Copyright © Terri Anne Browning/Anna Henson 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Terri Anne Browning, except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.
Angel’s Halo: Avenged
Written by Terri Anne Browning
All Rights Reserved ©Terri Anne Browning 2018
Cover Design by Sara Eirew
Cover Photo by Reggie Deanching of R+M Photography
Cover Model Alex Michael Turner
Edited by Lisa Hollett of Silently Correcting Your Grammar
Formatting by M.L. Pahl of IndieVention Designs
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Angel’s Halo: Avenged is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book can be reproduced in any form by electronic or mechanical means, including storage or retrieval systems, without the express permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Table of Content
***Author’s Note***
Colt Preview from Angel’s Halo: Fallen Angel
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Playlist
***Author’s Note***
After much consideration and discussion with fellow authors, I felt like a preview of the previous book featuring Colt was needed instead of the typical prologue as a refresher as to how Colt and Kelli got to this point in their relationship.
If you have recently read or reread Angel’s Halo: Fallen Angel, then you don’t necessarily need to read the following preview chapters from that book. But if it’s been a while since you’ve read AH:FA, you may want to revisit them.
Love,
T
Colt Preview from Angel’s Halo: Fallen Angel
Colt
The cabin was quiet when I pulled my hog around to the back of it. Kelli, who had fallen asleep against my back halfway through the trip, stirred as I killed the engine and lowered the kickstand. She had fucking fallen asleep. As if she didn’t have a single care in the world. As if she didn’t suspect for a minute why I had brought her with me on this run.
I didn’t know what to think about that. Did she not regret betraying me? Did she have no conscience? Or did she just not have anything to even be concerned about?
I hoped it was the latter one, because I didn’t want to think about what I would have to do if she had betrayed not just me, but my MC.
“Where are we?” she muttered as she tried to hide a yawn.
I kept my eyes on the mountains around us. My family had owned this cabin in the Santa Rosa Range for three generations now. The mountain range was mostly in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, but this cabin was just outside of it. When I realized how badly Kelli might have betrayed me, I knew I had to bring her here. There wasn’t another single person for miles in either direction. No one to hear me screaming at her, no one to hear her cries. No one to witness me burying a body if that was what it came to.
Fuck, I didn’t want it to come to that.
I needed to find out what Kelli had been telling Bubbles and that motherfucking senator. Needed to figure out just how much I had let slip during the months I had been sleeping in the same bed with her.
“This is our old hunting cabin,” I told her as I got off the motorcycle and helped her off before leading the way up the back steps to the second floor. I pulled out my ring of keys and unlocked the door.
Using the light from my phone, I found the breaker box and turned on the power and the well. The lights came on with a soft flicker, and I was glad at least one thing was going right for me today. I still hadn’t had time to think about what had happened earlier in the day. One of my best friends was gone, but I didn’t have the time to mourn him, wouldn’t get to go to the memorial to tell him goodbye or celebrate his and Warden’s lives with my club. Instead, I would have to deal with Kelli and find out just how much she knew, how much she had told my enemies.
“Is there even anything to eat here?” Kelli grumbled as she looked around the room with curious eyes.
The upper floor was completely open, containing both the kitchen and living room, but downstairs there were two bedrooms and a little bathroom that had a postage-stamp shower. There was also the small room where the first generation of Hannigans had cleaned and cut up whatever game they had caught.
There was a drain in the middle of the room so that the game could be hung upside down and the blood could easily flow out of it. The room, no matter how often and thoroughly it was cleaned, always smelled like old blood. When this cabin had belonged to my father, it hadn’t always been used for hunting, and some of that old blood didn’t completely belong to the deer and elk that he and his brothers had killed.
“There should still be some canned food in the pantry.” I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her in close. “Go shower, babe. I’ll find us something to eat and make some coffee.”
Something in her eyes softened, and she gave me a smile with those pouty lips that were just one of her many gorgeous assets that got her good tips at Paradise City. “Thanks, babe.”
I slapped her on the ass and pushed her in the direction of the stairs. As she walked away, I just stood there, watching her leave me. She didn’t seem to care that I had been hurting all day, that I had been stressed and tired and pissed at the entire world. She was like a robot at times, emotionless. When I’d first met her, I’d thought it was just a mask she put on to keep the rest of the world out.
Now I wondered if she was a sociopath.
I heard the water turn on downstairs and then went back down to my hog to get the few provisions I had brought. Coffee was the biggest necessity since I knew the pantry was still well stocked after the last time I’d been up here with some of the brothers. I found a few cans of beef stew in the pantry that still had a few months before it went bad. I put it on the stove to simmer while I made the coffee.
