sky. It was a small house, even with the extension Cam had solo built as his own brand of therapy, but even from here I could tell it was full of people.

Of laughter.

Of love.

That it was an odd thing to contemplate was something I shared with Saint. This…family that Cam needed to survive. As hard as I tried, sometimes I did not understand it.

They are your family too.

When I allowed them to be. And in my cousin Sacha and his kind-hearted husband, I had a tiny family of my own, but it still made me feel things I was not always in the mood for.

Perhaps that was the real motivation for my extended journey home. Or maybe I really did like the wind. Either way, I ran out of time to think about it.

I reached Cam's house and evaded the small band of brothers guarding the rear of the property. They were loyal soldiers. Diligent. But they were not built to see me coming, and I entered Cam's house, unnoticed, through his bedroom window.

The room smelled of him. Of us. Saint no longer smoked or lived in a van, but the scent of hemp and the wilderness still clung to him all the same.

I need a shower.

A constant preoccupation when I was alone. But the call to Cam was stronger.

I changed my clothes, taking shelter in a T-shirt that Saint had forbidden me from disposing of. It was the only item of clothing I owned that I had worn more times than I could count.

That he wore, only to stop me setting it on fire.

I did not know why he was so attached to this shirt.

Just that it mattered.

I went downstairs, following the sound of Cam's voice to the kitchen, bracing myself for a room full of people, no matter that they were people I liked. I did not expect to find him alone, save the baby on his hip, and it was a disturbing fact that I was beginning to understand the emotion behind how Nash gazed at Locke Halliwell. "You have found someone to argue with?"

Cam spun around, by now used to me appearing behind him with no warning. "We're not arguing. Hope doesn't scream in my face, unlike every other cunt in this house right now."

"You are calling your own sister by that word?"

"Have you met my sister?"

"I have a date with her this evening. Is why I'm here."

Cam's expression turned dry. "You're not here for me?"

"Not tonight. Orla wants to drink vodka and ask me how it feels to know you and Saint have sex without me."

Cam cringed, covering Hope's ears. "She told you that?"

"Not yet. But she will. Later. When we have drunk vodka."

"Feel free to keep that conversation to yourself."

"Why?" I moved a little closer and peered into Hope's big eyes. "You do not want to know how it feels for me?"

"Not if you follow it up by talking about my sister banging two blokes at the same time."

"Biker boy, that is a startling double standard for a man who regularly does such things himself."

"Sue me."

In truth, I would rather have banged him, but not tonight. I had other plans. "What are you cooking?"

Cam jerked his head at the saucepans already on the stove. "That sausage and rice thing Liliana likes. Are you going to eat it this time?"

"No."

"Are you going to eat anything?"

"No."

Cam sighed. "Why not?"

"I do not care."

"I care."

"That does not make me hungry now. How do you know I did not eat while I was gone?"

"Come here."

" No ."

"Please?"

"Why? So you can maul me and tell me I am skinny?"

"I've never done that."

"Lies, Cam. And in front of the baby too." I took Hope from him, sidestepping his touch. Not because I didn't want it, but because I did not want him to lay hands on me and feel anything but good.

"You need to eat." Cam crowded me against the counter. "I asked Folk and he agreed with me."

"Folk is not God."

"He knows about the shit that happened to your body, Lexi. It happened to him too."

"I do not dispute that, but Veles would not eat your sausages either."

Cam's expression morphed into one that seemed torn between mirth and frustration. These men did that a lot, and I had learned it was usually about penis jokes that were too infantile to be funny. "All right." He smoothed Hope's dark curls and kissed my cheek. "How about a compromise?"

"Such as?"

Cam relinquished my personal space and removed a white box from the fridge. Inside were the baked goods he and Saint bought with amusing regularity given that they did not have much desire for sweet things.

Clearly. They like you.

I selected a doughnut from the box and ate it, knowing Cam would not settle until I did.

Then, because I loved him, I ate another one. "You are happy now?"

His grin was beautiful. "Course I am. You're here."

Saint was not, and until he came home, neither one of us would be truly whole, but I appreciated the sentiment. "I love you."

I spoke in Russian.

Cam smiled a little more. "I love you too. Now go sit, before I say you look tired and you punch me in the dick."

"I would never." But I left the kitchen before I could admit that he was right. That exhaustion dragged my feet and all I truly wanted was to lie down with him and go to sleep.

It was an unfamiliar desire. To need sleep so much. I liked being awake. Being aware. Embry called it hyper-vigilance, but I ignored such things. Even now, as he tracked my path into the living room, and I placed his daughter in his arms. "Do not speak, chaplain."

Embry shrugged. "Suit yourself."

