I looked down. And again... he was right.
I went into the club, scrubbing best I could, but there was nothing I could do about my shirt. So I took off toward the rooms.
Where I met a crowd of men and half-dressed women, standing in the hallway, all looking alarmed.
“What the fuck you all...” I started, and then I heard it.
Screaming.
Summer screaming.
I took off toward the door at a run, stabbing the key in, throwing the door open, flicking on the light. And there she was, still under the covers, curled on her side, fast asleep. Screaming.
“Fuck,” I said quietly.
“She alright?” one of the bitches asked, sounding worried.
“Got a past,” I said vaguely, slamming the door in their faces.
I walked over toward the bed, kneeling beside it, and reaching out for her shoulder. The second my hand touched her, her eyes flew open: wild and unseeing for a moment.
“It's alright. You're alright,” I said, trying soothing but my voice was too on edge to pull it off.
“What's the matter?” she asked immediately, sitting up, the blanket pooling around her hips, giving me a lush view of her perfect tits. Her eyes drifted over my face, then down to my shirt. “You're bleeding!” she gushed, eyes going wide.
“Not my blood,” I said, reaching out to stroke my knuckles down her cheek.
“What's going on? Whose blood is it?”
I sighed deep. “I was hoping you could help tell me that.”
Her eyes squinted for a second. “How?”
My hand went to her thigh, squeezing it. “My guys think they caught one of V's guys,” I started and her entire body went taut as a bow. “Relax. He's not gonna touch you,” I tried, but if anything she only got more tense. “He won't talk. I've tried.”
“That's his blood,” she said, looking down at my shirt.
“Like I said... I've tried. We need confirmation that he's one of V's.” Her head dipped, looking at the bed, her teeth biting into her lip. “If you can't do it...”
“I'll do it,” she surprised me by saying, her tone hard. Hard. I had never heard her voice like that before.
“Babe...”
“I said I'll do it,” she said, brushing the blanket off and going in search of her clothes.
“Summer...” I said, watching her fumble around, dragging her panties up her legs and struggling into her pants. “I ain't bringing you in there when you're shutting down on me.”
“I'm not shutting down. I'm getting dressed,” she growled back. Growled. And it was so unexpected, I found myself smiling.
“Babe. If your head isn't on right...”
“Oh my god,” she said, ripping a black tee down her body and turning to glare at me. “Stop worrying about my head. My head is fine.”
“The weird look on your face says different.”
“I just got fucked into unconsciousness then woken up from a nightmare to you telling me one of the monsters from that nightmare is here. Sorry if my face is a little off. Are you taking me to see him or what?”
Maybe I was wrong about her. I smiled, shrugging. “Yep. Let's go.”
Eighteen
Summer
I wasn't lying when I said he fucked me into unconsciousness. I could barely keep my eyes opened afterward. I hadn't even known he left until he woke me up. Then I woke up from another screaming nightmare to find him sitting there covered in blood.
My heart flew up into my throat.
I had gotten used to seeing my own blood. So much so that it didn't even worry me after a while. But seeing someone else's blood. Seeing Reign's blood. Yeah, that did something to me on the inside that I didn't quite understand.
But it wasn't his blood.
“My guys think they caught one of V's guys.”
I can't describe that feeling. That rolling in the belly, sweat coming from your pores, goosebumps all over your body feeling.
“If you can't do it...”
“I'll do it,” I said, my tone stronger than I thought it would be. One mention of V and his men had my insides turning to acid. But identifying him would mean something. It would mean they could get information. It would mean I was a step closer to being safe. So if all I had to do was waltz in and nod my head, well then... I was going to do my damn part.
I jumped out of the bed, finding my panties and pants and quickly getting into them.
“Babe. If your head isn't on right...”
Jesus Christ.
With the comments about my brain. That was what? The third time? First because I was in a little car crash. Then because I had been through some trauma. And now because I was willingly, happily, going to help him and his men find out where their trespasser came from?
“Oh my god,” I said, dragging a black tee down my body and turning to glare at him. “Stop worrying about my head. My head is fine.”
I took a deep breath as he finally (I mean, seriously, who fights you when you agree to do what they came in and woke you up and asked you to do in the first place?) led me out into the hall. Things were still quiet in the compound, most people sleeping or screwing.
Reign's hand went to my lower back, pressing hard. Reassuring. And at the same time, predatory. My insides went liquid.
Then we were walking out into the yard and I turned my head to look at him, brows together. “Where are we going?”
“The shed,” he said, nodding forward.
The shed. Right. So they had more than one place for torture. That was, sort of, good to know.
We walked up to find Wolf standing outside the door. He nodded his head at me, but there was work going on behind his light eyes. “Woman,” he greeted me, taking the bar off the door and going in.
Reign followed him in, pausing in the doorway, his hands going to my shoulders. “Eyes babe,” he said, his tone soft. “I'm right here,” he said, surprising me. “And Cash and Wolf are in there too. You're safe. He can't touch you. You don't even have to say anything. Just nod your head and walk out if you need to. Okay?”
