Chrome and Claws

Chapter One 

The night was made for outlaws.

Engines roared across the abandoned railway lot, bouncing off the skeletons of old freight cars and graffiti-stained concrete walls. The Iron Fangs called it their home base, though “territory” was a better word. A hundred feet of cracked asphalt, a haze of cigarette smoke, cheap beer, and music pounding so loud it rattled bones.

Raven Blackthorne sat on the hood of a junked pickup at the edge of the chaos, a beer bottle untouched beside her, boots planted on the bumper. From here, she could see it all: the fights, the laughter, the flashing knives, the flashier girls. The Fangs lived for chaos.

She rode with them, bled with them, but she wasn’t one of them; not really.

Her Harley sat a few feet away, chrome glinting under a sickly streetlight, black paint so glossy it looked like a piece of the night itself. That bike was her anchor, the only thing that made sense in a world that chewed people up and spit them out.

The wolf beneath her skin stirred, restless.

She shoved it down, hard.

“Rave!”

Her cousin’s voice cut across the lot. Cole Blackthorne swaggered out of the shadows with a beer dangling from his tattooed hand, wearing that trademark smirk that made people either trust him or want to break his nose.

“Brooding again?” he teased, nodding at her beer. “You’re turning into a buzzkill. Drink before Reed notices you’re not joining in.”

Raven slid off the hood, stretching lazily. “Reed notices everything. That’s the problem.”

Cole grinned wider, though his dark eyes glinted with something less friendly. “You think too much. You ride with the Fangs, you follow Reed. Simple. Don’t make it complicated.”

That was Cole in a nutshell: loyal to Reed, blind to the dangers in front of him. Or maybe not blind but maybe willfully ignoring them.

Before Raven could answer, a voice squealed her name.

Sabrina Holt burst into the lot like she’d walked off the wrong movie set with tiny denim shorts, pink tank, blonde hair curled perfectly despite the humidity. She was all glitter in a world of leather and knives, and somehow, she’d survived among the Fangs by being too sweet to kill and too oblivious to notice danger.

“There you are!” Sabrina rushed to Raven’s side, throwing her arms around her. Vanilla perfume mixed with vodka fumes. “I’ve been looking everywhere. You promised me a ride tonight.”

Raven snorted. “I promised nothing.”

“Yes, you did!” Sabrina pouted. “And don’t you dare tell me you’re staying here all night. You always get that look on your face. The one that says you’d rather be anywhere else.”

“Because I would,” Raven muttered, but she let Sabrina drag her toward the Harley anyway.

From the corner of her eye, she caught Reed Cutter watching. The Iron Fangs’ president leaned against a truck, cigarette glowing between his fingers, dark hair tied back, tattoos crawling over his forearms like serpents. His gaze slid over her like a scalpel, calculating, cataloguing.

Raven stiffened. She didn’t like being looked at like prey.

“Relax,” Sabrina whispered, mistaking her tension for nerves. “Reed’s not staring at you. He stares at everybody like that.”

But Raven knew better. Reed wasn’t staring at everybody. He was staring at her.

She swung a leg over the Harley, dragging Sabrina up behind her. “Hold on tight.”

The engine roared to life, drowning out the pounding music. For a moment, the wolf inside her calmed, soothed by the familiar vibration of the machine. The road called, and Raven answered.

They tore down the highway, asphalt a blur beneath the wheels. Wind whipped Raven’s hair into her face, the night air sharp with the scent of oil and pine. Sabrina squealed behind her, clinging to her waist like a child on a roller coaster.

“Faster!” Sabrina yelled.

Raven grinned despite herself and twisted the throttle. The Harley roared, devouring the distance. This… this was the only freedom she ever knew. The wolf inside her pressed closer to the surface, hungry, howling with joy.

But freedom had a way of being short-lived.

Halfway through a curve, the engine coughed. Once. Twice. Then the bike shuddered violently beneath her. Raven cursed, pulling off onto the gravel shoulder before the machine could die completely.

Sabrina yelped. “What the hell happened?”

“Old girl’s pissed at me,” Raven muttered, kicking the stand down and crouching to inspect the lines, the tank, the chain. Nothing obvious. The Harley had simply quit.

“Can’t you fix it?” Sabrina asked.

“Not tonight. She needs a proper look-over.”

“So… we’re stranded?”

Raven stood, scanning the dark stretch of road. Not exactly. She recognized the territory by the painted insignia slashed across a rusted road sign: two crescent moons crossing a skull.

Her gut clenched.

Moonburn Riders territory.

Not good.

“Get back on the bike,” she snapped.

“But it’s dead…”

“On. Now.”

Sabrina blinked at her, confused, but obeyed.

Headlights appeared on the horizon, one pair, then three, then more, engines snarling like a pack of wolves.

The wolf in Raven’s blood stirred violently, clawing at her insides.

The Moonburn Riders had found them.

Seven bikes rolled up in formation, circling like sharks. Their engines thundered, their black leather vests flashing silver insignias under the moonlight. The Riders were legends in between half myth, half nightmare.

The lead bike stopped a few feet away. Its rider swung a boot to the ground, pulling off his helmet.

Dark hair spilled free. Steel-gray eyes glinted cold under the moon. A scar carved on his right brow, stark against tanned skin.

Axel Voss. Alpha of the Moonburn Riders.

Raven’s stomach dropped. Every warning she’d ever heard about him whispered through her mind. Ruthless. Unstoppable. Dangerous.

But none of that mattered. Because the second his eyes locked on hers, the wolf inside Raven went still, whispering one word in a voice that shook her bones.

Mate.

And Axel’s nostrils flared like he’d just heard the same word.

The Riders shifted around her like wolves closing in on prey, but Raven couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. Her pulse hammered in her ears, every instinct screaming that she was standing on the edge of something she couldn’t even turn back from.

Axel stepped forward, slow and deliberate. His voice was low, rough as gravel, and carried across the silent highway.

“You’re far from home, little wolf.”

Raven’s breath caught. He knew.

The secret she’d buried, the curse she’d hidden even from the Fangs, this man saw it instantly.

And if he knew, then the game had just changed.

Forever.

Axel’s lips curved in a dangerous half-smile as the Riders closed the circle around Raven and Sabrina.

“You don’t belong with them,” he said softly, eyes burning into hers. “You belong to me.”

Raven’s hand curled into a fist on her throttle. The Harley was dead, Sabrina was trembling, and the wolf inside her was howling one word over and over.

Mate. Mate. Mate.