Solace

by Raven Dark

  Thoughts racing, I picked up some papers from my office and returned to my rooms. I had a million things to catch up on with our absence from the Grotto those last two weeks; I didn’t want to be away from Setora, so I figured I might as well work while I sat with her.

  Twenty minutes later, I’d brought all my ledgers into my bedroom and set them on my desk in the corner, then sat in the chair at her bedside, answering mail that had been sent while we were gone, putting my signature to papers that required it.

  Setora still slept, eyes closed, unmoving. Gore stood silently at the door, ever the watchful guard, his gaze never leaving her. Before Doc had left me with her, he’d told me there’d been no change. No sign of another appearance from Julian, yet I knew the moment Setora so much as twitched wrong, he’d leap to action.

  A short time later, Hawk came in to relieve him.

  “I’ll stay with her a while longer if you have other matters to tend to, Captain.” Gore shrugged. “I’ve only been watching her a few hours.”

  “I’ll take over now, thanks, Gore.”

  “Suit yourself, Captain.” He grinned and walked out.

  “Couldn’t stay away long, could you, Hawk?” I looked up from my papers with a smile.

  “I want anyone watching her to be at their best. I don’t want Julian catching us off guard if he decides to show himself again.” He shut the doors.

  “Uh huh.”

  “A Yantu never lets his emotions dictate his actions, General,” he said reasonably. He folded his hands behind his back, a statue of protection. He wore his swords across his back and a six-inch blade at his hip.

  “Whatever you say.” I grinned while I scribbled my signature.

  He said nothing, and for the most part, he pulled off the look of stoic watchfulness. Except I noticed a hint of a twitch on his lips.

  My men loved her. That realization sank in as it never had, creating an irritatingly warm sensation in my belly. One that filled my chest, like the best whiskey.

  Weeks ago, knowing they felt so strongly for her would have ticked me the fuck off, especially from Hawk. He’d always been the voice of reason, the one who could, with almost chilling ease, remove his emotions from the equation and act purely on logic without letting the delicacies of a woman affect him. When everyone else lost their shit, Hawk was the rock in the storm. Emotional attachment in this world got a man killed. And yet, knowing my men saw her as more than their property, more than a possession, made me feel more connected to them.

  How, I didn’t know, but somehow, my Little Spy had wormed her way into their hearts and changed them. She brought them together. As the General, I didn’t have the luxury of falling for her. Fuck, no. But my men? She gave them something to fight for, something to hope for. It baffled me to realize I wanted that. I wanted the greater closeness she’d given to the only family I had now.

  I wouldn’t let her soften me, but I wouldn’t take away from them what she’d given this club.

  * * *

  The next day, the first piece of good news I’d seen since we’d come back to the Grotto showed up around late afternoon.

  I’d left Steel in my rooms to watch over Setora with Gore that morning, and Reaper had taken over an hour or so ago. I’d hoped someone as big and strong and capable in a fight as Steel wouldn’t need help, but without knowing what Julian might make her do, it didn’t hurt to be extra cautious, and if he needed help, I didn’t want him trapped without it.

  Setora had hardly moved at all while I slept with her the previous night, but at least Julian hadn’t started talking through her again. Beast had watched over us in the night, allowing us to sleep peacefully, knowing he’d be there if anything happened.

  Nothing did.

  While I was finishing up the last of my paperwork in my office that afternoon, Pretty Boy came in and held up something in his hand. “General. Thought you’d want to see this.”

  “What is it?” I stood from my seat as he crossed the room.

  “Some of the responses we’ve been waiting for came in, General. Most of them weren’t helpful except this one.” He handed me what he’d been holding—a metallic carrier cylinder. “It came in with one of the carrier falcons we sent out. It’s from General Mayhem.”

  “Mayhem? Of the Angels of Mayhem?” I took the cylinder from him. It was about a quarter the size of my large palm. I opened the top and tipped the roll of parchment into my hand, rolling it out on my desk.

