Raven’s Climb: Wrath MC by Tiffany Casper

Prologue

Michelle

Laying in the back of his blanket-covered Chevy S-10 pickup truck underneath the stars on a summer night was magical.

We did things like this often. Sure I was only sixteen and he was seventeen but I knew that he was the man that I was going to spend the rest of my life with. No this wasn’t some teenage crush. This was an I see myself spending the rest of my life with this man kind of thing.

Smiling up at Cam, I snuggled closer into his chest, loving the feel of his arms wrapped around me. They say home is where the heart is, I knew in that instance that I was home.

I’d been in love with Cam since I could remember. He was turning eighteen tomorrow and I wanted to give him his birthday present now, but I didn’t want to spoil it. I had been wracking my brain all month, thinking of the perfect gift, and one sunny day last week, I had stumbled upon it.

It was a signed paperback of his favorite author, and his favorite book, Stephen King’s The Shining. I had watched that movie and even though I knew that it was all fake, it scared the bejesus out of me. Who knew that redrum spelled murder?

I sure as heck didn’t, God forbid if there was an alcoholic drink on the market with that for its name.

That night after Cam drove me home, he placed a kiss on my temple and said, “Good night beautiful.” I melted a little more inside every time he said those words. To be honest I didn’t know how much deeper into my heart he could get, turns out, one single action was going to change the rest of my life.

The next day I did my hair in curls because that was what he liked. I had put on a new white cotton sundress that I adored when I had seen it while I had been shopping with my aunt, my father’s sister Mae.

Mae didn’t live in Tennessee, she had come down on her weekend visit once a month to hang out with me and supposedly give my mother a break, I didn’t know why? I really was a good kid. I made all A’s in school. I didn’t go out and party, why would you need to go out when you could hang out at the clubhouse and get the best of both worlds.

Party and safety. Only what I wouldn’t know is that the safety I had felt all my life within this MC was going to be ripped away in the blink of an eye.

An hour later I walked into the clubhouse with Cam’s gift, smiling when I saw him. My God, he was gorgeous. I knew that the older he became, the more handsome he would be.

Only he wasn’t alone. Mina was on his lap. I froze as I stared at him. I hated Mina with a passion. She was five years older than my sixteen and she was the devil reincarnated. Literally.

Do you want to know how I discovered that holding an ice pack for five to fifteen minutes on a piece of gum got it out of your hair? Mina. It was supposedly an accident that the gum flew out of her mouth because she supposedly tripped. She was a freaking cow.

She never let a moment go to try and embarrass me no matter what it was. Cam knew that I hated Mina. Why just two weeks ago she told the entire clubhouse that I was known around town as a get on my knees kind of girl. She was spreading the rumor about me when it was really about her. Anyone with a pair of eyes would know that. She was a floozy.

Even though I have come to the clubhouse multiple times, walking in here without my mom or Cam was a little different.

You see, my dad had been a member of Wrath MC until pancreatic cancer had taken him from our lives. Three years later it still wasn’t easy to breathe when I walked through those big oak doors at the clubhouse.

Taking a deep breath I walked over to where he was sitting, unsure of what was even happening here. “Cam, hey.”

In a tone that I had only ever heard him speak in when he was talking to someone he didn’t like, he said, “What are you doing here?”

“Umm, it's your birthday.” What in the world was going on?

“Yeah well, since it’s my birthday I don’t want you here. In fact, I don’t ever want to see your face again. Time for you to leave.”

I noticed everyone in the clubhouse had stopped what they were doing to watch what was happening. It felt as though I were being punked, “What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t stutter Michelle, turn on your cheating ass and walk the fuck out of this clubhouse. Do not come back.”

I stood there frozen, cheating, what the heck? “Cheating? Cam, I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

“Never would have imagined that you would have hurt me like this.” I was dumbfounded.

I honestly had no clue what was going on. What had changed between the time I texted him good night when I had gotten in bed until now.

“Son, think you need to take this somewhere private,” Powers growled at him.

“Negative Pres. No need to make this private. I was patched in as a brother this morning.” He turned his attention back to me, “Mina told me all about it. Saw you with Porter.”

I stared at him, lost for words, “Porter? He’s our friend. What are you even talking about?”

He stood knocking Mina to the ground as he sneered then pulled out his phone. I would have laughed at the expression on her face however, I was frozen on the spot.

It was then that he pulled out his phone, did something on it, and then shoved the phone in my face. Jerking my head back in reflex, I squinted my eyes to get a better look.

I stared at some woman with Porter. “What am I looking at?”

He snarled at me; he had never done that to me. “You’re fucking joking right?” The sarcasm in his tone was biting.

“No, I’m not Cam. I have no clue what you're even talking about. Why does it matter that Porter is with someone?”

“Oh don’t be stupid honey, know your smart, but come the fuck on. I’m not fucking stupid, that someone is you. And you lost the right to call me Cam. It’s Cameron to you. Get out of my sight.”

“Cam, that isn’t me, look at her ears.” I pleaded with him. Seeing Mina’s smug expression out of the corner of my eye had me wanting to claw her eyes out.

“I’ve looked at the picture so much I’m sick to my stomach. I’m sick of looking at it and you.” I didn’t know how much that the next words to come out of his mouth would tear my heart to shreds.