I was putting our dinner in bowls when Kelli returned, her hair wrapped in a thin white towel and dressed in one of my old shirts. She sat at the beat-up old table, tucking her bare legs up under her and showing me that she was indeed wearing panties. For the first time since I had started fucking her, my dick didn’t even stir at the sight of her sexy little scrap of underwear. I had turned off all my emotions to prepare for what was going to happen next, what I had to do. It would make this easier. I couldn’t let myself soften where she was concerned. Too much was at risk if I fucked this up.
I set her bowl and mug of coffee in front of her before grabbing my own and taking the chair on the other side of the table. She drank her coffee in silence for a few minutes, letting the stew cool a little before daring
to eat it. I kept my focus on my meal, refusing to let the events of the day overpower me. I could think about Tanner and Warden later, when I had Kelli under lock and key.
Her phone buzzed, surprising us both. Service out here wasn’t the best. I had put a booster on my phone so I could get texts just in case Quinn or Bash needed me.
I lifted my gaze to find her frowning down at the screen of her phone. “Problems?”
She blinked her eyes a few times, seeming unable to focus on me. “Um, no. Just…” Her speech was starting to slur, and I pushed my half-eaten bowl of stew away. “Jusssh…” She tried again, her brow puckering in confusion. “Jusssh.”
“Just what?” I asked with both brows lifted.
She started to sway in her chair, and she unfolded her legs from under herself clumsily in an attempt to balance herself. Her phone dropped onto the floor at her feet, and she grasped the edges of the table, shaking her head as if to clear it. “Wats wong wit me?” she slurred out.
I lifted my mug of coffee, watching her over the rim of it as I took a slow swallow. “Your coffee was laced with a little concoction my sister invented herself. Just a little will knock a man as big as Spider on his ass for two days. I barely put a pinch in your coffee.”
She jerked to her feet so quickly that her chair tipped over, and she nearly tripped over it as she hastily backed away from the table. “Wut?” she groaned, her hands going to her head as she started to sway.
“Just relax,” I instructed her. “Let it do its job. It won’t kill you.”
“Why?” she cried as she grabbed on to the back of the old couch across the room. Her legs were shaking, her knees about to give out, but the girl was a fighter. “Why?” she cried again.
I shrugged like it was nothing to me. Like she hadn’t stabbed me in the back and pierced my heart with her poison-spiked dagger. Like she hadn’t killed what I was beginning to feel for her. “Why did you meet with Bubbles?” I asked instead.
“Who?” But she was too far gone to hide the guilt that flashed across her face.
“It doesn’t matter,” I assured her. “You’ll tell me eventually.”
Her legs started to give out, and she dropped to her knees painfully hard as her body began to go slack, becoming dead weight. Her eyes began to drift shut, and I slowly got to my feet, taking my time as I crossed the room. She fell onto her face, and I told myself I didn’t care if she was hurt or not. She deserved a little pain for what she’d done to me.
She was completely out by the time I reached her and lifted her into my arms. I carried her downstairs to the master bedroom and laid her on the floor as I prepared the bed. I put sheets on the mattress and then attached the cuffs to each bedpost. When I had everything set, I placed her on the bed and then slapped the cuffs on to each wrist and ankle.
As I looked down at her, I couldn’t help remembering all the times we had played this game before. Kelli liked the rough shit. Got off when I tied her to the bed and made her beg to come. But that wasn’t going to happen this time. This wasn’t a game.
Turning away from the sight of her spread on the bed, so fucking gorgeous it hurt to look at her, I shut the door behind me and walked into the bathroom. I felt dirty and not just from the long ride to Northern Nevada. Kelli made me feel tainted, but I had to turn that shit off. I couldn’t let myself feel all the things that were churning in my gut right then. It would get me nowhere when I needed answers.
I showered and then went back upstairs to clean up the kitchen before parking my ass on the couch and shooting my brother-in-law a text to let him know I had arrived and had everything under control.
--
I heard a soft moan coming from the bedroom downstairs and set my mug of coffee on the counter. It was getting late, but I had figured Kelli would be waking up soon. I hadn’t given her enough to put her out for long, but she had already been out for longer than I had expected.
The stairs creaked as I descended them, and I heard her moan again. She was going to have one hell of a headache from the shit Raven had whipped together. We had started using the stuff on guys three times her size two years ago, and those fuckers had cried like little pussies when they woke up from that shit.
As I entered the master bedroom, I saw she was starting to struggle against her cuffs, making little whimpering noises as she began to realize where she was and what was going to happen to her. She didn’t have to worry too much. I wasn’t going to hurt her physically. I couldn’t stomach that shit, but I was still dreading what answers she was going to give me. I didn’t want to have to get rid of a body, but if it came down to it, I would do what had to be done.
