“Fury, I’m about to examine her…uh,-”
Laura gestured towards the bloody bottom half of Rayna and Fury stood, turning around to grant them both some privacy.
While Rayna had asked him to stay, he didn’t think she’d want another strange man to see her naked without her consent.
He heard Laura’s sharp inhale, the hissing sound that escaped from between her perfect teeth- the sound made him clench his eyes closed.
He knew what that fuckin' sound meant, he knew why tears filled Laura’s eyes as she worked her hardest to hide them.
Fury knew deep down in his roiling gut that whatever had happened to Rayna Claire in the last three months was enough to guarantee a bloody revenge.
The Seven Deadlies wouldn’t stop until every Blazin’ Eagle was dead and buried.
“How bad?,” He rasped.
“Bad. She has some trauma. I’m going to start her on antibiotics immediately.”
Laura’s voice cracked as she looked at Fury and he knew she could see the stiff line of his spine, the tense width of his shoulders.
“She’ll be fine here with me if you don’t want to stay.”
“She asked me to stay, so I’m staying. I won’t say it again,” He barked.
Laura bristled at his tone, but she caught the message loud and clear- I'm staying, shut your damn mouth.
She didn’t speak again as she worked on Rayna.
The poor girl was probably in a lot of pain, and Fury seemed to sense that.
As soon as Laura said it was okay for him to turn around, he did so- he sat down in the same chair he’d vacated minutes earlier, and raised his fists, resting them in front of his face.
Laura could just barely make out the dark color of his eyes over the tattooed digits, but the sight was enough of an incentive to make her work faster.
“Tell Ox what’s going on. I’m going to stay in here with her until she wakes up.”
Laura didn’t argue, and instead worked to cover Rayna with a thick blanket.
Fury watched her silently, wondering if he too could catch a few minutes of shut-eye. He’d been driving all night to get her back to the clubhouse safely, and his bones were fucking weary.
With a grunt, Fury ripped an extra pillow off a shelf behind Rayna’s bed and stuffed it beneath his head, closing his eyes as he shifted in his seat to get more comfortable.
Fury knew he was a violent son of a bitch, but Rayna didn’t have to worry about anything with him around; he would keep her safe.
Nobody would touch her without his permission.
He may do a lot of questionable things, but he would never hurt a woman.
Chapter Four
Rayna’s bleary eyes opened slowly.
She tried her best to blink away the gritty clutches of her slumber.
Wherever she was, it was dark, and the only sounds she could hear were the steady beeping of the machine near her head, a soft snoring, and muted mumbles coming from somewhere else...
Rayna jerked upright, groaning when the IV in her arm caught on the blanket wrapped around her waist. She stopped to stare at the stark white cast wrapped around the same arm, almost glowing in the pale moonlight filtering into the room.
She followed the line of the IV until she saw a small monitor above her head, the source of the beeping identified.
With a heavy sigh she turned back around and tried to make out her surroundings.
Where am I, and what am I doing here?
She rubbed a palm against the side of her head as she tried to force her brain to work correctly. Hey blue eyes surveyed her surroundings.
Medical equipment and a small sink surrounded by q-tips, rubber gloves, and tongue depressors were the first things her eyes could make sense of.
Am I in the hospital?
But, Rayna knew that couldn’t be right; the dark wood paneled walls didn’t look like they belonged to a hospital, and the pictures of retro motorcycles hanging from the walls definitely didn’t scream hospital.
As Rayna turned to get a better look, her eyes landed on a tall form in the corner of the room. She jumped, wrapping the blanket around her bare hips as she watched the sleeping man.
He had thick, dark hair that was short and straight; it matched the color of his short beard.
Rayna took note of his crooked nose and luscious lips; he was certainly beautiful in his own way. Rugged, rough- a different kind of man than she was used to.
He exhaled softly as he tipped his head back against the pillow under his chin and she could see that one of his eyebrows was split by a jagged scar.
A memory tugged on the edges of her mind.
Fury.
That’s Fury, the man who came to save me.
I’m with the Seven Deadlies.
She sighed with relief.
Rayna tried to concentrate on that memory, recalling the explosion, the murder, the blood...
Her body didn’t hurt at the moment, but she figured that whenever the meds they’d obviously fed to her wore off, she’d be in a world of pain.
She gently set her feet onto the floor and tried to stand, but her knees were knocking together so hard, she couldn’t quite get it right.
When did doing something so simple become so hard?
Frustrated tears filled her eyes as she gripped the edges of her gurney, trying her hardest to keep quiet so she didn’t wake the sleeping giant across from her.
“Damn,” She whispered when she finally got herself upright.
The needle in her arm was attached to an IV bag hanging from an IV pole, so she wrapped her hand around the post and wheeled it closer to her, fully intending to use it to maintain her balance.
Rayna had to use the bathroom, bad, and she wasn’t going to wait for someone to come along and take her.
“What are you doing?”
Rayna squealed at deep voice behind her.
Fury came into her line of sight, his wide shoulders blocking the exit.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” She squeaked.
