“Did Exorcist hurt you?”
Exorcist?
I closed my eyes. “No.”
“Who did?”
I didn’t answer. The cool bathroom tile summoned a constant parade of goose bumps over my skin, and I clutched at myself to try an ease the prickling march. Every rising hair on my arms and neck, every tensed and aching muscle, every twist of my trembling stomach swept over me because of the memories.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t fear what happened to me, or curse it, or hide it. I didn’t care about the past. I didn’t care about him.
But I did worry for the future. For the next time I’d want to touch a man, or be touched in return.
Would it always be this way? Even locked away in jail, removed from the world and society, harmless to any around him, he still held a power over me. That terrified me most of all.
I didn’t speak. My head rested against the door as my breathing eased into shaking sighs. Thorne called from the bedroom. His deep voice wove over my skin. It battled the goose bumps and warmed parts of me too confused and betrayed to even understand why it slickened.
“I think I have a concussion,” he said.
“Me too.”
“Want to sleep it off?”
My trembling stilled as he spoke. I stared at my injured leg, my bruised body, and winced as I sucked in a deep breath from my aching chest. Injured, but not dead. I shouldn’t have felt safe, but his voice chased away the haunted memories. I bit my puffy lip.
“Together?” I asked.
“If we end up in a coma, at least we’ll have company.”
I smirked. He stepped aside as I shuffled from the bathroom. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t question my panic or demand any explanations.
Or any satisfaction.
Thorne shut off the lights, and I slipped between the soft sheets in his bed.
He grabbed me before I turned away. I stilled, but his thick arm draped over my side, and he pulled me against the warmth of his body. Cradled. Covered. Consumed.
I swallowed the panic and forced myself to lean into his strong body. Thorne tightened his grip. I closed my eyes and braved the only fear still clutching my heart.
“Please don’t tell my brothers.”
Thorne exhaled, long and hard. A moment passed, and his arm tightened over me.
“You survived a kidnapping, ran from a burning building, then hotwired and stole one of our enemy’s bikes.” He laughed. “Sweetheart, I’ll do any fucking thing you say.”
The pressure eased. I nuzzled against the man I should have feared—the one who controlled the club that ruined my life, stole my family, and nearly had me killed. Sanity and rationality and legality told me to run far from Anathema, to hide out under assumed names and dye my hair until I was sure no one from the club would find me and none of their enemies targeted me. As long as I stayed within Pixie, my life would be a constant barrage of gunfire and memories, and I didn’t know which would destroy me first.
Instead, I closed my eyes and breathed in the wild, leather scent of the man promising his protection and delivering me deeper into Hell.
And I felt safe.
Exorcist might have spared my life, but I was in trouble.
Big trouble.
I didn’t have a patch to shield me—just two over-protective brothers and a man who dreamt about murder while cradling me close to his chest throughout the night.
Thorne and my brothers thought Exorcist wanted to kill me. And they were probably right. One sleepless night, a constant shiver despite Thorne’s heavy arm over my waist, and reliving the most frightening moments of life offered me enough perspective.
Exorcist would kill me even if I delivered the money and retrieved the drugs. His words spawned lies, and his intentions desecrated Anathema in betrayal. If I did as he said, my brothers and Thorne would live a little longer, but I wasn’t an idiot. I wasn’t useful to Ex. A psychopath like him wouldn’t trade my life for an acoustic cover of Janie’s Got A Gun.
That only gave me a few days to work out a plan.
I wasn’t just in trouble.
I was fucked.
And I had absolutely no one to help me.
I slid out of bed before Thorne woke and tried to drown my headache in another shower. My leg stopped bleeding, but the cut still pulsed, raw and sore. I tangled my thigh in a fresh bandage and hid in the bathroom until Thorne’s phone rang. He swore, called for me to follow, and stalked downstairs to the bar. The door slammed behind him.
Now was the time to run. I tossed my bag on the bed and stared at the contents. A pair of jeans. Couple shirts. Nothing that would get me far, but it would afford me a few days head start. I didn’t own a passport. Dad never allowed it. But Anathema’s territory didn’t expand through the entire United States. Once I was outside their chapters, beyond where anyone recognized me, I’d start a new life. A real life.
