by Raven Dark
Sanctum
Saving Setora Book Two
Raven Dark
Petra J. Knox
Praise for Stolen
"The softest woman requires the hardest men to survive. Dark, gritty, and perfectly filthy--modern MC meets Mad Max in this amazing RH tale. You will lust, you will crave, and you will scream for more!"
~Addison Cain, USA Today bestselling author
"So incredibly well-written. Compelling. Suspenseful. I was holding my breath as I was reading. But be warned, the authors aren't joking. This is definitely a DARK romance. If you like sweet, this is not the book. But if you like dark romance, you won't be able to put this one down."
~ Nia Mars, author
Sanctum (Saving Setora: Book Two)
Copyright © 2018 Raven Dark and Petra J. Knox, all rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Please purchase only authorized editions of this book, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials.
Cover by Raven Dark
Cover images courtesy of DepositPhotos
Created with Vellum
Contents
Note to Readers
1. Interrogations
Untitled
2. Allegiance
3. Killjoy
4. Disagreement
5. Traitor
6. “I Am Yantu.”
7. Letting Go
8. Patch in, Patch Out
9. Savages
10. A Spy’s Penance
11. Hate’s Poison
12. A Master’s Right
13. Talk of Illegal Things
14. Guests in the Grotto
15. Marked
16. Conflicted
17. Where the Heart Is
18. Dangerous
Epilogue: Sheriff’s Oath
Connect with Raven Dark
Connect with Petra J. Knox
Recommended Reads from the Authors
Dedication
From Raven and Petra
For all you Dark Romance lovers.
You’re welcome.
Note to Readers
This book has dark elements and scenes that may be triggering for some readers. The world and the characters about whom you read herein are not sweet, friendly people. The hell in which they live is a dark, desolate place, lawless and without mercy. It will either build them up or kill them.
Welcome to Setora’s world.
Enter at your own risk.
Chapter 1
Interrogations
Zone 2, Devil’s Row
I hit him again, a single, quick blow to the nose that sent his head whipping back. The bartender cried out like a little girl and slammed into the shelf of booze behind him. The bottles shattered to the floor and he held his nose, blood squirting from between his fingers.
“You have one more chance,” I growled. “Tell me where the merchant is.”
The bartender held up his hands. “He’s upstairs. Room 6.”
“There now, was that so hard? You could have saved yourself a busted-up face if you’d have said that when I first asked.”
His nose gushed like a fountain, one of his eyes was already turning black from where I’d hit him the first time, and his lip was split.
“He won’t tell you anything,” the bartender whined. “His cargo is worth too much.”
Worth too much. Fuck, we had to get our Setora away from those barbarians before they left port. She belonged to us. We’d drag her back to the Grotto, and then she’d never get two steps from us again.
“We’ll see.” I turned to the two men standing behind me. Hawk slid his two swords into the crossed scabbards on his back, and he and Pretty Boy headed for the upper floor of Roadside Brew. At the bottom of the stairs, I paused and tossed a silver zone credit at the barkeep for the drinks we’d had earlier. “Keep the change,” I said, my words muffled through the length of leather that covered the lower half of my face.
He looked at the credit, then at me as if I had two heads, while wiping the blood from his nose.
Hey, the Dark Legion were a lot of things—pirates, cutthroats, thieves, killers. But just because we killed people and robbed them, didn’t mean we didn’t have any fucking manners.
We thumped up the stairs, headed for Room 6. I fell in step behind my two Brothers. Bringing up the rear and protecting their backs, a position I was always happy to take up.
I was no leader; that was Hawk’s job, when the General wasn’t around. And since Pretty Boy had always gotten himself into trouble, even when we were kids, it fell to me to protect my best friend.
As soon as we reached the top of the stairs, everyone in the hall pressed their backs to the walls, giving us a wide berth. A man getting head in one corner pulled his dick out of his slave’s mouth and yanked her into a room. The door closed behind them, and every other door along the hall closed after it. Locks clicked.
Behind my mask, I smiled. This was why I loved being Dark Legion. Even without seeing the reaper skull and crossbones on the backs of our leather cuts, everyone here knew who we were. We were the only ones who hid the lower halves of our faces with leather, and we were the only road warrior crew with a man who looked like Hawk, with his yellow eyes, Yantu warrior calm, and double blades. No one dared piss off men who belonged to the most notorious road crew this side of the Blood Sea.
“Look at them bolting for the doors.” Pretty Boy glanced back at me, his long blond ponytail swinging over his shoulder. “Chicken shits.”
At the door to Room 6, Hawk stepped back toward the opposite wall along with Pretty Boy, letting me do my thing. I marched up and threw my foot into the door. It crashed to the floor.
The couple fucking in the room sprang apart and jerked upright in the rickety bed. The slave, painted up like a whore with a mess of black curls, cowered, her face going white as chalk. The man, with a shaved head and a spider web tattoo on one side of his chest, pushed her away, jumped out of bed, and grabbed a six-inch blade from the top of the nightstand.