Something about his gentleness made me feel like steel. I nodded my head at him and watched him turn his back and move in.
I took another deep breath.
I could do it.
I was going to do it.
I wasn't the one chained up this time.
He was.
I had the power.
I went in, slamming the door behind me.
The first thing that hit me was the smell of blood. It was a scent I was intimately acquainted with.
It was almost overpowering.
The second thing that hit me was his eyes. The bright, bright blue. The kind of blue that could be light even in the dark. Like how a cat's yellow eyes pierce the black of night. That was what his eyes were like.
Deke.
They had fucking Deke.
And I was frozen.
I couldn't say why. PTSD or just plain old shock.
But all I could do was stare.
He had been beaten. Badly. And from the look of Reign's shirt, the beating had come from him. I took a sick sense of satisfaction from that. His lip was split open, his eye bloodied, his nose broken. And that was just what I could see. I was sure there were body shots. That if I pulled up his shirt, there would be bruises. Blue and purple. The heinous red of busted ribs. A part of me really wanted to see.
But that thought flew away when his eyes landed on me.
And he smiled.
Smiled.
No fear. No pain.
Pure amusement.
Dare I say... condescension?
That mother fucker.
He was supposed to be scared. Shaking. Begging. He was supposed to feel trapped and terrified.
He was supposed to feel even the slightest bit how he made me feel for months.
He was looking at me like he was still crouching over me in V's basement, getting ready to slam his fist into my face.
Well...
Fuck. That.
I'd known anger in a sort of detached way. A little flare up every now again when my father said something out of turn or a girlfriend said something that seemed unnecessarily bitchy. Or when someone cut me off in traffic and then forgot how to use the gas pedal after. Little things. Daily things. The kind of things that caused a little bit of heat, a few snippy words.
But this wasn't anger.
This was rage.
My hands curled into fists at my sides, my air huffed hard out of my nose, heat rose to the surface of my skin, and every inch of me felt like it was buzzing.
“Summer?” Reign's voice reached me, sounding almost concerned. But it came to me as if from a distance. Because, for me, he wasn't there anymore. Neither were Cash or Wolf. It was just me and one of my demons.
And I wasn't cowering and screaming anymore.
“Cherry, you alright?” Cash's voice breezed past me.
Before the decision was even made in the rational part of my brain, I flew at him. I was across the floor before anyone could even blink. My closed fist cocked back and swung with every bit of my (admittedly not much) weight. But lack of girth aside, it landed with a satisfying crack, making his head snap, and sending a shock of pain through my knuckles and up my arm.
But pain was nothing new.
And it sure as shit didn't stop me.
“You mother fucker,” I growled, slamming my fist hard near his eye socket.
Then it was just pure adrenaline and instinct. My hands, nails, fists, hitting, scratching, punching everywhere within reach: face, chest, stomach. One hard knee to the groin which finally made his smile slip and a groan escape his mouth.
I felt like I went at him forever, finding a deep well of rage underneath the surface, filled with the memories, the nightmares. Filled with every moment of helplessness and humiliation. Filled so full that I was sure I would never get to the bottom of it. That I could beat him into a unrecognizable pile of flesh and not even spend half of the anger.
Then an arm went around my waist, tight, squeezing, pulling me backward as I tried to keep hitting.
“Guess that was my nod, huh?” Reign's amused voice said in my ear.
The sound made the red taking over my whole body subside, moving quickly backward, making me acutely aware of the pain in my hands, the blood on them, the reality of what I had done, the fact that I had an audience.
My eyes snapped over to Cash and Wolf. Wolf looked downright amused, his lips turning up ever so slightly, crinkles next to his eyes.
Cash shrugged a shoulder at me. “Guess you earned that, huh?” he asked, giving me a smile.
I looked back down at Deke, whose smile seemed permanently missing. His eyes were on me.
“You're gonna kill him?” I asked, my voice almost hollow. Because I didn't care. I should have cared. He was a human being. He was bound. And I was pretty sure they were going to take his final breath from him. A normal person would be horrified. All I could feel was hope.
“Yeah, babe,” Reign said in my ear, still pulling me backward.
My eyes went back to Deke. “Rot in hell you sick sonovabitch.”
Then I was hauled outside, the door slamming and locking.
“Let me go, Reign,” I struggled, only to be pulled up off my feet and carried across the field by my belly.
How he managed to walk backward, holding a struggling woman against his chest, and not missing a step was totally beyond me. We stopped walking and I felt Reign lean back against the wall of the compound. My feet touched back down, but his hand stayed around my waist.
“Take a breath,” he demanded, his voice low.
I sucked in air, feeling it settle me inside. “You can let me go. I'm not gonna make a run for it.”
“I'll hang onto you for another minute,” he said. “How are your hands?”
“They're fine.”
“Summer...” his voice said, sounding like he was trying to reason with me.
“Fine. They hurt like a bitch.”
His chuckle made the hair next to my ear move, his body shaking slightly against me. The sound was doing all kinds of things to tramp down the rage and replace it with something else. “Of all the things I had expected to happen in that room,” he started, his hand loosening around my middle a little. It didn't need to be there. I was leaning my back against his chest. “That was one I had not counted on.”