A life my brothers never offered me.
A life they never even tried to provide.
Brew and Keep thought of nothing but the club. When I needed them the most, they let me suffer. It was their fault I was kidnapped. Their fault I was hurt. Their fault Exorcist used me to betray the club they loved more than their own flesh and blood.
And it was their fault for everything Dad did to me.
I tugged the zipper on the bag closed and shouldered it.
Why was I considering helping them when Keep injected death into his veins and Brew idolized Dad, even when he had to see, had to know something was wrong?
The bag fell to the ground, and the words tumbled from my lips.
“Why didn’t they know?”
And why was Thorne the one who almost figured it out?
I ignored the pain clustered in my chest. The stinging bursts weren’t from any bruising. Just twenty-one years of heartache and suffering, self-loathing and too much self-pity. Enough blood spilled without losing all the men of my family to sin, addiction, and vengeance.
The thought of abandoning Keep and Brew struck me like a hand to the throat.
The thought of something bad happening to Thorne stole my breath like someone squeezed until my vision flared bright.
I followed the shouting and warm scent of delivered Chinese downstairs. Thorne drank his breakfast in a quick shot, but he swore and pitched the empty glass across the room. It shattered against the wall. Scotch and Gold didn’t flinch. Keep sent a prospect to clean up the glass. Brew was the only one who looked up when I came down the stairs. I ignored him.
“Knight wants his fucking bike back?” Thorne didn’t shout into the phone. I didn’t know who had the power to check his temper, but I had a suspicion she had blonde hair, a chest barely contained by her corset, and every last member of the MC caught within her web. “You think I give a damn what that bastard wants?”
Scotch waved him down, stabbing his chopsticks in the container of fried rice. “It’s more than a bike, Thorne. They’re sending Knight to talk.”
Thorne sneered. “That bike is Rose’s goddamned war-prize. They want to talk? Tell them to send over Bounty’s scarred fucking head on a pike or the next time we talk I’m going to carve out my demands on his face.”
“Bounty ain’t got nothing to do with this,” Scotch said.
“Bounty and I have a score to settle. Rose’s got more bruises than I can count and a cut on her thigh that almost gave her a Brazilian.”
Brew’s voice grunted like he spent most of the night in a bottle of whiskey. “What the fuck are you doing that close to her thigh?”
Thorne didn’t answer. Keep and Brew looked to me. I had nothing to say to them, not now, but my face warmed anyway. I shut my mouth and grabbed the pint of Chinese out of Brew’s hand. General Tso’s. Wasn’t like he ever ordered anything else. He frowned, but he abandoned his meal and reached for a container of fried dumplings instead.
Thorne hadn’t put a shirt on yet, and I tried not to watch as every muscle in his chest tensed in thinly veiled
rage. The tattooed bands lashing his pecks couldn’t contain his wrath.
“Why the fuck are you involved, Lyn?” His hand squeezed the phone until it cracked.
He didn’t like the answer. Neither did the rest of the club. Keep poured him another drink, though this time he passed it over in a plastic cup.
“Jesus Christ. Fine. We’ll be over. You have a gun?” Lyn must have hung up on him. He pocketed the phone. “Stupid question.”
“So now what?” Keep bummed a cigarette from Scotch. The circles below his eyes looked more like bruises than exhaustion, and his thin cheeks clung to his bones. A shell of my handsome brother. “Ex wants a meet?”
“Wants to explain what happened.” Thorne’s smile put his drink on the rocks. “They’re willing to forgive Rose for stealing Luke’s bike if she brings it back.”
Brew grunted. “Want her to wash it too?”
Gold fished in his lunch for another piece of baby corn. He coated it in duck sauce and spoke with a sticky mouth-full. “Are we going?”
“They’re going to fuck with Lyn and Sorceress whether we’re there or not. I’m not leaving her unprotected. Not after last night.”