That spider web tattoo left no doubt this was the man we were looking for, Spider Cordan, the merchant in Zone 2 best known for hooking men up with ships whose captains would take the most dangerous cargo, no questions asked, for the right price. The contact we’d visited before coming here had told us the merchant who’d booked the ship for Talak Barabas’ men had a spider web tattoo on his chest.
“Dark Legion scum. Get the fuck out.” Cordan held up the knife. The blade flashed in the moonlight from the dusty window.
The guy had a death wish. At six feet and seven inches, with fists three times larger than those of most guys, my size was usually enough to get it done. And when it wasn’t, being in full Legion attire loosened tongues quick. Either Spider Cordan had ice in his veins, or he was dumb as a doornail if he still wanted a fight with us. And he wouldn’t have gotten where he was in the underworld by being stupid.
I drew the machete from the scabbard at my hip, holding up the huge weapon in my fist and watching his eyes go wide. “Mine’s bigger.”
His lips pressed together. I moved aside as Pretty Boy and Hawk stepped in. Cordan’s face paled.
“Hey, I ain’t got no beef with you.” He set the knife down slowly on the nightstand, hands up. “Tell me what you want and get the fuck out.”
Wow. The dumbass had balls. I almost liked him.
Hawk strode over to a table scattered with
maps in the corner of the room. “Those Critian barbarians. What ship did you put them on, Cordan?
Cordan reached for his pants on the floor. “I don’t know how you guys know me, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I crossed the room and shoved him onto the bed. “Sit your ass down.”
“Let me refresh your memory,” Hawk said. “We heard you talked to two Critian barbarians earlier today. Had a Violet with them. A true Violet. Hard to miss either of them.”
While we were distracted, the woman bolted toward the door. Pretty Boy put himself in front of the door, arms crossed. “You’re not going anywhere, woman.”
She backed away, hands in the air.
Cordan gave a slimy smile. “I don’t remember no Violet,” he told me.
I grabbed his arm, twisting it behind him until he bent over on the bed and hissed in pain. “Stop being a fuck and answer the question.”
“Let’s try again. Where is she, Cordan?” Hawk’s voice was its usual unsettling calm as he put a map down and looked at him.
“She’s yours? I knew it. I knew they had stolen goods.” He shook his head at both of us. “Look, man, I got a livelihood to protect, I can’t help you. Those men are trouble.”
“So are we,” I told him.
“Not like them. Do you know what Critian barbarians do to people who piss them off? Those teeth around their necks aren’t from fucking animals. They’re from men they’ve killed.”
“Oh, your teeth aren’t what you need to worry about, Cordan.” Hawk drew his own six-inch blade from his hip and turned it slowly in his hand. Then he pulled a chair out from the table and sat in it, looking at the blade as if the light playing off of it captivated him. “Every man has a weakness, Cordan. What’s yours?”
“Fuck you.”
Hawk’s lips twitched in a half smile, the closest he came to an expression.
“Everyone has one.” He nodded to me. “Bring him here, Steel. We’ll see what makes him talk.”
Still holding his arm behind his back, I pulled him from the bed and dragged him over to the table where Hawk sat. I grabbed his other arm, pushing them both up behind his back far enough that any movement would have been painful.
“You’re ain’t getting’ nothin’ outta me,” Cordan snapped, but I felt him twisting in my grip.
After three years of being forced to fight for my life in a gladiator ring when I was younger, I got to know a lot about fear. The way a man’s muscles pulse madly when he knows he’s about to die, the way he tenses as he tries to hide his terror before I snap his neck, even when I can’t see his face. Spider Cordan sounded angry, ready to rip a man apart, but I could feel it; he was terrified.
Smart, since everyone was afraid of Hawk when he started acting like that. Hell, even I was a little scared of him at times.
Hawk sat back, looking him over. His gaze went from Cordan’s sternum to his gut, a butcher looking over an animal for slaughter. Hawk put the tip of his knife under Cordan’s chin. “Where is the Violet?”
The slave woman in the corner moaned. I looked behind me to see Pretty Boy grabbing her, holding her hands behind her back. “Pipe down, woman,” PB said.
I turned back to Hawk. Hawk ran the tip of the blade down the front of Cordan’s body, down to his belly, not quite breaking the skin. Cordan twisted, hissing in pain. I held him tighter.
“It doesn’t matter what you do to me. Those men would do a lot worse,” Cordan said.
“Maybe. Maybe no.” Hawk sounded bored.
I felt Cordan shake, then looked down at what Hawk was doing.
“What are you doing?” Cordan asked, his voice hoarse.
“What does it matter if you don’t care?” Hawk continued to slide the blade slowly down his front, then stopped just above the man’s junk. Hawk cocked his head at it like it was an interesting appendage.
A fascinated mix of wonder and horror for Hawk’s appreciation for torture roiled in me.
“Oh, fuck. What are you doing?” Cordan looked up at me. “What is he doing? Stop, you crazy motherfucker!” His voice was filled with terror.