  The writing was so tiny that, if I didn’t know better, I’d have thought a fruit fly had written it. It was also in code, a series of lines and dots, allowing for more to be written on the small page.

  I grabbed a magnifying glass from my desk, the only way I could read writing that small.

  “I figured I’d leave this one for you to read yourself, General,” Pretty Boy said as I looked over the coded letter.

  I nodded. Pretty Boy often read my mail for me to save me time, except with letters that might contain sensitive information. Anything to do with Julian stood a chance of being sensitive.

  “Some of the message is written in Galen’s Code.” I looked closely at the tiny chicken scratch. “He must have been worried the wrong person would read it.”

  “Galen’s Code?” Pretty Boy made a face. “Fuck, he’s old school. No one uses that anymore.”

  “Except guys like me.” I grinned.

  I read the letter over, all of it written in a single block of text. My eyes widened with every word. “Holy shit. Mayhem says here, his Violet…”

  I paused and read aloud.

  “Greetings, General. I hope this gets to you quickly. We are having issues with our Violet too. More than once, D’s started speaking in another person’s voice. She says, “Revolution is coming. I am the Light they cannot see.” She gets agitated, trying to escape and attacking us with amazing strength. We’re worried D will harm herself. Says her name is Julian. She says, “I call to those who bear the Mark. An army I shall make of them. Revolution is coming.” She’s sedated now, but we believe she has the answers you’re looking for. Others have reached out to us also. I’ve invited everyone concerned to come to Hollow Hill. Meet us at our hold when you can. Mayhem, General of the Angels of Mayhem MC.”

  When I glanced up at Pretty Boy, he wore a look of disbelief.

  “Setora said the same thing yesterday when Julian was talking through her.” He slapped my desk with his palm. “It’s Julian, all right.”

  “Right.” I set the magnifying glass down while Pretty Boy tugged on his ponytail and paced.

  “This is insane. Both of them saying the same thing?”

  “Yeah. But this is good, Pretty Boy. If other Violets are doing similar things, then we know it isn’t just something wrong with Setora.”

  “True.” He took the letter, looking it over. “I’m guessing D is his Violet?”

  I nodded.

  “Wait.” He ran his finger under one line and his brows scrunched. “‘An army I shall make of them.’ An army of who? And what’s this Mark he keeps babbling about?”

  “Fuck if I know. But Mayhem and his guys are big-ass, burly men. If she even came close to escaping…”

  “Then we have to wonder how strong Setora was when Julian was fucking with her.”

  I took the letter back and read it over one more time, my thoughts reeling. It was unsettling to think that Mayhem had nearly lost his slave. I’d never met Mayhem in person, but from what I’d heard from him, his men were every bit as good in a fight as the Legion or the Brothers of Brimstone. How strong had this D become if she’d almost gotten away from them? And yet, it also somehow reassured me to know Setora wasn’t the only one Julian was affecting that way.

  Fuck, answers, at last. I hoped. That Mayhem hadn’t given specifics on what she knew in his message further indicated his concern that the letter might be intercepted. But he’d been an ally long enough that I trusted him. Enough that I was even considering nominating him to become a member of those
who joined the Delta summits at next year’s meeting—well, at Delta, or wherever we’d have to hold our meetings now that Falnar was gone.

  So, yeah, this was good. Mayhem wouldn’t call us all the way out to Hollow Hill unless whatever answers this D had warranted it. The last thing I wanted to do was send any of us back out of the Grotto on another road trip, but if that’s what it took to protect Setora and find this fucker before he messed with her anymore, that’s what we’d do.

  I handed the letter back to Pretty Boy.

  “How should I respond, General?”

  “Accept the invitation. Call the others for a meeting. It looks like we’ll be going to see Mayhem first thing tomorrow, barring there’s no bullshit.”

  Pretty Boy punched the air and fled from the room without waiting for me to follow.

  * * *

  When I arrived at the clubhouse yet again, Pretty Boy, Steel, and Hawk were waiting for me. So were the Brothers of Brimstone.

