THE DEVIL’S BRIDE

by April Lust

  It always bothered her when Ace picked up something on the side, but nothing a revenge fuck couldn’t ever cure. Watching Ace’s clear interest in the girl, however, brought out something much uglier in Katie. Hot ropes of jealousy twisted in her gut, and she felt herself stand up, filled with anger.

  She managed to restrain herself from heading towards the back, and instead directed her long legs to bring her to the bar. Waving halfheartedly to Blake, Katie ordered a top-shelf whiskey and took a liberal sip when it was handed to her.

  “Hey there!” a cheery voice said next to her.

  Katie turned to see Lucky smiling widely at her. “Hey, Lucky. How’s it going?” she muttered, sipping her drink again.

  “Better than you, by the looks of it,” Lucky said, picking the cashews out of the nut bowl. Blake glared at her and flapped a towel in her direction, where Lucky promptly stuck her tongue out in response. “Is this ’cause Ace brought that girl into Blake’s back office where you two usually sneak off to do it when you think we don’t notice?”

  Katie stared at Lucky. Bikers were notorious for their bluntness, but Lucky was on another level. She was young, barely twenty-one, with a bubbly yet dry nature that made her cheeky on a good day and downright disrespectful on a bad one. Right now she was riding the line for Katie.

  “Who is she?” Lucky asked, flipping her black and pink dip-dyed hair over her shoulder. Someone once asked her why she changed her hair so often. Lucky merely gave a secretive smile and said, “It keeps things interesting.”

  Katie glanced at the back room where the door was still closed. “No one important,” she growled, finishing her drink.

  “She looks important,” Lucky said mildly.

  Katie looked back—they were coming out of the office, Fiona in front and Ace close behind her. Instead of joining the gang at the bar, however, Katie watched Ace usher Fiona out through the rear entrance. She put her hand up to order another one.

  “So, Katie,” Lianna said, coming up to stand on the other side of her, “how drunk will we be getting tonight?”

  “Enough,” Katie replied shortly.

  “Enough to bang Diego?” Lianna joked, both Lucky and she breaking into snorts of laughter.

  Diego was actually a nice guy who was incredibly respectful to the women of The Hell Brothers, but he was a notorious tomcat who often picked up whatever was lying around at the end of the night.

  Katie gave her friends a small smile. “No, not Diego. I don’t think I could be drunk enough for that and still be conscious.”

  “Well, then,” Lucky exclaimed brightly, turning Katie on her stool to survey the bar, “let’s take a look at our options.” It was common tradition for the girls to help Katie pick out who she would go home with on the nights Ace would go AWOL with other girls. “I know this is your favorite part, Lianna,” Lucky said drily.

  It was the worst kept secret in The Hell Brothers that Lianna was a lesbian. Ever since she had joined three years back, there had been a quiet understanding that Lianna wasn’t ever going to be anyone’s back-warmer. This, of course, prompted Diego to endlessly pursue her, in a lighthearted manner that Lianna found hilarious.

  “What about him?” Lucky pointed at a man who looked like Fabio with neck tattoos.

  Katie made a face. “His hair is way too long. I don’t even like when I get my own in my mouth, let alone a stranger’s.”

  Lucky and Lianna exchanged confused looks. “Uh, okay…” Lucky said. Katie wasn’t normally very picky. Usually the first attractive guy they pointed out was enough for her, and Fabio definitely fit the bill. “Mind if I hit it, then?” Lucky asked, looking the man up and down. “Because damn.”

  Katie rolled her eyes. If Diego was a tomcat, Lucky was a man-eater. As she liked to put it, she was a hunter who only selected the finest prey.

  Lianna reached over to nudge Lucky, nodding towards Katie. Lucky grimaced—she was being a bad friend. This was about Katie.

  “How about that guy?” Lucky had spotted another hottie who just walked in. He had short, spiked hair with a generous amount of stubble framing his handsome square jaw.