The cuffs rattled as she shook her wrists. “What the fuck?” she muttered to herself.
“Nice to see you awake, babe.”
Her head snapped around so quickly I could tell she was seeing stars behind her eyes. She inhaled sharply and slowly blinked before finally focusing on me. “What are you doing, Colt?” she demanded, then flinched at the loudness of her own voice.
I moved to the end of the bed, so that I could look down over her entire body. I gazed down at her dispassionately. “Tell me about Senator Samson,” I commanded, ignoring her question.
Before my eyes, her entire body went completely still. “Wh-what?”
“I won’t repeat myself.”
“Samson is…” She paused, seeming to think about how to answer, or maybe her head was hurting too badly to understand the question. I didn’t care which it was. I stood over her, patiently waiting for her to answer.
“He was my mother’s lover,” she finally said, lifting her gaze to stare at something over my shoulder. “He’s… He’s my father.”
That answer surprised the fuck out of me, but I kept my face completely blank. If she was Samson’s daughter, then no wonder she was helping that fucker out by spying on us.
Shit.
“But I hate him,” she went on after a small pause, so fervently I didn’t doubt her even for a second. “I hate that sonofabitch more than any other person on the planet. I would have killed him myself years ago if I knew I could have gotten away with it.”
“Why is that?”
“There are a hundred reasons I could think of just off the top of my aching head,” she growled. “Like how he treated my mother before she got sick. How he still treats her. My mother loved that slimy bastard when his own wife couldn’t even stomach the sight of him. But would he marry the woman who loved him, when the one who hated him only wasted his money on facelifts and tummy tucks? No. Because my mother wasn’t the type of woman who could help him get his Senate seat.”
The passion in her voice, on her gorgeous face, was the most I had ever heard or seen from her in all the time I had known her. The love she felt for her mother shone like a beacon from her eyes.
“So why help Samson by spying on the club?” I demanded, hardening my heart again when I realized I had begun to soften toward her a little. “If you hate him so much, why would you help him?
“Because he threatened to stop my mother’s care if I didn’t,” she said in a voice that was clouded with pain. “My mother has Alzheimer’s.”
That was the first I had heard of it, but then again, this was the first time she had even mentioned her mother. Until now, I hadn’t even realized she actually had family that was alive.
“She has round-the-clock care in one of the best nursing homes in the entire state. But her disease is progressing faster than even her doctors expected. On her good days, she can barely even remember who I am. Her bad days, she can’t remember how to use the fucking bathroom.” Despair filled Kelli’s eyes, and she lowered them before I could read more of her emotions. “Calvin is paying for her nursing home, but he’s also paying for the experimental drugs that are giving her more good days than bad ones.”
“He was holding your mother’s life over your head to get you to find out all you could on me and the club,” I bit out, not
a question but a statement.
She nodded, then moaned at the sudden movement of her head. “Yes,” she muttered after she could focus her eyes again. “But he’d been getting fed up with me, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he finally cut my mother off.”
“Why?”
She turned her gaze up to the ceiling, refusing to meet my gaze as she gritted out her answer. “Because I was feeding the mayor and his pervy crony nothing but bullshit. I didn’t have anything to offer to them that could be used against you or the club. Instead, I was feeding them details about Samson’s dirty dealings, and Michaels was going to use it against my father so he would have no choice but to back him in his bid for the governor’s seat.”
“You what?” My voice rumbled, unable to hide my shock this time.
She lowered her lashes, grimacing in pain at how loud and harsh my voice was, but when she opened them again, I saw the truth shining out of her eyes. “I didn’t betray you, Colt. As much as I love my mother, I couldn’t do that to you or the club. It would have hurt you and Quinn, and I just couldn’t bring myself to hurt either of you like that. So I had to come up with a contingency plan. The mayor wants to be governor, and for that to happen, he needs other politicians to back him up. To agree with him when he wants to have his own way and convince everyone else to think just like him. My father has a lot of clout in this state and in Washington, DC. If anyone could get the mayor what he wants, it would be Calvin Samson. Every time I’ve met with Michaels and Royce Campbell, I’ve given him dirt on the senator. Not you or the MC or anyone else.”
“But what about your mother?”
“Do you think I gave him most of that shit for free?” she laughed, then grimaced again when the sound caused her physical pain. “The mayor said he was coming into a big cash flow soon, but I told him I wanted the money upfront at each meeting. I’ve got my mother taken care of. She will be just fine.”
I didn’t know whether to believe her or not. There was too much shit going on for me to just take her at her word.
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