“This will be a bloodbath,” Brew said. “You sure you want to do this?”
Thorne stared at the bar for a long moment before nodding. “We give the bike back, I send a message to Ex that Rose is off the table, we establish a boundary, and we stay alive another day.”
“Ex doesn’t want to talk,” Brew said. “He wants land. Territory. A reason to destroy Anathema.”
Keep grimaced. “And the easiest way is to squeeze Lyn until we make a mistake. We need that cash. So does Ex. We have to be there. Show of muscle.”
Thorne searched my brothers—stared them both down until the silence wore at me and my stomach tightened like the frets of a guitar. For as ravenous as I was, the chicken turned to thick ash in my mouth. I swallowed, reluctantly.
“We’re going.” Thorne finally said, watching Keep’s reaction with a frown. He faced me, and I hesitantly met his gaze. “And you’re coming with me.”
I nodded, though I doubted I’d make it to Sorceress before my dread suffocated me in madness. For as much as I wanted to warn Thorne, for as desperately as I wanted to fight him, to disobey, to run away, I knew saying anything would damn Anathema. A word from me was as dangerous as Exorcist raising a gun to their mouth.
I hid my trembling hands in curled fists and wished for the days when a failed audition and a couple teenagers running out on the diner’s bill was my only concern.
God, I needed to play my guitar. Any guitar. Any music.
Anything to get my mind out of Pixie and into a hard-fought melody.
“You okay?”
I didn’t look up from the table as Keep passed me a can of pop and a cup brimming with ice and fancy umbrellas stuffed around the rim. Brew watched from the bar. I pushed the glass back and wished my voice hadn’t trembled too much to tell them to fuck off.
“Fine. Excuse me. I have a bike to wash.”
Gold laughed, but Brew’s profanity cut it short. I took my stolen lunch and resolved to eat it in my room. Thorne’s room. My cheeks flushed even though I hadn’t spoken my confusion aloud. I needed more than some fried rice and shower to screw my head on right. An hour with a guitar and a nap might have done me well.
A do-over of the previous night’s freak out might have helped more.
The MC knew why I fumed at my brothers. But I couldn’t look at Thorne either. Mercifully, he let me have my space. He collected me only once the sun set and it was time to walk right into the trap I knew Exorcist created for us. He didn’t say anything about my freak out, just tossed me a helmet.
“You feel like driving Luke’s bike up?”
My nails tapped over the helmet. “How do I get back?”
“Ride with me.”
“I...I wouldn’t like that.”
“I’ll keep you safe.”
“I don’t like bikes.”
“So?”
I sighed. “If you want me to trust you—”
“I didn’t say anything about trust.” Thorne’s stare hardened. “Fight me if you want. Get pissed if you want. I don’t care what you think. I’m keeping you alive.”
“Sometimes you can be an ass.”
“I’m just saving yours, sweetheart.”
I hated that he was right, but I didn’t belong on the back of a stolen bike. Even with Thorne offering his protection, I’d take five hundred miles of open road over the danger tucked inside the neon lights, curtained halls, and rock-star extravagance of Sorceress.
We left Luke’s bike in the far corner of the lot, far from Anathema’s rides and the prospects that guarded them. My brothers crowded me. I escaped from the bike while they were still parking. They called my name, but I hurried and followed Thorne into the waiting den of debauchery.
I didn’t know what I expected, but Sorceress wasn’t a one-way ride to hell. Instead, the pumping R&B, polished stage, and shining gold poles shared equal floor space with cushy leather chairs, a cherry-wood bar, and a special VIP section. I imagined what waited behind beaded curtains and the armed guard wearing an Anathema vest.
No drunken thugs lunged themselves at the lone brunette rocking her hips to a song with too much bass but plenty of teasing rhythm. I ignored the dancing in favor of the equipment behind the entertainment. A drum kit. Amps stashed in the corner of the stage. I glanced up. Beyond the disco ball, the room was wired for music.
Interesting.
