Heedless: The Hellbound Brotherhood Book Four

by Shannon McKenna

  “So hot,” he said. “I can’t wait to know you better. And let’s not forget Kimball. We have to be careful. As careful as we ever were before. He’s watching both of us.”

  “Oh, fuck Kimball,” she said impatiently. “I don’t have the juice to be scared of him, too. I’m exhausted with being scared.”

  “Far-fucking-out. That’s going to make it real interesting to guard you.”

  “I’m a mess, Nate,” she admitted. “I cry, all the freaking time. I have constant nightmares. I’m so jumpy, I hit the roof whenever the phone rings. I have fits of being so angry I want to break things. I need to do all this complicated salvage work on myself to be whole again, and I don’t even know where to start. Are you sure you want to take this on?”

  He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket. “Do all the salvage work you want,” he said. “Take your own sweet time at it. Just let me watch your back while you do it. As long as it takes. Hell, I’m a basket case, too. I almost lost you. That’ll haunt me for the rest of my life.”

  “Damn it, Nate. You’re making me cry,” she complained.

  “All I want is to be with you.” Nate handed her some tissues, and pulled out a little ring box from his pocket.

  He opened it, revealing a stunning, square cut ruby ring, deep and fiery, surrounded with small, glittering diamonds. “I love that color on you,” he said.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Her voice choked up. “It’s perfect.”

  Nate took her hand, and slid the it onto her paint-smeared ring finger. He lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed her hand.

  She finally yielded to the pull. He wrapped her in the circle of his arms.

  “I want to be your man,” Nate said. “Whatever comes our way. Good times, bad times, scary times. I’ll stick to you like glue. I know what’s good for me.”

  “Oh, Nate.” Her voice was an unsteady wisp of sound.

  “Say you will.” His voice caught, and broke. “Be my lady. Be my wife. Forever.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck, and suddenly, forever stretched out before them as their lips met. Promising, beautiful and bright.

  Beckoning them onward together.

  In Havoc, Book Five of The Hellbound Brotherhood, Mace Trask must face up to the unimaginable evil that has stalked his family for years, while saving the woman who sets his heart and body on fire. Don't miss The Hellbound Brotherhood's explosive conclusion! Up for preorder now!

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  Turn the page for a peek of Havoc…

  HAVOC

  THE HELLBOUND BROTHERHOOD

  BOOK FIVE

  Payback is a bitch…

  * * *

  Find out why New York Times bestseller Maya Banks hails McKenna’s books as “A non-stop thrill ride...”

  * * *

  He’s in no mood to play nice…

  Mace Trask is setting a trap for the bastard who just tried to kill both his brothers, and he can’t wait to spring it. Then a sexy, mysterious woman shows up and starts wandering around GodsAcre, the remote property in the mountains that he’s wired to blow, putting Mace’s plan in jeopardy and herself in deadly danger. There’s only one thing to do—so Mace whisks her away to his cabin in the woods, determined to find out what this fiery beauty wants, and knows…

  Her beauty inflames him…

  Cait Lamott is terrified when the huge guy with buzzed off hair and ice-blue eyes drags her off into a remote cabin in the woods. She’s on a mission to find her father, a virologist who disappeared fourteen years ago, and nobody is going to stop her. Certainly not this suspicious, muscle-bound, infuriating, fascinating man. Not even her body’s traitorous reaction to him.

  But as they work together to uncover the terrifying truth, they start to crave each other’s touch. Mace’s armor is no defense against Cait. Her sweet passion burns him, her courage inspires him, and her razor-sharp mind might just be what it takes to keep them both alive.

  Because their enemy is closing in fast—and the stakes are higher than they can imagine…

  Havoc - Chapter 1

  Mace Trask squinted over the high-powered binoculars, following the swiftly moving splotch of teal and aqua with his naked eye for a moment as the mysterious woman wandered behind the fire-blackened ruins of the GodsAcre Great Hall and out of his field of vision. She moved casually, as if the place weren’t the scene of a mass murder. As if it didn’t hide deadly secrets that could kill in ways that no one could even yet begin to understand.