I blocked out his clear amusement and surveyed the room, my gaze skipping over River, Orla, Juana, and Ivy before it landed on Liliana, hunched over the schoolbooks she had mutinously buried in the garden, only for Mateo to dig them up again.

Curious, I crossed the small space and crouched beside her. "What are you stuck on?"

"I'm not stuck."

"Okay. What are you working on?"

Liliana shoved her notepad at me. "Geography. My dad says I have to do it tonight or I can't go swimming tomorrow."

"Which dad?"

"The annoying one."

Mateo. I suppressed a smile. Cam's brutal enforcer had nothing on the fierceness his young daughter had developed, but it was cute that he tried.

"What do you have to do for this homework?"

"Write ten facts about Bolivia, but I have to find them in a stupid book because I don't have a phone to google it on." That earned Embry a fiery glare. "And I'm not allowed to ask Folk for the answers either."

"That's not what I said," Embry countered, his tone milder than Mateo's ever was about anything.

Still, Liliana rolled her eyes. Because she found reading difficult—it was why we had enrolled her in school a year behind where she should have been—and as such, she did not care for it. Veles had fixed this problem with swimming in record time. Embry and I would be working on this one until this child was grown.

"Show me the book."

Liliana kicked the encyclopaedia by her foot. It was old and thick, and she was right—nothing like anything anyone else in her class would be using. But she did not have a phone, and if Mateo had his way, she would not have one before her twenty-first birthday, so Liliana had to learn to work with what she had.

I showed her how to decipher an index.

She hated me for a little while, but it panned out. She was bright and imaginative. Once she had the information she needed, she found a way to make it mean something to her.

"Did you have these big books at your school?"

I watched her sketch the rain forest and decorate it with llamas, sloths, and caimans that were deliberately out of proportion. A cartoon of her discontent. "Probably."

"You don't remember?"

"I do not care to. I did not like school either."

"But you're so clever."

"Educated, child. They are very different things."

Liliana lost interest and kept drawing.

I kept watching, aware of Cam calling people to the table, but choosing to ignore it.

Liliana ignored it too, until her mother came to fetch her.

That left me alone, and I did not mind. Cam's living room was a nice place to be, even without him and Saint to keep me company.

Liliana had left her sketch book behind. I flipped idly through it, perusing the pencil and charcoal studies of anything and everything. She had a style that matched the tattoos on her father's skin, but there were other sketches too—people and objects. Saint. Not his face, but I recognised his forearm. His hands. A set of oddly elegant feet that belonged to Locke.

Orla's tattooed neck.

"I think she'll be a tattoo artist in the end." The lady in question claimed the space beside me, a vodka bottle and one glass in her hands.

The glass was for me.

Orla drank from the bottle to annoy me.

But it did not annoy me. Nothing this kind and fierce woman did ever could. I did not care for club customs—for tradition—but Orla was my koroleva. My queen . She could drink from my bare hands if she wanted to. "You do not think one medium would bore her?"

"Not if she got to stab people while she was doing it."

A fair point. I pried the crystal glass from Orla's hand—one of few possessions from my Bristol penthouse that had made its way to Cam's beach cottage. "Are you missing your men?"

Orla shot me a sideways glance. "What do you think?"

"That it is a journey to discover how it feels to love two. Missing Nash, you were prepared for. Locke is new, no? Relatively."

"Relatively?"

"You have felt something for him a long time, but this…manifestation is recent."

"Don't thesaurus my love life, brother." Orla kissed my cheek and poured vodka into my glass. "If I've missed anyone, it's you. Where've you been?"

"I have been around."

Orla nudged me. "Not like this. Council meetings don't count."

"Unless you are at the table."

She chuckled, throaty and deep, the perfect woman if I'd been so inclined.

I wasn't. I'd endured a long and one-sided conversation with Rubi about how unsexy it was to have unshakable sibling energy with the most beautiful woman who'd ever lived, and despite the three hours of my life I'd never get back, I'd agreed with him. Orla wasn't my sister, but loving her brother had gifted me the ability to observe her beauty from a distance, and also deduce that she and Cam were so similar that they may as well have been twins.

Would Orla have made a better president of the Rebel Kings MC?

Cam thought so. I was undecided, but the enduring strength and heart of this woman still awed me.

"I'm going to use all Cam's hot water," she said abruptly. "Come with me?"

She did not wait for an answer.

And I did not give her one.

I followed her upstairs to the bathroom and made myself busy making sense of the airing cupboard while she filled the tub, drew the curtain around it, and submerged herself in the hot water.

It was not a new experience to sit on the bathroom floor while Orla took a bath. We'd had our best conversations under such circumstances. And the best thing about it was that not one soul except Nash would set foot on the stairs until she was out, so I could leave the door open and recline against the frame, enjoying her company while Cam's voice drifted from the kitchen below.