  “Fellas?” I said, giving our guests a questioning look.

  “I took the liberty of inviting them for this one,” Hawk said.

  Before I could ask why, Sinister stood from the sectional and handed me a small scroll exactly like the one Mayhem had sent. Already out of its carrier cylinder, the roll was a lot thinner, indicating a much shorter message.

  I unfolded the paper. It had a small stamp with the Brothers of Brimstone’s symbol before the letters, which were written in code, but a much newer one than Mayhem used. One most MC generals used these days.

  “Ash.” A bolt of excitement hit me as I read the coded lines.

  Sin. Full throttle at your discretion. Fast track this. Patch in before you leave if their G. is willing.

  A grin stretched across my face. I knew Ash well enough from meetings at Delta to know what the response meant. He was telling Sinister to let us patch the Brothers of Brimstone in as long as Sinister thought everything was up to snuff.

  “This is fantastic,” I said, looking at the men around me.

  “I’ll say.” Sinister took the scroll from me and rolled it back up. “He sent this with one of our pigeons. He really wants to hurry this along.”

  “He’ll want you wearing our patch before you even leave.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not that I’m not thrilled, but why so fast?”

  “Yeah.” He frowned. “It must mean things have gotten a lot worse than we thought with those Wolves. Or something else is going on there. But if it means we get to do this thing sooner, we’re all for it.”

  “Beast is as thrilled as the rest of us,” Reaper said. “If you want me to get him…”

  “No, let him be for now. But this is excellent. Only, there is something we need to discuss.” I looked around at all of them again. “I want you guys to hear this too, Sin. You can brief Beast after.”

  I quickly gave them all a rundown of what the leader of the Angels of Mayhem had said. Steel sat up straighter, and Hawk leaned forward, looking at me with rare hope in his eyes.

  “I know we just got back here, boys. The last thing I want to do is drag us all back out of here so soon after what we went through. But if this D of his has answers, we need to see what she knows.”

  Pretty Boy and Steel both grinned. “When do we leave?” both of them chimed.

  My lips stretched from ear to ear. I loved these guys.

  “Hawk?” I asked him.

  “If I have to go to hell and back and walk over hot coals to protect her, that’s what I’ll do, General. Bring it on.”

  “Good to hear.”

  “I take it we’ll be bringing Setora with us?” Steel asked. Something in his tone told me he wouldn’t have taken no for an answer.

  I tapped my gavel into my palm. “I promised myself when we got back here, I wouldn’t let her leave here again if I could help it. But we can’t leave her here when Julian could take over without us here to help her. Besides, she needs to see this D, too, and having her talk with Mayhem may help both of our clubs.”

  The last thing I wanted was to bring her out of this place with Damien searching for her, not to mention Julian, but leaving her here was too risky. For all we knew, Julian might force her to attack the people here, or he might make her try to leave. If that happened, I wanted to be there to stop it.

  I turned to our new would-be members.

  “All right, Sin, Reaper, Savage.” I paused to make sure Sinister signed every word I said for his twin. “You know what kind of shit we faced the whole time we were gone from here. You fought at our side at Delta. We lost three men on that fucking trip. We’ll patch you in before we leave. But if you guys don’t want to deal with whatever shit comes at us this time, I get it. Not only is this Julian trying to get to Setora, but Damien is still out there looking for her. For us. Not to mention, the Hellhounds may be out there wanting revenge. This trip won’t be a fucking pussy walk. If you want to back out, now’s the time, because like I said before, your problems will become ours, but ours are also yours. You may find yourselves fighting at our side again. I’ll let you talk to Beast first if you need to, but if you’re in, it’s balls to the wall, boys.”

  I waited for them all to answer with bated breath, fully expecting them to bow out. It wouldn’t have made them pansies if they had, not after the hell we’d gone through. They had enough of their own problems to deal with back home, and Ash was short enough on men as it was.

  “It’s not an overestimation to say you and yours are saving the Brothers of Brimstone’s collective asses, Sheriff,” Sinister said. “And a chance to fight with the Dark Legion again?”