  This girl just strolled around, poking here and there, checking it all out. Taking pictures, kicking rocks and hard lumps of melting snow. No clue. La-di-da.

  There she was again, on the other side of the Great Hall. Who the fuck was she? And what was she doing here? GodsAcre was a death trap. They’d gone to insane lengths to keep people away from this place, for people’s own safety. Every local ordinance forbade coming anywhere near. No one had been here in months, other than himself, at least not since the winter snows sealed it in.

  A lost hiker? She was dressed for it. Stretchy sports pants showed off a memorable ass, and the sweatshirt hugged her shapely torso. High-tech boots with ankle support. A feather-weight backpack. Classic hiker’s gear.

  He focused the lenses once again as she shrugged off her backpack and took off her fleece jacket. It wasn’t warm this high up in the mountains, but the sun was high right now. Under the sweatshirt, she wore a fitted sleeveless sports top that showed off strong looking shoulders, and clung lovingly to the proud curves of a truly spectacular rack. Not thin. Sexy-strong. Toned, muscular legs that looked like they had lots of spring to them. An athletic hair band around her forehead held back a halo of tight black ringlets that were just short of shoulder length. Some floated high above her head. Her hair had lots of bounce and flop. She had golden brown skin, and her face looked pretty from here. Big, striking eyes. Too far away to see the details.

  Not that he cared about details, for fuck’s sake. Eyes on the ball, Trask. The hiker’s gravity-defying tits were irrelevant. It had been a while since he’d blown off any steam, sexually or otherwise. At this point, pitched battle with blood, carnage and mayhem would be a welcome relief to this aching tension of constant readiness.

  But so far, nothing. So far, he’d missed all three of the big battles that asshole Redd Kimball had inflicted upon Mace’s two older brothers and then his best friend, Nate. For revenge, and to get back his virus. And just for pure vicious meanness.

  He wasn’t missing another battle. This next one would be the last and definitive one, because that motherfucker Kimball was done tormenting Mace’s family. They guy had been at it for decades. It stopped now.

  But where did this woman fit in? She didn’t strike him as one of Kimball’s people. She didn’t fit the profile, or have their vibe. And after the shit that had rained down recently, it was strange for Kimball to send someone like her to do recon.

  Then again, maybe that was the point. Who better to send than someone who looked innocent and random?

  She was dressed for hiking, but there were no public trails nearby, and no state or national parks within miles. The single road that led up to GodsAcre had been blocked way down at the bridge, miles down the canyon. There was no approach from the other side. There was nothing out behind GodsAcre but increasingly desolate and inhospitable wild country at higher and higher elevations.

  So whatever her reasons, this woman had meant to come here. And on foot, too. It was a long, cold, snowy walk, so she was highly motivated. And now she was wandering around the ruins of GodsAcre, taking pictures. Not nature pics, but pictures of muddy holes in the ground. Burned, collapsed buildings. Piles of rubble.

  Even the way she walked struck him as suspicious. She didn’t look lost. She didn’t look aimless, or confused, or hesitant.

  She looked focused and purposeful.

  Mace was personally acquainted with every single member of the CDC team that had studied the living shit
out of this big hole in the ground, as well as all the local, state and federal police who had shown an interest in the events of the past few months. She was not one of them. He would have remembered anyone that hot.

  None of them had made much headway on figuring out what the fuck Kimball had been planning. The CDC, after studying the virus info Fi had decrypted, had some disquieting theories, but so far, nothing concrete. Nothing they would commit to.

  Whatever Kimball was planning, he was insanely, murderously committed to it. He’d killed upwards of fifty people, and those were just the ones Mace knew about.

  And Kimball had to be still furious about Nate’s desperate gambit a few months ago. Drawing him and his henchmen out to hammer Elisa’s homicidal boyfriend. Bugfuck crazy, but it was a slick move, and it had worked out for Nate and Elisa. By pure, blind, shithouse luck. So far, anyhow.