  “Too pretty,” Katie said, shooting him down. “I don’t like guys who look like they might be prettier than me.”

  Lianna sniggered. Katie was one of the most gorgeous women she had ever seen. If there was a man prettier than her, he wasn’t from this Earth. “Stop being such a pity party,” she scolded Katie. “This is usually fun for you.”

  “Well, if there were a halfway decent man here for me, maybe I would be having more fun, if you know what I mean,” Katie said condescendingly.

  “Hey!” Lucky protested angrily. “It’s not our fault you suddenly developed a type!”

  “What about Riley?” Lianna quickly suggested, trying to prevent an argument from breaking out. “I bet he’d piss off Ace quite a bit.” She looked at Lucky to see her worriedly chewing at her bottom lip, looking from Katie to Riley and back again.

  “On second thought,” Lianna said hastily, “maybe you should just avoid men tonight. Ace will never believe you went home alone. He’ll go nuts trying to figure out who you fucked.”

  Katie smiled slowly. “You’re a crafty bitch, aren’t you, Lianna? I like that idea.”

  Lianna laughed uneasily, her heart slowly falling to her feet. Lucky had come into the gang less than a year ago, and while Lianna had never truly dared to hope, she could at least fantasize about the happy, colorful girl.

  Who would have thought, Lianna mused, looking at the tall, dark man. Riley was a quiet guy, or an old soul, as Smalls once referred to him.

  Almost as though he could sense them talking about him, Riley raised his head and waved to the trio sitting at the bar. All three waved back with dopey grins on their faces, even Lianna. Where Diego tried too hard and often scared women away, Riley had a smoothness about him that made him popular with the ladies. Of all the men in The Hell Brothers, Riley was the only one where Lianna understood Lucky’s attraction to him.

  “All right, bitches. I’ll be over at the table. See you there,” Katie said, grabbing her drink and taking a seat amongst the gang.

  Lianna sighed and put up her hand to order a double.

  “Thanks,” Lucky said quietly. Lianna nodded, her mouth tight. “How did you know?” she asked Lianna. “It’s just, we’ve tried to keep it a secret, and…” She trailed off.

  “I didn’t know until a minute ago,” Lianna replied. “I saw your face when I suggested Riley, and I pretty much filled in the blanks from there.”

  “Please don’t tell anyone, Lianna,” Lucky begged her.

  Lianna frowned, taking a large gulp from her glass. “I won’t, but why not? No one would care.”

  “We really like each other,” Lucky explained. “Like, a lot. But we don’t want to ruin what we’ve got going on. I’m not Katie. I can’t handle going back and forth like that.”

  “Katie and Ace have their own issues that don’t have anything to do with you and Riley,” Lianna pointed out.

  Lucky shook her head, her long earrings jangling loudly. “Nuh-uh. Too risky.” She suddenly let out a dry laugh.

  “What is it?” Lianna asked curiously.

  “It’s just funny—not funny ha-ha, more like life is strange,” Lucky clarified. “But it’s like…if Katie talked to Ace about how shitty she felt when he goes and fucks other girls, maybe she would be better off, just like maybe if Riley and I told everyone about our relationship, we might be better off. But nobody wants to do that, even if it’s better for them; it’s too risky.”

  Lianna gave Lucky a wide-eyed look. “Fucking hell, Lucky. I’m not drunk enough to go there yet,” she joked uncomfortably. Her heart was pounding as she wrestled internally with herself. Lucky was right; if she didn’t say anything, she was a coward. She opened her mouth, changed her mind at the last second, and brought her glass to her lips, drinking deep. Coward it is, then, Lianna thought.

  She watched as Fiona’s frien
d Melanie fell off of her chair. Katie and Smalls each grabbed an arm, helping her to her feet. Katie adjusted the younger girl’s top so she was properly covered.

  Stuffing a wad of bills into Smalls’ hand, Katie motioned to Melanie. She was telling him to take a cab and bring the girl home safely.