Fury’s brows furrowed as he eyed her.
He flicked a light switch on the wall and she hissed at the burn as her eyes struggled to adjust.
“Come on, I’ll take you.”
Rayna hesitated- she couldn’t very well tell him no, not when she didn’t even know where the bathroom was.
He’d also stayed with her- she vaguely remembered asking him to- and that made her trust him just a little bit.
Fury didn’t wait a second longer to take one of her shaking hands into his.
“Thank you,” She whispered.
Fury’s hand was warm against hers but he didn’t say a word about it.
Rayna appreciated that and held onto him tighter as he led her down a darkened hallway with at least four doors on each side.
He stopped outside the second to last door on the left and pushed it open.
Rayna expected a bachelor’s bathroom, some dirty crowded space that would remind her of the Blazin’ Eagles, but what she found was a very tastefully decorated bathroom with a double vanity, toilet, and stand up shower.
The colors on the walls were a mixture of muted brown, gold, and greens all mixed together in a cloud like appearance. As she flicked the light on, she winced at her own reflection.
The sight made her eyes fill with tears.
Bruised, bloody, and so fucking skinny she was practically a walking-talking skeleton.
“Do you want to take a shower, baby? I’ll grab you a towel and some soap,” Fury offered.
She stiffened at the sound of his voice and glanced at him in the mirror.
Tanned, tattooed, and built like a brick house- he was beautiful.
So beautiful it made her drop her gaze so she didn’t have to be ashamed of her own dirty reflection.
She felt gentle fingers underneath her chin and let him tip her head back so he could see into her eyes.
“You don’t have to be afraid here. I won’t hurt you.”
/>
A shaky breath rocked her chest and she nodded.
“I know you won’t.”
Fury didn’t smile, but his intense stare didn’t waver.
“I’ll bring you a towel and some soap, okay? Laura should come check on you before you get that IV out.”
Rayna didn’t know what she was doing when she gripped his hand in hers and squeezed.
“You’ll come back?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“I’ll come back.”
She exhaled sharply and nodded.
“Okay.”
Fury watched her for a moment longer and then disappeared, leaving her alone with the reflection she was starting to hate.
She didn’t even recognize herself.
A soft knock on the bathroom door had her turning to see a pretty blonde smiling at her.
“Hi, Rayna. I’m Laura. I just wanna remove your IV for you, okay?”
Rayna nodded, eyeing Laura as she stepped into the bathroom and checked the almost empty bag hanging from the IV pole.
“Good, looking good. When you got here you were severely dehydrated, so I gave you some fluids. Are you feeling a little better, at least?”
Rayna nodded her head yes, even though her stomach was practically eating itself.
The loud growl echoed in the large bathroom and Laura frowned before she placed a hand on Rayna’s shoulder.
“I’ve been up making you something to eat, okay? We’ll have to start small so that your body has time too acclimate to eating full meals again, but I’ll make sure you’re fed.”
Rayna’s bottom lip quivered and the slight tremor wasn’t missed by Laura.
“You’re going to be okay,” Laura whispered.
But, Rayna didn’t want to hear that- she didn’t want to hear anything about being okay.
It would be a long, long, time before she felt even remotely human again.
Rayna didn’t say that though.
She tried to smile instead.
“Thank you.”
Laura watched her for a second more before she gently removed the needle from the crook of Rayna’s broken arm.
“Make sure you don’t get that cast wet, honey.”
Rayna remained silent.
A tense silence followed Laura out of the bathroom where Fury was waiting in the dark, listening.
“She okay?”
Laura sighed and nodded.
“Yeah, she’s okay. I’m going to get her food and antibiotics ready,” Laura said.
Inside the bathroom, Rayna struggled to remove the hospital gown Laura had no doubt wrapped her tired body in.
The flimsy material fell to the floor and she stepped out of it.
With a skill she wasn’t sure she possessed, Rayna managed to get into the stand up shower without any problems. The clean tile was a drastic change from the dirty, sticky, white tile of the bathroom she’d almost died on hours earlier.
“Fuck,” She whispered as the hot water hit her hair.
Laura told her not to get her cast wet, and she tried, but once the hot water bathed her filthy flesh, Rayna knew she wouldn’t be comfortable until she scrubbed every inch of her skin raw.
Wash away their scent, their taste, wash away the memories.
Then Rayna was clutching the bar of soap Fury had offered her and pressing the new brick of lye against her skin.
And then she was crying.
Rayna started panting first; the tears she’d held inside for months came to the surface in a slow build, just barely making an appearance until she sucked in a long breath and her entire body rocked forward against the glass of the shower.
Images played like a movie reel in her head until she was practically pounding on the glass with both hands, broken arm be damned.
Memories assaulted her over and over until she was dry heaving at the sickening replay bouncing around inside of her skull, until she was bent at the knees, with her hands splayed against the glass as bile slithered from between her lips.
This wasn’t a moment to herself, no, this was her body purging itself of all the evil she’d endured over the last three months.
