Chosen by the Covenant Bonus Scene

“Robber’s Roost,” he says finally.

I nod. Heard of it a few times in my research. A place where outlaws laid in wait to ambush passing stagecoaches. If he’d been born in another time, that’d have been Maddox.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks, leveling his gaze on me.

“You as an outlaw, camped up here, waiting for wealthy travelers and locked Wells Fargo boxes.”

He chuckles darkly. “Yeah.”

He kneels, working on a fire, then spreads out blankets. “You eat yet?”

I work hard to suppress the smile that seizes my face. “Let’s see, I think it’s been about two hours since you last asked me that.”

He grunts, nodding. I take it as a begrudging affirmation of his love language.

“Bourbon, then?” he asks, but there’s a seriousness around his mouth that has me wondering what’s really going on.

I don’t ask, or make it a thing. When he’s ready, he’ll tell me. He always does.

Instead, I sit on the blanket, back propped against a sun-warmed rock, staring out at the vast expanse of sagebrush below. The smell of brush hits my nose, insistent, almost medicinal. “Some would call this a wasteland.”

He nods, rifling through his saddlebags for a bottle and two shot glasses. The wet sound of poured liquid hits my ears, then he hands me a glass.

“Fancy,” I tease. We usually drink straight from the bottle.

“Special,” he murmurs, eyes dropping to my lips. “Like tonight… in this place.”

Desire shivers the length of my spine, already feeling the want behind his gaze. “Special how?”

He settles next to me, one thigh brushing mine, his other leg bent with his boot flat on the ground and an elbow poised on his knee. He balances the shot glass in his hand. The fire crackles next to us, its warmth and glow already welcome in the chill of night. It’s the kind of place you can pass out from heat stroke during the day and freeze to death at night.

Inhospitable. Merciless. Unless you understand it and prepare.

That’s Maddox.

“Figured tonight’s when we make this official.”

I don’t expect those words. Not one bit. His eyes cast to the side, almost bashful. If a big, intimidating biker can be that.

“Don’t know how much more official we can get.” My voice drops at the end. “You did call me your old lady, after all.”

He chuckles at that, leaning back against the rock. His shoulders relax a bit, forehead un-creasing. “First and last time as I remember. Because you hated it.”

“I don’t hate the concept. Just the sound of it.”

“Good,” he says, cheeks darkening.

Bourbon burns smooth down my throat, and I exhale sharply.

“Good stuff—”

“—always does that,” I say with him, eyes meeting. We both laugh.

Crickets chirp around us, growing in power and intensity as the sun dips behind the mountains and the sky goes indigo and ebony. A raven calls from some distant horizon, and the wind draws my hair across my cheeks.

Maddox raises a rough palm, pushing it away, and turning my face toward him. “You done something to me,” he starts, almost a little accusatory. I straighten next to him.

“Yeah?” I arch a brow.

“Yeah, burrowed your way inside me somehow. So, you’re there even when we’re not together. Even when I’ve got club business or something else going on. Not sure what to do about it.”

My cheeks heat, breath coming faster. But I don’t say anything because his awkward words already say it best.

“And stuff like you ever leaving me… or you finding another man. That shit fucks with me sometimes.” He doesn’t say more, the rawness behind his voice enough.

“I understand,” I whisper, staring up into his brooding gaze. “If there were club girls around. If Black Covenant were more like other clubs, I’d probably already be in prison on suspicion of murder.”

Some men might shift uneasily at those words. But Maddox, presses closer, a lopsided smile capturing his face. “Really? You’d kill for me?”

The last part makes my eyes round. God. Too on the nose. But he wants an answer. I can see it in his gaze.

“The thought of someone else with you… yeah, that could make me pretty damn violent. Though if you were egging her on, or going along… I’d be after you, too.”

He chuckles. That makes this conversation even more surreal. “Fuck, I love it when you’re jealous.”

I knit my forehead. “Really? Why?”

“Because,” he says, drawing even closer, close enough that I feel the heat radiating from his body. “Because it’s you saying I’m worth keeping.”

There it is. That thing he says that always puts a dangerous sting behind my eyes. Because for me, his worth is a no-brainer. Something I’ve never hesitated about, even when he scared the hell out of me.

“You’re my other half, you big lug,” I tease, trying to keep things light. But there’s a raggedness to my voice and breath he notices.

“That’s why we’re here,” he says quietly. He pulls me into his arms now, loose enough that I’m not pressed flat against him but still sharing his body temperature.

