Warlord (Anathema Book 1)

by Grayson, Lana

  “He beat me as a kid.” Rose’s voice cleared, if only because her brothers cowered at her feet. “You remember that.”

  “He beat us all,” Keep said. “He didn’t…”

  “Molest you? Take pictures for his friends?” Rose swallowed. “Guess I was just lucky.”

  “Bud—”

  “Don’t call me that!” She backed away from Keep’s hand. “That was his nickname for me.”

  “Sorry.” Keep’s twitching turned violent. “I didn’t know…we didn’t know.”

  “He only…he started…it was worse after Mom died. He said he was lonely.”

  Brew made his first noise. A guttural profanity that didn’t sound human. He raised his eyes to her.

  He didn’t deserve to look at her face.

  “You can’t let him out of jail,” she said. “You can’t.”

  He exhaled. I doubted he wanted to take another breath. “Temple has the money. They won’t care what Dad did. They just want to sell.”

  Keep sneered. “Then let Dad out. We’ll be waiting for him.”

  They could play vigilante all they wanted. It wouldn’t give Rose her childhood back. It’d just make an even bigger headache. More blood.

  “You kill Blade, and Temple comes after Anathema,” I said. “And they’re strong. Organized. Half my men are in jail or dead, and I’ve got a gun pointed at my Sergeant at Arms. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “So what?” Keep ground his teeth. “We just let him out?”

  “We go to war with Temple, everyone dies. Including Rose.” The thought might have ended me right there. A blow to the head or a bullet to the chest didn’t hurt as much. “Let Temple have their money. We keep the drugs. Sell it ourselves. Make a profit, find some guns, and then deal with Blade once he’s out of jail.”

  “Ex is looking for those drugs,” Brew said. “You keep that bag, and it’s the start of another war.”

  Naivety didn’t win battles. But I didn’t expect to win. I expected to survive.

  “We’re already at war.” The gun rested heavy in the holster. “This will be our last stand.”

  Brew reached for Rose. She stiffened but didn’t pull away. He didn’t hesitate. She fell into his embrace, buried her head in his chest, and was lost under the shaking of her curls as her silent sobs wracked her entire body with a sorrow I’d commit to memory. Every last painful shake, every mournful gasp for air, every shamed and humiliated and helpless shade of pink staining her skin with a blush that had no right to desecrate her beauty.

  I hated it.

  And that was why I’d remember it. That’s why I needed to remember it.

  No one would ever hurt Rose again. Nothing would ever reduce her to shades of her memory and fears of her past. I’d go to war to prevent anything from harming her again.

  With an Angel like Rose to live for, I had no excuse to die.

  I needed my guitar.

  Just one song. Just one chord. One note. Something. Anything. Just noise that could clear the silence from my head, and the screaming from my memory, and sounds and grunts and clipping of headboards from my past.

  I needed to play. A hard song. Something that took a lot of concentration and bruised my fingers and forced me to work.

  Except I learned those songs already. Clapton to Metallica, Hendrix to Santana. I burned through those challenges. I used those melodies to unburden my mind and lose myself in a reality of pure music.

  A delusion. Why did I punish Keep for his addiction? Mine was worse, and I didn’t have chemicals surging through my body controlling my thoughts. I just had me. My own mind. My own actions. My own distractions that never really worked, it just tucked it down, down, down and muffled the cry of my past in jazz and blues and rock. Songs I hated and songs I adored and songs I never even listened to because I had to learn the tabs before the silence took me again.

  Before he took me again.

  Sorceress had plenty of music. Piped in and cheap and straining the speakers with rough bass that would break the subwoofers before the girls dancing broke any wallets. I had no guitar. No piano. Not even a damned kazoo. And I couldn’t sing along to the re-mastered hip-hop pumping the girls’ hips.

  My throat closed not long after I spoke those horrific words. I could sing anything without hurting my vocal cords. Pop or country, jazz or rock. But the truth punished my throat like I gargled with sulfur, swallowed a cigarette, and slashed my windpipe to prevent the revelation from scorching my lungs.