  But the upshot was that now Kimball was even more primed to punish them. He had GodsEye under constant surveillance. He had a huge budget, an army of killer goons to call on. And the cutting edge murder-drones that had shot up Elisa’s ex.

  And now here was this curly-headed, honey-skinned girl with dark mysterious eyes, trotting down the hill toward the excavation pit, lush tits bouncing cheerfully. Like she had absolutely no clue where she was, or who was watching.

  She shrugged off her knapsack again and dug around inside it, pulling out a device about as long as her hand. She stood still, fiddling with it, and then started walking slowly, steadily toward the excavation pit, holding the device in front of her.

  A sensor. She was following an electronic signal with it. Oh fuck.

  His heart revved wildly. What fucking signal was that? Where did she get it? What was she looking for? And if he was asking those questions, it was a damn sure thing that Kimball was asking them, too. At the same exact moment.

  Possibility A) She belonged to Kimball, and needed to be stopped and questioned immediately. Or…possibility B) She had no clue, and she needed to be rescued right now. Before she got herself captured, tortured and killed.

  Either way, he had to stop her. And he was in no mood to play nice.

  Cait tossed aside a few armfuls of tree boughs that the wind had blown up against the big, closed off entryway into the muddy excavation site. The place was plastered with big red signs. Do Not Enter. Danger. Falling Rocks. Danger of Collapse.

  No one had been here since the winter snows had started to melt. Based on the drifts of brushwood that storms had blown up against the wall, and the sediment from the huge puddle, almost a pond, that filled the lower parts of that excavated hole. It must have been buried in meters of snow over the winter.

  Ping. There it was, the spaced out call from the long-range beacon, wherever it was. It only came every two minutes. Her heart rate speeded yet again.

  Dad’s coordinates were right on. So close—but still nothing.

  Stuff had happened here, for sure. Dramatic stuff, but it had happened a long time ago. Maybe she’d missed everything relevant. Nobody cared anymore, judging from the scattered garbage. The remoteness. The place was utterly empty. Deserted.

  Which was great. Fine by her if no one noticed or cared. That way she didn’t have to fight anybody for permission, or waste breath explaining herself.

  Not that she had anything to explain, at least not yet. Just a handful of disconnected dots, and no way to pull them together. X marks the spot. GPS coordinates that Dad had left on that notepad that he’d stuck in that safe deposit box, the one she’d finally gained access to, after fourteen years. He’d written down a frequency, and he’d left this handheld sensor. That was all she had.

  A few random dots. The contents of the box—and a father who had suddenly disappeared fourteen years ago, leaving her burning with the need for answers.

  That ping that the sensor heard—maybe it would lead to at least another breadcrumb. But looking at the shored up cavern mouth, she had a sinking feeling that whatever might once have been there, by now a big chunk of the mountain had fallen down on top of it.

  And hundreds of tons of broken rock would be a depressing setback.

  The tarp and wood blocking the entrance into the cavern had been weighted down with cinderblocks and rocks, but they could be moved, with effort. She heaved and rolled the rocks until she was able to wiggle a big plank in there and levered a space loose on the side, opening up a sliver of darkness behind the tarp.

  She squirmed inside, feeling the stretchy synthetic fabric of her clothes snag and rip on the rough spots, but she made it past the entrance.

  Inside was absolute darkness. Cait sniffed the clammy smell of damp earth, mold, wishing she’d brought a flashlight, or one of those headlamp mirrors that spelunkers used. Next time…if there was a next time. That ceiling above her could fall down on her head with no warning. And no one on earth would ever know what had happened to her. This place would be her tomb.

  Worth it. She was so hungry to know what had happened to Dad. Why he had vanished. She was willing to face the risks.