Hawk held the knife up, eyes going from Cordan’s dick to his face. Waiting.
“Tell us where she is, or he’ll slice off your pathetic dick and shove it down your throat,” I said.
Behind me, the woman screamed.
“All right, all right.” Cordan tried to yank himself out of my grip. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, just get that knife the fuck away from me, man.”
“Spill, and he will,” Pretty Boy ordered.
“His name is Captain Silverton. I booked those Critians on his ship, Sparrow, out of the West Harbor.”
Hope electrified my veins. My Petal. “Was she with them? The Violet?”
“Yes. Looked real good, too.”
Possessiveness made my teeth clench. Hawk’s yellow eyes lit up with the first real emotion I’d seen in him since we’d left the Grotto early that afternoon.
“Where is this ship, Sparrow?” Hawk demanded. “When does it leave?”
“A couple of hours. You’d better hurry.”
“Why?”
Once Sparrow set sail, it would be harder to get to Setora without a boat of our own, but I got the feeling Cordan wasn’t referring to that.
“Because. One of the men said something about that Talak guy meeting them, and more guards. I’m guessing once they show up, it’s going to be a lot harder to get to your slave.”
Damn. They couldn’t make it easy, could they? Well, it didn’t matter. Ten men or a hundred, I’d go through however many men I had to get my Petal back, and I knew Pretty Boy felt the same. Hawk…well, who knew what Hawk felt or if the warrior felt anything, but the fact that he’d defied Sheriff’s orders to let her go and gone through this much trouble to get her back spoke volumes. Hawk prized loyalty to Sheriff and his club, doing what was good for the Grotto and the Legion above all else, even his own needs.
“Let’s go, you two, before I change my mind and cut this guy’s dick off after all.” Hawk stood up and sheathed his blade. He sounded disappointed, like Cordan’s giving up Captain Silverton so easily had made this trip a lot less fun for him. Hearing him talk about mutilating someone in that ultra-calm voice of his creeped me out a little.
“Sure, Captain.” I released Cordan and shoved him away. We headed for the door, and I looked at the merchant in disgust. “Put some clothes on, dickwad.”
Cordan shook himself, apparently too terrified to realize he was still standing there stark naked, bone hanging out. He snatched up his pants from the floor. Pretty Boy released the merchant’s whore and she rushed over to him.
We left the room, trudging down the steps and out of the tavern to where our men stood by our bikes, parked at the curb out front.
“Can you believe that fucker? Took him long enough to tell us anything. Maybe we’ve been getting too soft lately. The man should have been pissing on the floor when he saw us,” Pretty Boy said, tightening the back of the mask on his face. “We’ll be claiming our princess again before the sun comes up. What do we do about Sheriff when we get back, Hawk?”
Hawk swung onto his bike. He scowled at the horizon, the full moon that hovered over the long stretch of desert. Other than the shadow of mountains in the distance, there was nothing out here except sand and silence. At least the night hour cooled the air to a bearable temperature.
“Leave Sheriff to me,” Hawk said. He turned his head to make sure the extra men we brought with us were far enough away not to hear what he said. “Something’s not right about the situation, but I didn’t have enough time to find out before we left. Something must have happened during her punishment that pushed Sheriff over the edge.”
His words burned me, but I couldn’t figure out why. Petal had to be punished, and even though I didn’t know the details, I trusted the Dark Legion’s law. I trusted Hawk, I trusted Sheriff. But that didn’t mean I liked the idea that Sheriff might have take
n it too far, if I was catching Hawk’s meaning right.
“What the fuck happened, then?” PB asked. “Were you not there during it?”
“No, I wasn’t. Sheriff wanted her alone. I saw no problem with it. Still don’t.”
“Then what’s with the long face?”
He shot Pretty Boy a sour look. “I do not have a long face.”
I didn’t know a lot about all the philosophical, inner peace, enlightened crap Yantu warriors practiced, but I knew they saw emotions as being weak. Pretty Boy had always been able to pick up on people’s emotions, even Hawk’s. He’d have known the warrior didn’t like having gone against Sheriff’s orders before we’d left. Hawk was closer to Sheriff than anyone, and as the next in line for the position of General when Sheriff’s reign ended, he knew the importance of following Sheriff’s orders more than anyone. So did PB, when his orders made sense.
“I don’t get it, brother,” Pretty Boy said once he knew Hawk wasn’t going to tell us more. “I don’t even know how the hell those cannibal fuckers found the Grotto in the first place. But Sheriff is wrong about…Setora.” Pretty Boy hesitated on the word, like he was trying out the name on his tongue. It sounded weird, her real name. I liked our names for her better, and I had a feeling Pretty Boy did, too.
“Sheriff is your General,” Hawk said, slipping his helmet over his head. “I’m used to your penchant for disobeying orders and getting into trouble, Pretty Boy. And I’m used to you letting him pull you into his antics.” He nodded to me. “I get that you two didn’t want to let her go. I didn’t either, and I do think we’re doing the right thing now. But you two need to show more respect for Sheriff’s orders. His word is law.”