  Sinister looked at Reaper first, then when he gave a nod, he looked at Savage. His twin put his hand out and held it between us. I grinned. Even I knew that sign—it mean “in.”

  Reaper and Sinister put their hands on top of Savage’s.

  I looked around at all of them, and as I watched Steel, Pretty Boy, and Hawk lean forward, laying their hands on top of the others, my heart filled with a joy I’d only ever felt when I was with Setora, buried inside her.

  I put my hand over all of theirs.

  “Like the big guy says,” Sinister said, “when do we leave?”

  * * *

  As much as I wanted to pack up and head for Hollow Hill immediately, we couldn’t leave until tomorrow. We’d just unpacked from the last trip, so everything would have to be repacked. T-Man would have to check over our bikes to make sure they were in working order before we left, and the Brothers of Brimstone would be quickly patched in before we went anywhere.

  As soon as I left the clubhouse and the others started letting everyone in the Grotto know about our plans, I went and found Doc in his infirmary and filled him in. As expected, he was as eager to find answers about Julian as the rest of us.

  “Point me where you want me, General. I hate seeing what he’s doing to her.” He finished checking over a patient and turned to me. “But General. If Setora’s reaction to her seizure is the same as most other people, she could be out for a while yet, even without my having drugged her. I’m guessing we can’t wait that long if Mayhem needs us quickly.”

  “Right. Is there any way we can take her with us even if she’s still out cold?”

  “I can keep her out with drugs. We’ll have to take one of those carriages Lord Bain gave us. Hollow Hill is, what, half a day away?”

  “Yeah, thereabouts.”

  “Well, Hawk wanted to work on this Don-shi thing with her. He thinks boosting her mental skills will help ward Julian off. He’ll have to wait until we get to Mayhem’s to start working on that with her, when she won’t be knocked out.”

  “Bring everything we might need for her, in case anything goes wrong.”

  “I will. I was just with her until Hawk took over after your meeting. No change, but everything seems to be normal with her. Let me know if anything happens.”

  I resisted the urge to remind him that nothing about this situation was normal. Instead, I left him to hi
s work and headed back to my office to take care of some things.

  When I returned to my bedroom a few hours later, I found Hawk lying on my bed with Setora as he often did. She lay with her head on his chest and he was holding her. I smiled at the two of them as I closed the doors.

  “Comfortable, Captain?”

  Gore grunted a laugh from beside the doors.

  Hawk’s mouth twitched. He extracted himself from our woman’s arms and stood. “Sorry, General.”

  I waved the apology off. “It’s fine, Brother. Rest with her. You’ve done a great job keeping watch over her.”

  Instead of lying back down, he sat on my bed and took Setora’s hand in his while I poured myself a whiskey from my bar.

  “General. After we talk with Mayhem, if we find out where this Julian is, I take it we’ll be making a beeline for him?”

  “Damn right. I’m not waiting any longer than I have to to get my hands around his throat.” I downed the shot.

  “Get in line, General,” he growled.

  “Which means, whatever you’re going to do with her when she comes around, you’d better do it fast. Mayhem’s hold isn’t a day away, and we’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “Doc doesn’t think she’ll be awake enough for me to work with her tonight, so unfortunately, all that will have to wait.”

  I nodded, poured another shot, and downed it before I pulled up a chair to him.

  “Sheriff… If we end up having to hunt him down before coming back here, we may be gone for months. We haven’t been away from the Grotto for that long in years.”

  “So?” I gave him a teasing smile. “You think an old dog like me isn’t up to the task?”

  “That thought never crossed my mind, General. No, I mean, who’s going to oversee things while we’re gone?”

  I blew out a breath. “Right. Well. I’ll put Crank in charge. He’s done it before, if not for this long. I’d also like to bring a lot more men with us this time, in case the J’nai ambush on us.”

  “Right. Saketh, too. Or as Pretty Boy calls him, King Fuckhead.”