  One bottle of whiskey wasn’t enough. And sharing it with my brothers wasn’t a family bonding moment. I lived every day with the secret of the man our father truly was. They needed the drink more than me. They needed the truth more than me. My brothers idolized a monster, and like a devout churchgoer losing faith, the world felt a little smaller, a little darker, and a little crueler. There was a lot to learn, and I didn’t think we had enough time to understand it all.

  Thorne didn’t let Brew go, but I didn’t think he was going anywhere. The drop-off time came, went, and extended far beyond any courtesy Exorcist would have tolerated. The Coup would either think Brew turned or that Thorne finally killed him. Either way, they warned of blood and violence and my brothers already tried to say goodbye.

  I didn’t know what I hated more—their apologies, their guilt, or the thought that I would never see them again.

  And that I would be the reason.

  Thorne hated it more than me. He hauled me up from the steps and forced me into the club. Lyn nodded us into her office. She calmed down, but only because neither of us were covered in blood.

  Thorne closed the office door. The thumping music and jeering crowds drowned into silence. No guitar. Just quiet. Just the rasping cadence of my breath and the soothing, masculine exhale from Thorne. His breathing was music enough, or had been, before I left his bed the last time. Before everything was ruined, and everybody was lost, and I had just laid in his arms and traced the ink on his chest and let myself feel safe for those few seconds before dawn.

  He was either a blessing or a curse. My captor became my guardian, hero, and warden. Now he was something more I didn’t want to admit.

  But I had no other secrets to keep from him, and that relief was the only solace I had experienced the whole day.

  He didn’t reach for me. I hoped it was because of our argument from earlier—words we shouted that neither of us meant that protected us from the truth. I prayed he’d be angry about Exorcist. Or that he would gloat for being right about the danger I faced. I wished every warm and comforting feeling I experienced in his bed was imaginary.

  I handled his wrath and his pride and his indifference.

  But I couldn’t take his pity.

  He watched me in silence. Sighed and sat on the couch, spreading his arms out over the back. Inviting. Intimidating. I could only imagine slipping under his arm and resting against his chest.

  And so I did.

  His heartbeats jumbled with mine. They didn’t sync or pulse in time. I didn’t think they ever would, but that was okay. So long as he still had a heartbeat.

  The tee shirt stretched thin over his chest, and the cut fell away. The black angry ink etched into his flesh stained through the white cotton. I brushed my hand along his shoulder. He didn’t push me away, but his hand fell against the leather of the couch before he dared to touch me.

  I didn’t expect anything from him. A million shameful moments ruined me before he even thought of me as anything but his best friends’ younger sister. I wondered how he looked at me now.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I said.

  He hesitated. “I understand why.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too. You go through all that shit, and I make you suffer more.” He met my gaze. “I can’t let Brew go.”

  “He doesn’t want to leave. I think I crushed them.”

  Thorne’s hand curled into a fist. He still didn’t touch me. “It isn’t your fault. None
of that is your fault.”

  “I had to tell them.”

  “I know.”

  “They would have let him out of jail.”

  “I wish they would.” Thorne’s jaw tensed. “I’d kill him myself.”

  “And Anathema would rip itself into chaos.”

  “They’d understand.”

  Thorne was smarter than that, but his rage wasn’t. I shook my head.

  “When I was a kid my mother filed charges on my father for knocking her down the stairs. The next day my father and two of his crew took turns throwing her down the basement steps and threatened her with a baseball bat until she climbed back up. She withdrew the charges from the hospital. Brew had to take me in for a week while she recovered.” I didn’t let the bitterness sharpen my voice. Mom convinced Brew she was clumsy. That it was better for her to be the klutz than me. “Dad got her heavy into drugs after that. Two years later she was dead. Believe me. You can’t touch my father. Not even now.”

  “Anathema is a different club now.”