  “Katie gets a bad rap sometimes, but she’s not so bad,” Lianna suddenly blurted out.

  It was Lucky’s turn to shoot her friend a surprised look. “How do you mean?”

  Lianna’s face turned a bright red. She didn’t know why she had said that. Maybe Lucky was rubbing off on her. “She’s got a lot going on, y’know. Stuff with Ace, stuff with the gang. But still, she looks out for others, even the people she doesn’t really like.” Lianna nodded to Katie, who was now handing Melanie a cup of water.

  “When you say ‘stuff with the gang,’ you mean Alexei, don’t you?” Lucky asked quietly, watching Riley.

  Lianna didn’t say anything for a long time. “Yeah.”

  “You think it’s going to be bad,” she correctly assumed.

  Lianna swallowed a hard lump. “Yeah.” She nodded. She glanced over at the normally cheerful, happy-go-lucky girl. Lucky didn’t look like her face even knew how to make a smile. “But not for us,” Lianna added, forcing a bit of joy into her voice. “Alexei’s never gonna know what hit him. Katie said she talked to Ace about it and they came up with a plan.”

  “Really?” Lucky cried excitedly.

  “Yup!” Lianna said confidently. “Alexei’s gonna be dust by the time The Hell Brothers is through with him. Then things will go back to the way they were.”

  Katie had said no such thing, of course, but it was criminal for someone like Lucky to be sad, even if for only a moment.

  Lianna ordered a round of drinks for the table and brought it over, enjoying the happy night while it lasted.

  ***

  Ace held the rear entrance door open for Fiona. He smugly noticed that she hesitated, frightened to leave the bar and enter the dark back alley with him.

  “Getting scared?” he taunted, whispering in her ear.

  Fiona snapped her head back, immediately blushing at her reaction. “I’m fine,” she lied.

  Ace led her around to the side of the building where close to four dozen motorcycles were parked. The lot was a sea of chrome and leather. Fiona followed Ace, carefully winding her way around the bikes. She had visions of tripping over a kickstand and sending them all to the ground like dominoes.

  He approached a bike, pulling the helmet off of the back. Fiona looked it over. It was long, much longer than most of the normal motorcycles Fiona saw on the highway, ones Ace and his boys called “crotch-rockets”. The front wheel was huge, with red spokes. The rest of the bike was a matte black, with small red accents here and there.

  Ace swung a leg over, handing Fiona a second helmet that was strapped to the backseat. “Hop on,” he told her.

  Fiona took her time putting on the helmet, not wanting to ruin her hair. As she pulled it over her head, she caught a strong whiff of perfume that she recognized smelling earlier in the bar—Katie’s.

  That might be a problem, Fiona worried.

  Ace was looking at her expectantly, so she hastily got on the bike, wiggling to find a comfortable spot.

  “You’re going to want to hold on,” Ace warned her. If she knew him, she would have heard the humor in his voice and perhaps would have been prepared. He started the bike, and it roared to life, filling Fiona’s body with pure energy and force.

  She screamed inside the helmet, but it was still loud enough for Ace to hear over the motor.

  “Relax,” he said, flipping up his visor so he could talk to her. “It’ll go easier if you move with the bike, okay? Just let your body do what’s natural.” Without waiting for a response, Ace turned around and revved the engine, causing another ripple of vibrations to spread through Fiona.

  She instinctively grabbed at his back, her fists tightly clenching his leather vest. She could feel his hard back underneath her hands, and she flashed back to the dingy office room they had been in only a few minutes ago. Fiona had felt a number of muscles through his thin black t-shirt, and couldn’t help but compare Ace to Ash, finding the latter to fall seriously short in several categories—physically, anyway.

  Ash was attractive enough, in a plain sort of way. Short brown hair, brown eyes, a slight build—he was a sketch artists’ worst nightmare. There was simply nothing remarkable about him, excluding his overly-romantic tendencies, which, unfortunately, were not able to be conveyed through his appearance.