“What were the other options? Me to freeze? Or to start freaking out and crying or something?”
“Pretty much.”
“You think I'm that weak?” I asked, feeling a strange rush of sadness overtake me. Maybe, in my life before everything, maybe I would have been okay being seen as soft and feminine. Maybe I even would have taken a small amount of pride in that. But that was before. That was before I was taken and drugged and beat and starved. That was before I knew what softness meant- powerlessness. That was before I learned that the worst thing a woman could ever be in life is weak.
“I don't think you're weak,” he said, his voice firm.
“Right,” I said, dryly.
His arm tightened around my belly again. “Summer. You're not weak. You've been through shit that most people would never even have the imagination to dream up in a nightmare. You've suffered and you've survived. You're not weak. But I figured you would feel like he still had some kind of power over you. That isn't weakness. That's trauma.”
“I didn't feel under his power,” I said, losing some of the tension in my shoulders. “I felt powerful. And I wanted him to know what it felt like to be under my power. I wanted him to hurt like he used to hurt me. And I know it's wrong of me. It's like... evil... but I'm glad you're going to kill him.”
“Fucker has to pay,” he said simply, repeating his vengeance mantra.
“Hey Reign?” I asked after a silence fell.
“Yeah babe?”
“When you catch Martin...”
“Yeah?” he asked when I trailed off, biting my lip, feeling all kinds of twisted inside.
I took a deep breath and just... said it. “Knives.”
His arm tightened painfully. “Done,” he said, his tone a promise.
And then his hand was gone from my belly, both of his hands grabbing my waist as he slipped out from behind me, then slammed me back against the wall. Hard. Hard enough to see stars for a second. But I didn't care. Because then his lips were on mine. Hot. Searing. The kind of kiss I was sure no one else on earth was capable of. It burned. It burned in through my skin and into my soul.
His hands went to the side of my face hard, feeling like he was crushing my bones underneath them as his tongue slipped into my mouth.
“Reign...” I moaned against his lips.
But then his hand slipped from my face, making no show at flirtation as they slid right down under the waistband of my pants and into my panties, stroking over my clit.
“Oh my god,” I rapsed out, my head tilting up to look at the sky as his mouth went to my neck, biting hard enough for me to yelp, then sucking.
His finger slipped down my cleft, pressing inside me fast and thrusting hard, making my legs feel weak underneath me.
Nothing had ever been like that before.
I thought I understood the different kinds of sex.
The slow, sweet lovemaking.
The fun and mostly satisfying quickies.
The angry sex.
But this was a whole other league I didn't even know about.
This was hard and fast and raunchy and so hot that I thought my panties were going to catch fire.
His finger slid out of me and my fist slammed down hard on his shoulder. “No,” I whined, feeling the need like a clawing sensation inside.
Reign said nothing, just grabbed me, turned me, and pushed me against the wall. His hands went to my waistband again, but this time they grabbed and pulled my pants and panties down. Fast. His fingers scratching down the backs of my thighs as he did.
“Spread
your legs,” he commanded in my ear, his mouth sounding like it was clamped tight.
My legs widened.
I put my arms on the wall of the building, pushing slightly off of it. Only to have Reign reach out and push the side of my face flush against it again, holding me there by the back of my neck. His other hand went down behind me, slapping my ass hard once.
His feet went between mine, kicking them wider.
Then his cock slammed inside me.
Unexpected.
Hard.
Hard enough to make my hips jerk forward and slam against the wall.
“Fuck,” I groaned, pushing my hips backward, arching my ass up to give him better access.
His face tilted toward mine, his mouth by my ear. “I'm gonna...”
I felt my head jerk a head shake. “Shut up and fuck me,” I said, cutting him off.
His chuckle made my stomach flutter.
Then he was fucking me. Hard. Deep. Deeper than I thought was possible. His hand stayed on the back of my neck, the other going to my hipbone and curling into it, hard enough for me to bite my lip to keep from complaining.
“I want to hear you,” he said near my ear as he thrust deep.
“Cash and Wolf...” I started to object, knowing they were just a couple yards away.
“Fuck Cash and Wolf. I don't care if the whole fucking compound hears you scream while I fuck you.”
His thrusts came faster, his hand slipping off my hipbone and snaking around my waist, holding me still as he slammed into me.
“Fuck... oh fuck...” I found myself groaning, no longer caring about Cash or Wolf hearing. Not even aware that such people even existed anymore. All there was was me and Reign. All there was was his hand pressing into my neck, his cock slamming deep inside me, his breath hissing into my ear.
My body was jerking upward with each thrust. “You like it hard, don't you? That's my good little slut.” he said, his cock fast, unrelenting, not giving my budding orgasm a second to play peekaboo. “You want it harder?”
It could get harder?
“Yes,” I gasped, pressing back toward him.
“Fuck,” he growled. “I'm gonna fuck you so hard that anytime you move tomorrow, you're going to remember my cock in your tight little pussy,” he warned.
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