  “But the rules are still the same. You can’t kill my father. You’d become the traitor. There wouldn’t be a safe place in the city for you.”

  “So fucking what?” He meant it. “I want you safe. I don’t care whose blood I have to spill to do it.”

  “I am safe with you.” That truth came easily. “I should have felt that way with my brothers. I never did. And it wasn’t their fault. I treated them horribly because I was too afraid to tell them the truth. And I was too afraid to tell you the truth.”

  “I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

  I leaned forward, brushing my fingers over the dark stubble on his jaw. He stilled, grabbing the couch to keep from touching me. I didn’t have anything to prevent me from moving.

  Gently, as if I hadn’t done it before, I brushed my lips against his and savored the sweetest, kindest kiss of my life.

  “I should have told you,” I whispered. Thorne reached for me, his hands guiding my hips until I nestled deeper into his lap. I broke the kiss only as I folded my leg opposite his and straddled the heat of his body. “You deserved to know.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I said I was a virgin.”

  “You were, and don’t ever fucking think otherwise.” He brushed a hand through my hair. “I shouldn’t be doing this to you. Touching you. Kissing you. Wanting you.”

  “I need that. My entire life I was ashamed and frightened of what happened to me.”

  “You never have to be ashamed or scared.”

  “I’m not. Not with you.” Our lips met again. The music of the club, the closeness of the office, the panic and desperation and fear faded away. The simple pleasure shielded me from everything, and it was the greatest gift I ever received in my life. “I didn’t know I could feel this way. Safe and protected and desired.”

  Thorne’s calloused hand cupped my cheek. He brushed his thumb along my lip. I kissed it, and he sighed, closing his eyes and swearing a soft profanity.

  “I’m not good for you, Rose. I was using you. I was obsessed with finding the traitor, and I didn’t care who I hurt to get what I needed.”

  “I want to be with you.”

  “You say that now.”

  “I’ll say that always.”

  His voice rumbled through me, a perfect baritone, a masterful cadence, and a warmth I envied for my own songs. I closed my eyes as he brushed my lips. I wouldn’t let his kiss be a goodbye. Not when every passion within me had finally come to life.

  “I’ll never be out of the club,” he said. “Not until they draw the chalk outline around my body. That’s the life. And it’s not for you.”

  Like I knew anything different. I shrugged. “That life scares me, but I don’t want to leave you or my brothers. I blamed Anathema for everything dark and twisted in my life. I blamed Brew and Keep. I blamed you. But running away won’t save me.” I kissed him again, my words murmured over his lips. “You will.”

  “Just tell me what you need.”

  “You.”

  He groaned. “You have no idea what you’re asking.”

  I kissed him again, parting my lips in invitation. “I need to feel safe.”

  “I can’t protect you without spilling blood.”

  His tongue flicked against mine. Sweet, despite the terror of his words. The thrill of his kiss quieted the roar of memory in my mind. He struck me in the present. Bolted me without music or instruments, notes or songs, to the real world, where his touch rendered my body into shivers and his kiss teased like jazz upon my lips. I wanted his safety. I wanted his touch. I wanted everything he could offer.

  And I’d give him everything he wanted in return. Not because I was scared. Not because I was forced.

  But because he was Thorne. Handsome and sexy, dark and dangerous, as seductive as thick bass and a tapping snare and more powerful than even the worst nightmares that prevented me from touching another man, kissing another man, and offering my pleasure to another man.

  His fingers unhooked the button of my jeans.

  It wasn’t surrender.

  It was perfect.

  “We’re in Sorceress,” he warned.

  “We might not make it back home.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Don’t take that chance.”

  I moved his hands lower.

  Anathema didn’t appreciate sonnets. The club ignored poetry and song. Thorne needed a gun more than a guitar and a willing woman more than the burden of responsibility. He kissed, he touched, he tasted, and he took, and I offered him every last imperfection I hid if only to cleanse the secrets I carried. I needed the music and the beauty. He needed the rush and the conquering. The heat blushing my body promised it all.