  Everywhere Ash was average, Ace was improved, if not exceptionally better. Ace had auburn hair with reddish-streaks that caught the light, his eyes were green, with flecks of gold, and he towered over Fiona, making her feel small and delicate.

  Ace duck-walked the bike out to the street. He pulled up his feet, and, following Fiona’s slender, finger, peeled out in the direction she had pointed.

  As he drove, he began to plan how he would force Fiona out. The key, Ace reasoned, was to make her actually enjoy being with him. A girl like Fiona would hate herself for letting a man like him touch her, and if she liked him touching her, well, that would just send her running for the hills.

  You want her to hate herself? a voice said in Ace’s head. Why? Because you hate yourself?

  “I don’t hate myself,” Ace muttered to himself, grateful for the engine that prevented him from being overheard.

  If you don’t now, you will once you go through with this, the voice said.

  Ace ignored the voice and revved the motor again, drowning out all thoughts.

  They arrived at Fiona’s house twenty minutes later. It had been terrifying at first, but Fiona had eventually been able to relax and do as Ace suggested, and the adrenaline rush she got made it almost worth it.

  Ace checked out the damage as they rolled up. Her windows had been shot out and boarded up with some cheap plywood, and what appeared to be scorch marks on her sidewalk and the road in front of her house. Had Alexei tried to smoke her and her brother out? It probably wasn’t a good time to ask, he figured.

  Fiona unlocked the front door and let Ace in behind her. She looked around her place. She and Melanie had done their best to pick up the broken glass and debris, but there was only so much they could do. It was still a disaster zone.

  “Sorry, about…you know,” she said, gesturing around her.

  “Are you sure you feel safe staying here?” Ace asked.

  She shrugged. “I work hard to afford this place. It’s the only thing I know as home. I’m not leaving,” Fiona told him firmly. “If you’re scared, you’re welcome to leave,” she offered wickedly, challenging him.

  Ace whipped his head around to look at her in shock. Where had that come from? He watched as she went into a cupboard and began to rummage around, eventually coming back with a bottle of vodka that was stoppered with…a towel?

  “What’s that?” he asked, chuckling. “It looks like a—”

  “It was a Molotov cocktail,” Fiona said, cutting him off. “Now it’s dinner.” She pulled two glasses out of the cabinet and poured them each a drink. She didn’t wait to cheers; she just swallowed the harsh liquor, waiting for it to bring her the courage she needed to deal with the situation.

  Ace raised an eyebrow at her. That explains the fire damage I saw outside, he thought, looking at the bottle. Fiona had defended her home with DIY explosives. He was maybe going to need to rethink his strategy, for she was clearly not as helpless as she seemed.

  He finished his drink in one long sip, setting the glass on the counter and watching Fiona intently. She had gulped down her drink, and was pouring herself another one. Ace reached out a hand to stop her. He didn’t want her unconscious. He wanted her to be clear of mind when she begged for him.

  Ace came to stand behind her. He slid his hands down her arms, plucking the glass from her grip. Placing it on the table, he continued to put his hands all over Fiona
’s body, feeling her skin grow hot under his touch. She was so incredibly responsive, it was amazing.

  She quivered as she felt his rough fingers lightly graze her skin. Their path was meandering and unexpected; her breath hitched every time he passed over an especially sensitive spot, her lower stomach, the inside of her elbow, just behind her ears.

  She felt herself grow hot all over. It was the back office all over again. Fiona couldn’t control her body; her underwear was growing damp at his prolonged touch. She closed her eyes and her soft, rosy lips parted, letting a quiet moan escape.

  Her reaction was so evocative, Ace couldn’t help but give a lustful sigh in return. He shook his head. He was so hot for her he was losing focus. He had a plan and he needed to stick to it, not just toss it to the wind because he had no self-restraint.