“You're nothing but a piece of trash and a whore.” He turned on his booted heel and walked away from me as he headed to the bar.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the words that would have come out of his mouth. I stared at him, open-mouthed.

Had I really just heard him say that to me? “What are you still doing here? Leave bitch. Get fucking gone.” He roared at me.

Through bleary eyes, uncaring that I dropped his gift to the wooden floor as I ran out of the clubhouse.

Through bleary eyes, I hadn’t seen the shadow that was leaned up against the building. It wasn’t until the shadow fell over me that I realized I had messed up.

A hand had wrapped around my throat and squeezed, stalling the scream that I had tried to let out.

“Be a good little girl for me.” And that was the last thing I remembered. Maybe I was just trash as Cam had called me.

***

Cam

Watching her as she turned on her heels and ran away from me, her words had started on a loop, look at the girl's ears, she had told me. Snarling as Mina tried to climb in my lap again, I stood and paid no mind when her ass missed my legs and the chair, then she fell to the floor. Again.

I walked up the staircase to my bedroom, closing the door, I leaned my back against it as I tried to take calming breaths. Michelle was my heart. I loved that girl with a fierceness that surprised even me.

I suddenly found my phone in my hand and the picture pulled up. Then I looked at the girl's ears and froze. She had piercings. Michelle didn’t have any. In fact upon closer inspection, the girl had a butterfly tattoo at the base of her neck, how the fuck had I missed that?

A cold sweat came over me as I realized what I had just done.

Growling, I turned on my heel, threw open the door, and ran down the stairs of the clubhouse, through the main door, and out to the parking lot.

My eyes scanned the area, looking for her car. Seeing that, I inhaled a breath.

I still had time to make this right. Please let me make this right.

Walking over to her car, I started to run my apology through my mind.

However, everything that was running through my brain was halted.

Everything stopped.

Michelle was lying beside her car with her panties around her feet. Curled up in a protective ball, not moving.

I hadn’t realized that I had screamed. Hadn’t realized that paramedics were trying to take her from me. Hadn’t realized that my brothers had to hold me, to keep me from climbing in the ambulance with her.

Walking to Greek’s office I clenched and unclenched my fists. I knocked on the door with my knuckles.

Seeing Greek, his face tightened as he started the feed of the parking lot outside of the compound.

I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood.

Seeing the man’s face smile as Michelle screamed out “No,” “Stop,” had me wanting to pummel his face in with my bare hands.

An hour later I was at the clubhouse. Placing my clothes in a black trash bag that Heathen had waiting on outside of my room, then I showered.

And that was when the man’s face registered in my mind on who the man was that raped Michelle. Fucking Porter. What the actual fuck?

“Get him?” I knew that Greek had ran a facial software program that he had designed, Greek was a fucking genius. Literally. I knew of three government agencies that had tried to recruit him. He had turned them down hard.

I grabbed the piece of paper that had a couple of addresses on it and I hit the road.

I was taking care of this scum before I went to Michelle. Only had I known that I should’ve waited and gotten to the hospital as fast as I could get there, I would’ve.

It took me an hour to find the piece of shit.

Bringing my boot up I kicked in the door to Porter’s apartment.

Seeing him with his face scratched up wasn’t good enough. I didn’t give him a minute to say a word as I launched myself at him and hit him with one solid left hook. Seeing him drop to the floor again wasn’t good enough.

“Why?” I roared.

“Because you asshole. Our parents left everything to you.” He said as he got up on his hands and knees.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked him when he stood back up.

“Ha. Dear old parents never told you? Mom had an affair with my father. We are half-brothers. You got the money they left you and you got the woman that I wanted. Well guess what brother dearest, you got the money but I finally got the woman. Took the one thing that you wanted.”

Everything he had to say sounded like acid. “You’re fucked up in the head asshole. And you may have taken something from me, but I’ll be there to repair the damage you did.”

Two hours and the motherfucker took his last breath.

After I dealt with the asshole, having made my first kill at the age of eighteen didn’t seem to bother me as it should have. No, the man had hurt mine. Someone I loved deeply, someone who had loved me unconditionally, until I fucked it all up.

Driving to the hospital I vowed that no one would take me from her bedside. No-fucking-one.

The moment I parked outside, I made my way in through the glass doors of the emergency room, walking to the nurse's station, I asked the first nurse I saw, “What room is Michelle O’Connell in?”

I was sure I looked like a mad man; adrenaline was still pumping through my veins.

“And you are?” she sneered as she looked at my kutte that I had gotten this morning.

“Her boyfriend.” I all but snarled out. She was wasting my time.

She typed something on her computer, then she floored me when she said, “She was discharged thirty minutes ago.”

Running out of the hospital to my bike, I gunned the engine and rode hard for her house.

Only it was her mother that was wiping a tear out of her eyes as she opened the door, glaring at me.

“She isn’t here. Nor is she ever coming back.” Then with those words, she slammed the door in my face.

Not going to the hospital with her was the one decision that I would regret for the rest of my life.

Walking back into the clubhouse, all of the brothers gave me a wide berth, but it was Melia, the only one to approach me as she held out the gift bag that had been in Michelle’s hands.

Tagging it from her, I carried it with care up to my room.

Pulling out my favorite book and seeing that it was signed, my fucking God I had fucked up. Not small. Oh no. Fucking huge.