  The night offered moments of passion, echoes of pain, and the threat of violence. Everything he said and everywhere he touched would be lost in the flash of a bullet escaping a chamber. I didn’t know how much time we had, but, together, pressed against his lips, desperate for his grip, aching for his hardness, a single moment tangled with his strength would protect me for an eternity against the truth of what awaited us.

  I tugged my jeans from my hips. Thorne forced my panties over my bared legs, trembling with goose bumps. Our kiss broke only so he could free himself from the tightness of his pants. I didn’t wait. Couldn’t wait. In his presence, caught within his arms, trapped in his battlefield power and authority and conquest, my passion bound me in desperation.

  I didn’t let him guide his length within me. I didn’t think I ever would. Not when I had so much to learn. So much to feel. The confidence and the pleasure and the intimacy of accepting a part of him, a part of the man who fluttered my heart, twisted my stomach, and wetted my slit teased me like the fading remnants of a beautiful dream. I needed to take him. My body craved the feel of him. I sunk down onto his length under my own power, with my own determination, my own undeniable wanting.

  He offered me that moment of control. Allowed me to move as I wished, to take what I wanted, and to experience every pleasure stolen from me. He might have protested or fought. Demanded his own satisfaction.

  Instead he hissed my name, swore a quiet oath, and shuddered as our shared passion rolled from me through him.

  In that moment, I fell in love with him.

  Even if I knew what would happen the instant our bodies parted and the weapons loaded.

  His hands tightened around my waist. I tucked in his lap, tiny and fragile. I wielded the power over him with every press of my hips. The motion rendered the most dangerous man I ever met into the passionate lover who wanted only another kiss, another sigh, another tease of tightness that rewarded his good behavior. Thorne wasn’t a man to be dominated. And with his thickness impaling my most vulnerable core, I couldn’t pretend I controlled him.

  The heat bundled within me. My muscles ached and my breath trembled. My every whimper uttered over his name, again and again, as the invasion of his body into
mine rewarded me with pleasure and conquered the dark and terrible panic that lingered just beyond my rationality. Part of me would always fear this. Part of me had already forgotten.

  “I never thought I’d want this,” I whispered. Just the sound of my voice drew a shudder from Thorne. “You make me want this.”

  “Glad to be of service.”

  “I’m serious.”

  Thorne shifted. His hips pressed upwards, deeper. The breath escaped from my parted lips. The other times Thorne took me, I had surrendered to passion. The amazement resonating from such a long ignored and forsaken desire overwhelmed me. The freedom to feel and revel and the simple delight of a lover’s touch blinded me to everything but my own lust.

  Thorne confessed he had used me to learn about my brothers. My confession wasn’t any better. I took pleasure from him, experienced the brunt of his animalistic intentions, and selfishly, unabashedly used him. I learned how to touch, taste, and accept, but I hadn’t learned how to love.

  He didn’t understand how desperately I needed him. The rush of his kiss, the possession of his touch. The fear passed only because his passion overruled it. My pleasure burst within me only because his desire created it.

  I had the courage to do what other women had done for him in the past. My motions wound only tiny movements over his hips. Just feeling. I explored how every inch of him fit within me. It wasn’t gentle or delicate. But I didn’t need a soft touch. I wanted Thorne. All of him. The hands that prevented my escape. The kiss that muffled my groans. And the cock the claimed me as his and his alone.

  His was a perfect possession.

  His grip tightened over my hips. I was probably teasing him. I doubted a man like Thorne ever experienced anything like that before. The curiosity of the woman sealed around him. The breathless longing of a lover who didn’t understand why such uncompromising penetration felt so perfect. The inexperienced motions of a lost virgin fucked, abused, and rescued.

  I offered him myself, and I’d make sure we would never go unsatisfied.

  I moved faster, raised my hips higher, and Thorne’s triumphant kiss satisfied both of us. The rapid, desperate coupling did nothing to ease our need. Too many layers of clothing separated us, and we had too little time to explore the pleasure.