“It’s gonna be a long ride,” I warn Bree. “I’m not as young as I used to be.” Even as I say the words, I know they’re no longer entirely true. Overnight my heart is younger, my body lighter—more free.
“I don’t care how long it takes,” she says, nuzzling into me. “I just don’t know what I’m gonna say to her.”
Catch Up
Part 3: The Bohemian and the Biker
Epilogue
Now
Mercy
In the morning, I borrow the kitchen and cook too much breakfast for just Bree and me. The thought of hundreds more breakfasts like this one makes me smile. She sits in my lap and I feed her bites of bacon and eggs, unable to physically separate. Not just yet.
Soon there’s nothing more to do. Our bags are packed—not an impossible task, since there are only two of them. I hold her in my lap, bringing her hand to my lips.
“It’s gonna be a long ride,” I warn her. “I’m not as young as I used to be.” Even as I say the words, I know they’re no longer entirely true. My body has aged, but overnight my heart is younger. Lighter. Freer.
“I don’t care how long it takes,” she says, nuzzling into me. “I just don’t know what I’m going to say to her.”
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Music is a powerful tool. All of Mike’s concussion clinic providers are about 45 minutes away from our apartment—plus traffic. “Exhausted” is my baseline, but when he started having seizures, I took over as driver. It’s been good for me, in a sense, challenging me out of my comfort zone and into pushing myself a little bit more. But driving requires a lot of focus, which eats up a lot of my spoons—especially when I’m in a flare.
“Hit me with something high octane,” I beg Mike, passing him my phone. He puts on Kylesa, and it actually perks me up.
This isn’t the first time I’ve used music to set my own mood. I do it a lot when I’m writing, especially when writing dual POV romance. The two lead characters are often different as night and day, even down to the music I put on to get in their heads.
When I wrote Bree’s chapters for Her Mercy, I listened to a lot of Liela Moss’s My Name is Safe in Your Mouth. All of the songs on this album have a sad, romantic, nostalgic feel to them. There’s wisdom woven into the heartbreak, a constant thread of self-discovery. The novella is dual POV but the story is really driven by Bree; Mercy’s all in, it’s Bree who has to face and save herself.
The playlist for Her Mercy is shorter than the other books’ playlists, mostly because I listened to that Liela Moss album quite a bit. I kicked it off with Fleetwood Mac’s “Gypsy” to set the mood of the book. It’s pretty much the soundtrack to a then 14-year-old Bree having run away.
When she stumbles upon The Wet Mermaid and walks into the strip club, “American Woman” is playing. This song is required for all biker gatherings. I’m pretty sure it’s an unwritten rule. This is the first time Bree has a run-in with Bastard, and it won’t be the last.
As Mercy searches for Bree in the present, both of their past selves grapple with everything they know exploding.
Mercy struggles to believe the evil things his lifelong friend Bastard does, hoping to rescue him from the darkness before it swallows both of them and the club they built.
Bree is alone in the world, reeling after a shocking event that sent her running. She’s convinced Mercy and the others to let her stay, but she doesn’t really belong.
Not that she belongs anywhere or to anyone, not anymore.
To keep Bree safe from Bastard, Mercy pretends to marry her, making her forever off limits. But he can’t keep her safe from herself, no more than he can stop the fire burning inside him.
Being fake married only brings them closer. Bree’s balm soothes the pain in Mercy’s bones, and when he tells her the truth about Bastard, she urges him to take it to the MC’s table for a vote. Mercy knows she’s right, that Bastard can’t be allowed to hurt anyone else ever again, but it’s soul-crushing, accepting what his best friend’s become.
As everything comes to a head in the past, Mercy searches for Bree in the present. He’ll never break the vows he made to her, but she sure doesn’t make it easy.
Especially when she runs away again just as he closes in.
When they finally reunite, even though they have much to reconcile, it’s clear that they belong together.
It won’t be easy, but now that they’re together, they can heal the past and face the future.
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