Page 3 of Knife Volume 2

She looked down at herself — hunter green skirt, white blouse, pearls, the clothes she’d put on that morning to show respect at Homewood. “I’m a little overdressed for a biker bar.”

Not to mention she was exhausted, and still figuring out how to move and function without the power of the pack flowing through her.

“You look exactly right,” he said, and the way he said it didn’t leave room for argument.

He stopped at the bar to introduce her to Gonzo and Dawg, and then introduced her to Bubbles on the way out the door. She had a feeling he’d been brought in to handle security since Gonzo was helping out in the bar.

“What did you drive?” he asked when they stepped out of the building.

“The Audi, it’s over there…” She pointed in the general direction. “In the overflow parking lot.”

He picked her up and started walking, carrying her like an infant. She wanted to argue she could walk, but the truth was, she was still weak, and it would’ve taken everything she had.

He settled her on her feet by the driver’s side, saw her in, and then walked around to the passenger side. No arguments, no bossing her around. He let her drive her own car.

“Head across the street,” he told her. “Stop at the gate, and go ahead and roll the front windows down now.”

Well, so much for not being bossy.

When she got to the gate, she remembered Cora calling it a compound, and that seemed the right word for this. An entire city block was walled off. Not fenced off. This was a fifteen-foot-tall mega-impressive wall, and no one was getting in without the people at this gate letting them in.

“She’s with me,” Knife said to the man who looked in her window. “This is Tuesday. Tuesday, meet Paco.”

“Nice to meet you,” she told him. But he only nodded and said, “Knife will show you where to park.”

“There are clubhouse rules,” Knife told her while she parked. “A lot of them. We won’t stay in the front for too long, but mostly, don’t touch anyone. Not even a hand on an arm to walk by them. Don’t interrupt someone in a vest. To be safe, tonight, don’t speak to anyone in a vest unless they speak to you first. Be friendly with the ol’ladies. Sometimes they accept people right away, sometimes one or two of them will be a bitch. Usually, most of them accept new people, and I can’t see why that won’t be the case, but you kind of have to stand on your own for that. I can step in, but if I do, they won’t respect you.”

“Ol’ladies? I mean, I saw Sons of Anarchy, but I guess I thought that was just a TV thing.”

He tilted his head. “They didn’t get everything right, but a lot of it was accurate.”

The clubhouse was loud, with multiple conversations going on at once, people on a sofa playing video games, and a lot of women sitting at a table, drinking.

Knife whistled when they entered, and the room quieted. Everyone looked at them, and he said, “This is Tuesday. She’s mine. I won’t introduce her to all of you motherfuckers at once, but feel free to introduce yourself if I’m not around and you want to talk to her.” He looked to their right, where the women were all sitting together. “Harmony, can I trust her with you?”

“Yeah, I’ll take care of her. You should tell her it’s okay to share her species.”

He glanced at the table, looked back at her, and told her, “They’ve all been bound to the secret. Your choice, but… it’s better if you share.”

And he literally handed her over to the women and then left her to go talk to his brothers.

She breathed in and clocked them — Harmony was a wolf, but the rest were human.

She kept her face neutral and filed that away.

“I belong to Brain, the VP,” Harmony said. “That’s Gen, who’s Duke’s ol’lady. He’s the Pres. Angelica is Bash’s sidekick, and he’s the Sergeant-at-Arms.”

Gen looked her over, clearly judging her clothes, her shoes, her hair. Tuesday figured it was probably important the head bitch approved of her, but she wasn’t terribly happy with the way she was being analyzed.

But Harmony didn’t seem to notice, and kept going with introductions, motioning to a woman with pastel hair. “That’s Lexi, sitting beside Daisy, and then Matty, who’s kind of an honorary ol’lady, since we don’t really know what to call him.”

Matty smiled. “I belong to Razor. Duke is clear that I’m not an ol’lady, even though I’m in that category. Welcome. What’s your drink? I’m sticking with beer because I’m human and Razor doesn’t want me drunk tonight. Harmony does Long Island tea. Gen is doing margaritas, and Lexi is drinking water with lemon.”

“Bubbles told me no alcohol tonight,” the woman with the pastel hair said. “Daisy is drinking really slow. She’s allowed to drink, but she isn’t allowed to get drunk tonight, either.”

Allowed.

Tuesday had so many questions, but wasn’t sure how to ask them, so she merely nodded and said, “Long Island tea sounds good. Show me where everything is, and I can make my own.”