I wait, watching his mouth open and close. Watching his face harden and then soften again before he says softly, “We’re here because I want to make you mine, Mara Voss. For all time. This life, the next, however long I can get with you.”

The words are too romantic for a leather-clad biker, yet his dark eyes tell me he means them to the core.

“I already am yours,” I answer, snuggling closer.

He reaches into his boot, pulling a leather-sheathed Bowie knife free.

I blink twice, staring at it.

Alkaline dust sweeps around us like a kiss from the wind. The crickets throb, somehow making the night even quieter.

“I have the impression,” I observe. “Like I did at the mine. That you and I are the only two people who exist.”

He pulls the sheath free, and the edge sears against the firelight.

He stares at his palm for a moment, fingers flexing. My breath hitches in my throat, and I blurt out, “What are you doing?”

“Binding you to the club… and to me… for always.” He nods toward a petroglyph that looks more modern, mid-century, Sailor Jerry style if I had to guess. A rattlesnake with a rose. “We cut our palms then water the rose. The rattlesnake represents the venom between us—death—and the only thing more powerful.”

Love. He doesn’t say the last part. He doesn’t have to.

He presses the blade into his palm but stops himself at the last second. I watch breathlessly, more ready to cut myself than see him in pain.  

“What is it?” I ask, understanding this now. He brought me here to formalize our relationship, to cement our bond through the rituals of the club.

He stares at me long and hard, face conflicted. Like he’s looking at me for the first time.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just realized something,” he says. “I used to think the club came first…. Maybe it had to.” His eyes find mine. “But it’s not like that anymore.”

The sting returns to the back of my eyes. This is him choosing me, even over the club. And it’s why I’ll never make him decide between me and the men who shaped him.

“I can’t make you safe,” he says. “I’m violence. People around me get hurt—”

I shake my head, reaching up to palm his cheek. “No, you saved me. And you care for me every single day in a hundred little ways. That’s not something I haven’t noticed.”

His jaw tenses. “Then, we do this?” he asks, looking back at his palm. “Just you and me.”

Silence settles for one long moment.

His Adam’s apple bobs, and he says, “Not for them.”

“For us.” I offer him my hand.

He hesitates.

I understand instantly, starting to pull my hand back. But he grabs my wrist, thumb rubbing gently over my pulse point. “Don’t need that rock. Just you.”

His eyes meet mine, lids hooded, pupils blown.

Yes.

He makes the slice, quick and sure. I press my lips tightly together, breathing through my nose. Then, he draws a line across his own, deeper, like he’s trying to put this on his soul.

“Body of my body, blood of my blood,” he murmurs, clasping my hand and binding us at the wrist with his bandana. I stare at our hands, the wet heat between us, knowing things will never be the same. That I don’t want them to be. “Forever.” His eyes swirl with quiet devotion.

“Forever,” I repeat.

His breath catches, and he sweeps me into his arms, settling me straddled over his need. The top of my legs tighten, throbbing. I hunger for him so much I can barely think.

“You stayed after knowing the worst about me,” he growls, hand still pressed to mine.

I nod, vision blurring as I take him in. “And I’m still staying,” I whisper, leaning in to kiss him. His tongue sweeps into me, taking away all thought. Distilling me down to pulse and yearning.

When he pulls back, he rests his forehead against mine. “I thought this place made things permanent.”

The ancient landscape towers around us, somehow more prominent, more powerful beneath a velvety sky dappled with stars.

His eyes find mine. “But you already are.”

That’s it. That’s the bond. Not rituals or bandanas or even blood. Just two people choosing each other… for as long as there’s choice.

Maddox meets my gaze, confessing, “I used to think loyalty meant giving Covenant everything. Now I know some things are mine to protect from it, too.”

Everything narrows after that. Heat. Need. The steady rhythm of him pulling me apart and remaking me beneath the firelight.

Afterward, lying beneath him, breathing hard and still feeling his body pulse into me, I realize something. Maddox didn’t bring me here to bind me. He brought me here to help him let go of the last myth he inherited with the club.

The desert stretches endlessly around us, all stone and silence and buried history. The binding around our wrists loosens as Maddox lies back, pulling me atop him beneath the cooling desert sky. He kisses the top of my head, stilling, contemplative.

Once, this place belonged to outlaws, then ghosts, then men desperate to believe loyalty alone could save them.

Now it belongs to us for a little while.

Maddox tugs me closer beneath the fading Nevada sky, and together we leave the old myths where they belong.

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