Rayna didn’t stop there, she scrubbed until the entire bar of soap was gone, until the ache between her thighs turned into a full fledged burn, until she knew that any and all traces of the Blazin’ Eagles washed right down the drain between her feet.
An urgent knocking on the door had Rayna curling into herself on the floor of the shower, eager to disappear, eager to join the soapy water as it slipped between the metal barrier of the drain.
“Rayna? Baby, are you okay?”
Fury’s deep voice jarred her, it swayed her, it woke her up on a cellular level.
So, she answered honestly.
“No.”
The door to the bathroom slowly opened and he ambled inside, every step he took closer to her slow and measured.
She peered up at him from the floor of the shower, not ready to leave yet.
“I can’t leave yet. I have to stay in here,” She whispered.
Fury paused, taking in the sight of the Rayna curled up into a naked ball on the shower floor, her wet flesh red and raw.
“Okay, I’ll be right outside-”
She scrambled to her bony knees and winced at the feeling of the hard floor rubbing against her brittle bones..
“Please stay,” She whispered.
Rayna watched Fury’s face fall as he closed the bathroom door behind him.
She didn’t know why she’d begged him to stay, again, but she couldn’t take it back now. He was already there.
Rayna swallowed the whimper that crawled up the back of her throat as he watched her silently.
Those dark eyes were almost as black as her cold heart, but she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.
He wouldn’t.
He had on dark denim jeans that were well worn and tight around his muscular thighs. His t-shirt was covered in blood and soot, presumably from her- Rayna wasn’t sure. It stretched wide across his chest, accentuating every hard line of muscle, before it wrapped around his tapered waist.
There was no denying the fact that Fury was a big man- in fact, Rayna reckoned he could snap her in half with barely a flick of his wrist, but he wouldn’t.
She didn’t know how she knew that, maybe after spending three months with monsters, she’d learned how to tell the difference.
Rayna flattened her palm against the wet glass of the shower wall and watched a beat later as Fury flattened one large, scarred palm against the opposite side.
She looked up into his black eyes and waited for him to say something, anything, but he didn’t.
Rayna was quickly learning that Fury was a man of few words, but that was okay with her.
She didn’t much feel like talking, anyways.
She let her palm fall away, and watched as his gaze traveled south, landing on the deep vee between her thighs.
She didn’t shy away from his dark gaze though, and why would she?
Rayna just spent three months with no control over her own body.
She was used to men taking what they wanted without asking her.
“I shouldn’t be looking at you, Rayna.”
For some reason his words made her eyes fill with tears- she knew what he meant, but she didn’t care about what he should be doing.
Her heart was already broken, and she knew she didn’t even look like herself anymore. But, hearing the most handsome man she’d ever seen say tell her he shouldn’t be looking at her...
Well, it hurt in a way that she couldn’t even begin to fathom.
She turned her back to him and tried to conceal her tears, but the moment she started, she couldn't stop.
“Jesus, I’m sorry- Rayna-fuck!”
His cursing only made her cry harder, and just when she was sure he was going to leave her alone to drown in her own heartache, the door to the shower flung open and Fury climbed inside behind her.
With his big body taking
up the rest of the available space, it was a damn tight fit, but Rayna didn’t feel crowded.
She felt...safe.
I never thought I'd feel safe again.
Fury’s heavy arms wrapped around her and she turned to face him, surprised to see he still had his clothes on.
“You’re getting your clothes all wet,” She whispered.
“I don’t give a shit.”
Rayna caught a glimpse of his cut sitting on the vanity, for the first time noticing the Vice President patch.
She didn’t care though, because his body was hard where hers was soft and his chin was resting against the top of her head, like they had all the time in the world to stand there holding one another.
“I killed all those men.”
Her words didn’t fall on deaf ears, but they did fall on angry ones.
“Fuck those bastards, Rayna. I’d kill ‘em for you all over again, if I could. They deserved what they got.”
“They’re gonna come for me,” She whimpered.
Fury pulled back and smoothed wet hair away from her face so he could see her better.
“What do you mean?”
“Only half of them came back. The other half were still on a run to Mexico,” Rayna said.
Fury’s brow furrowed and he pulled her back into his embrace, his beard scratching the sensitive skin near her eye as he cradled her close.
“Don’t you worry about them. They won’t get near you, you got me?”
Rayna nodded.
“Say the words back to me. Tell me you understand that I won’t let anybody fucking hurt you,” Fury demanded.
She could practically taste the rage settling on his tongue as he spoke.
“I understand you.”
The tension in his shoulders eased a fraction of an inch.
“You concentrate on getting better. Let me handle the rest.”
Rayna had no idea what she’d done to earn Fury as her protector, but she wasn’t going to argue with him.
It’d been so long since she had anyone on her side that it felt foreign to hear someone defending her instead of scorning her.
“Thank you.”
Fury didn’t respond.
He didn’t have to.
He held her close as the tears started again, and this time, he didn’t let go.
Wrath (Seven Deadlies MC) Page 3