  Mom had been tormented, too. Up to the very moment of her death. Wherever Mom was now, out there in the great Unknown, Cait only hoped that she had somehow finally had her questions answered. That they’d been answered to her satisfaction. That Mom was safe, content. Finally reunited with the man she loved.

  Dad had left those breadcrumbs in that safety deposit box. She would by God follow them, if they led her to the depths of hell.

  Cait thumbed on her phone for the flashlight function. She shined the weak, watery blue light around. The glow didn’t penetrate far. Stalagmites, many broken off. The cavern was full of rubble, in some places reaching almost to the ceiling.

  Ping. There it was again. The beacon showed itself coyly, glowing briefly on the screen from somewhere beneath that heavy, crushing mass of rock. Taunting her.

  So, she wasn’t going to be able to do this today, or anytime soon. This project had suddenly gotten bigger, longer, more difficult and more expensive in every way. It would take resources and permission and cooperation and teamwork, and a not inconsiderable budget. She would need heavy equipment. People to run it. And she would need to somehow justify all of that to the powers that be.

  And all she had was a missing father and a handful of cryptic breadcrumbs.

  Nothing worthwhile comes quickly, Dad used to say when he wanted to egg her on. The thought made her laugh. For real, Dad? Fourteen fucking years?

  She took a tentative step out into the tumbled boulders, and something huge and heavy hit her in the back. Her phone went flying.

  Rocks slammed up to meet her as darkness closed in.

  Her first frantic thought was that the ceiling had fallen in after all. She was going to die here in the dark, pinned by massive rocks. Curiosity had killed the cat.

  Then that massive rock that pinning her down shifted, flexed.

  A big, strong hand grabbed her wrists and clamped them behind her back. The other one wound through her hair, jerking her head back sharply.

  “Who are you?” His voice was a low, rasping hiss right into her ear. “And what the fuck do you want from this place?”

  Available for preorder now!

  * * *

  Did you miss Demi and Eric's earlier adventures? Check out Hellion, Book One, to read the scorching tale of how it all began—available now!

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  Or try Headlong, Book Two, where Demi and Eric finally reunite...only to have danger and violence engulf them and threaten their love once again—available now!

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  Then try Hellbent, Book Three of The Hellbound Brotherhood. Now it's Anton's turn to grapple with the Prophet's curse, and put everything on the line to save the woman he loves—available now!

  HELLION

  THE HELLBOUND BROTHERHOOD

  BOOK ONE

  Find out why New York Times bestseller Maya Banks hails McKenna’s books as “A nonstop thrill ride…”

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  He’s a
ticking bomb…

  Eric Trask is counting the days before he blasts out of Shaw’s Crossing forever. He and his brothers were raised at GodsAcre, a mysterious doomsday cult deep in the mountains, and are the only survivors of the deadly fire that destroyed it. The townspeople see them as time bombs just waiting to blow, but Eric’s going to prove those bastards wrong. He’s an ex-Marine, fresh off a tour in Afghanistan, working three jobs and barely sleeping. Utterly unprepared for Demi Vaughan’s dazzling green eyes, lush pink lips and sexy curves. She’s the town princess…he’s a dangerous outcast. It was a sure recipe for disaster.

  But the closer he gets to Demi, the more impossible it is to resist…

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  Forbidden fruit is the sweetest…

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  Demi Vaughan has big plans for life post-college, and Eric Trask, notorious bad boy with a complicated past, is not part of them. So when he saunters into the sandwich shop where she works she tells herself he’s just tall, ripped, smoldering eye candy, nothing more. Eric was damaged. Marked by violence and tragedy. He’d be the ultimate bad boyfriend, and right now she was too busy even to shop for a good one. But his hot eyes and hard body, his sensual smile and that rough, sexy voice of his shook her resolve. After all, she was leaving this place forever. A little taste of heaven…what could it hurt?

  But Shaw’s Crossing has deeper, darker secrets than Eric or Demi could guess. The evil that destroyed GodsAcre is lying in wait...and it will stop at nothing to keep Eric and Demi apart…