Thorne pointed my brothers, Gold, and Scotch to the floor. The few genuine patrons fled as Anathema descended on the tables. The dancing girl groaned as they escaped. She answered Keep’s request with both middle fingers, clawed the pink feather boa from the ground, and stormed backstage.
“Unless you plan on dancing, keep moving.” Thorne whispered. “After that show last night, I’d love a private dance.”
His hand crushed mine, but I kept quiet. I feared what I might have said. A comment like that deserved a slap. Instead, I imagined his threat made reality—his stare, the feel of his hands against my thighs, the taste of his lips.
The taste of other parts of him.
I endured the shame of throwing myself at a near-perfect stranger. Even if he saved my life, even if he listened with perfect attentiveness to my set, I had no right to offer what I nearly gave him.
So what was with my regret?
The promise in his voice, the playful threat, and the unrivaled challenge of his desire warmed me into a halo of pink. His strength pulled me through the club. The muscles under the black tee shirt strained, and the scarred demon on his cut sneered with the same violence and passion of Thorne’s touch, kiss, and caress.
We laid skin-to-skin in bed last night. While my fractured mind needed nothing more than his comfort, my forsaken body needed something different. Thorne over me. Pressed against me.
Inside of me.
I wished I understood why.
And I wished it had happened.
We burst into the office as my cheeks betrayed my every desire. Lyn tucked behind her desk like a queen, but she leaned away from her computer with a serpent’s smile. Her green eyes shifted from me to Thorne. I braced for a strike that didn’t come and an observation I wasn’t ready to admit. Lyn, mercifully, chose not to speak. I wondered what I’d have to do to repay the favor.
“Watch her,” Thorne said.
Lyn laughed. “Excuse me? I hire a nanny to watch my employee’s kids. I don’t keep the crayons in my office.”
Apparently Lyn’s kindness ended when the wounds were patched. I flushed.
“Why did you bring her? Ex and his men will be crawling over this place.” The flash of her eyes might have humbled lesser men. Thorne endured it with more patience than I expected and more restraint than she deserved. “You’re playing superhero, aren’t you?”
“Keep her here, I’ll take care of Ex.”
I sighed.
“I can handle myself.”
They both ignored me. Lyn waved a hand toward the leather chair opposite the desk. Thorne pushed me into the seat.
“You leave this office, you better be wearing a thong.” Thorne’s stare melted me. “You get me?”
“Don’t get the rest of the MC killed, Thorne.” Lyn released a thick wave of blonde hair from the bun pinned behind her head. “They’re my best customers.”
“Always trying to make a buck.”
She snorted. “Always trying to pick a fight.”
Thorne snorted. I bit my lip.
“Be—” I flinched as the door slammed behind him. “Careful.”
Like he needed my encouragement. Unless my advice loaded into a shotgun, the warning was as useful as an empty clip.
Lyn perked a perfectly accusatory eyebrow. “I don’t know what’s more idiotic. Thorne actually indulging Exorcist or you sleeping with him.”
I stiffened. Talking about sex in a strip club made sense. Talking about sex in an office with more payroll reports than g-strings was almost as awkward as broaching the subject with a complete stranger. One who, undoubtedly, spent more than her fair share of nights with Thorne.
And my brothers.
I shifted. Knowing Anathema, she probably partied with all of them at the same time.
Ew.
“I’m not sleeping with him,” I said.
“Yet.”
“What’s your point?”
Lyn smiled. It did nothing to soften the same street-hardened, violent, exhaustion she shared with every other member of the MC.
“You want out? Cozying up to Thorne isn’t the way.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m out of options. I don’t think there is a way out anymore.”
“There’s always a way. You just need to dig it yourself.”
Easier said than done. “You don’t understand. Right now, Anathema is my best chance at staying alive. I need them.”
Lyn snorted. “But Anathema doesn’t need you. They might not want you to get hurt, but you are nothing more than the pesky little sister or the quick score. They might throw a property patch on you. They might give you sanctuary in Pixie’s fortress of justified paranoia. But then what? You’ll be trapped inside Anathema forever.”
Warlord (Anathema Book 1) Page 14