What a life. It wasn't one I had ever imagined for myself, but I loved it.

"What do you want to talk about, koroleva?"

Orla shifted in the water, the unmistakable sound of the vodka bottle tilting filtering out from behind the curtain. "What makes you think I want to talk about something?"

"You do not like vodka this much."

"I like you this much."

"But still. You want to talk about sex, no?"

Orla tugged the curtain aside and glowered at me. "Get out of my head."

"No. Just ask me. Is quicker."

"You have somewhere else to be?"

"Not tonight, but I do not want to waste this time talking about Nash's cock. I have seen enough of it recently."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

I thought back to the morning I had discovered Nash naked with Rubi. It was far less interesting than it sounded. Innocent beyond belief. "He was in your bed when I tried to have a sensible conversation with him. I will not make that mistake again."

Orla laughed. "He's cute, though, right?"

"That was not my first thought, but if you're asking me if I understand your attraction to him, I think most people would. Nash is very…nice."

"Nice?"

"Is nice to be called nice, no?"

"You aren't making it sound that way." Orla flicked water in my general direction. "For your information, Saint is nice too."

"Oh, I know. He is not Nash, though." And I didn't believe anyone was, not even Locke. "Are you thinking about them together?"

"Who?"

I held Orla's stare, waiting for her to get bored with these games.

It did not take long. Like her brother, she was an uncomplicated person. Honest.

Blunt . "I think they're going to stay out all night and fuck."

I extended my legs. "After the festival?"

"During. Whatever. I told them to cut loose when Willow goes home."

"So you want them to stay out all night and fuck?"

"Of course." Orla disappeared behind the curtain again, but I did not need to see her face to know she spoke nothing but truth. "Nash needs this. I mean, I think they both do, but Nash doesn't know it so much."

I deciphered that. "Because it is different for him? To be with a man?"

"Mostly."

"And what about Locke? He is in love with you. With Nash too? I have not seen them together enough to tell."

"Oh honey." Orla's head popped up again. "Those two are fucking made for each other."

"And this delights you." No question.

She grinned. "Of course it does."

"Then…" I considered her through the steam rising from the tub. "What are you worried about?"

Orla sank beneath the water, saving us both the trouble of her denying she was worried about anything.

She re-emerged with a thoughtful expression, one laced with the kind of fear I knew all too well. "I'm worried that something will happen to one of them, and I'll lose them both. Loving Nash is terrifying enough. Falling for Locke too has just about finished me off."

"It is easier to imagine your own death," I mused.

She nodded. "At least they'd have each other."

"I said this to Saint once. He did not agree."

"What did he say?"

"To me? Nothing. To the birds, who knows?"

"That's helpful."

"It was not meant to be. These are troubles we cannot cure, koroleva. Not if you stay in this place with these feelings. When Saint was…" I could not say the words without dismantling pain squeezing my heart. "If the worst had happened then, I would not have Cam now. And he would not have me."

Orla knew Cam and Saint as well as I did. She knew me as much as I allowed anyone to. And she did not disagree. "That's why it scares me. Nash worries about me so much, and this thing with whoever's causing shit on the road for me…even with Locke to lean on, I don't know how long he can deal with it. The rest of you don't see it, but he's not this person who can keep rolling in this…this fear and be okay."

I knew that. I also knew it wasn't Orla who Nash was worried about. Not anymore. But that didn't make the distress in her face easier to bear. Or the strain of keeping a secret from her—a secret that would tear her life in two if we could not shut it down before luck and circumstance hurt the men she loved most.

For the dozenth time, I questioned my decision to leave Folk out of the loop. For the dozenth time, I pictured how happy Veles was with Decoy and the pain he'd endure if he lost that.

We'll find them.

I believed that.

But when? The sense of a ticking timebomb was strong, and the days were getting shorter, leaving our enemies longer nights to operate and plan their attack. We would defeat the Crows, of that I was certain. But at what cost? And who's fault was it that they still existed at all?

Mine .

I could've eradicated them in a single night. But then…I would not be here, drinking vodka in the bathroom with my lover's naked sister. "It will be good," I said, absently changing the subject, then clarifying in the face of Orla's bemusement. "The sex they stay out all night to have. I cannot speak for Nash, but Locke…he has something about him, no?"

Stress faded from Orla's features. She forgot herself and sat up enough that I had to look away. "You see it too?"

"Blind men can see it in that man. I will say this, though, and I have seen this in myself as much as your brother: men who are sexually dominant, it is not what heals them when they are at their most vulnerable. You should bear that in mind if Locke ever needs something you do not quite understand."