Where Souls Spoil

by Jc Emery

  “I’m yours. Every bit of me is yours,” I whisper. “And when I marry you, it’s going to be when I’m ready. But I love you.”

  His movements falter, and he blows out a ragged breath. He’s close, so close, and yet he’s trying his damnedest to push me over the edge first. But I won’t have it. I move my hand from his firm backside and lightly trail my fingers up his back. Gooseflesh erupts over his entire frame, making him shiver. He bites his lip and pauses before he starts up again, sliding in and out of my sensitive flesh. I place my hand over his that’s hooked around my shoulder. He breathes in deeply and shudders when I wrap my pinky around his. My hand still stings from my assault on the wooden board, but I do my best to ignore it. He loses himself, spiraling out of reality, and for just a brief moment, he’s lost in a place where everything is right with the world. It’s just us and there’s no danger and we’re as together as any two people can be.

  “I’m yours.” I say it again and again until he regains himself long enough to flick at my tender skin and catapult me off the cliff of reason. In this moment I can’t think of much of anything except for wondering how life would be different if I changed my last name. Would life be better? Would it matter at all if I signed my name as Alexandra Stone?

  I’m not sure anymore.

  We clean up slowly and try to be quiet since Mom’s somewhere in the house. She knows we’re not celibate, but that doesn’t mean we need to rub her face in it. It never seems weird—his being my step-brother—until it comes to our mother.

  “I gotta leave in a few,” he says as he slides his cut back on.

  I nod my head and go about making the bed. He doesn’t care if it’s made or not, but I do. If I can’t leave, I want to at least be useful around the house. In the corner of the room, he struggles to get his boots on without bending over and using his hands. He’s a stubborn man, that’s for sure. He takes note of my silence and pauses with one boot on and one on its side beside him.

  “Still making enchiladas for dinner?”

  “Yeah,” I say, trying desperately to keep the sorrow from my voice. I thought we’d made progress. I thought we were moving in the right direction.

  I thought wrong.

  “You know you can’t come. The guys won’t allow it,” he says. But that’s a lie. I know Mom’s been on a few runs, and I’ve heard stories about others getting to go, too. He just doesn’t want me to go because I’m too fragile. I’m not tough enough to handle it.

  “I know,” I say like the liar he’s accused me of being. I don’t want to argue anymore. I kind of just want him to leave so I can finish cleaning up and then make dinner like I’m expected to do.

  “I’m going to regret this,” he says so quietly that I almost don’t hear it.

  For a moment I think he’s talking about something else entirely, but then it clicks. My throat gets tight, and I can barely contain my excitement. He’s going to let me do something. Finally. Maybe I should have pitched a fit months ago—I could have skipped a lot of heartache. Overly excited, I spin around to face him so quickly that I lose my footing and fall back onto the bed.

  “I love you.” I’m grinning as I say it.

  His jaw ticks and his lips twitch. Ryan doesn’t like to show happiness or his gentle side if we’re not making love. He has this sick thing about happiness and weakness. I guess he figures if people know he’s happy, then they’ll see him as weak. In some demented way I can almost understand it. If his enemies know what matters most to him, they’ll use it against him. I don’t want that, and I need to be able to offer him some kind of peace of mind. He’s given me so much, and the least I can do is figure out how to defend myself so he can relax a little bit.

  “You’re a fucking pain in my ass. Grab your jacket and get your ass in the van. You don’t ever fucking talk about what you’re going to see, and this is never—I repeat never—happening again.” He leaves the room immediately. As he passes the kitchen, he shouts, “Taking Cub to Duke’s on my way out.”

  Chapter 3

  I do as I’m told and grab the leather jacket he got me for Christmas, slip it on, and head down the hallway. There’s a pot of stew cooking on the range. I guess Mom started dinner early and enchiladas wouldn’t have happened anyway. The rich scent of beef and vegetables fills the air, enticing me to check it out before we leave. But I can’t waste time, because Ryan’s the kind of guy who doesn’t give warnings. He’ll just leave me behind if I’m not where I say I’ll be, especially if his brothers are waiting on his arrival.

  “Mom?” Sometimes it still sounds foreign to my own ears—hearing me call Ruby “Mom.” But it’s who she is to me even if she didn’t raise me. At the same time, I refuse to let my relationship with Ruby take away from who Esmerelda was to me, so I fight hard to remember the mother who cared for me when I was young, even though I have some lingering resentment toward her.

  “In here,” Mom calls from the other end of the house. Briskly, I head down the other hallway and into her bedroom where, sure enough, she’s perched on a step ladder and pulling down small boxes from the top of her closet. She’s already got a hefty pile on her bed. She smiles, climbs down, and sets the box on top of the others. “Ian’s birthday is coming up. I want to get out some pictures of him when he was a kid to embarrass him with.”

  “You think the guys are going to care how dorky he looked back then?” I ask. I’ve not seen too many photos of Ian as a kid. It’s still a little painful to see proof of this entire life my mother and brother had without me. It’s probably something akin to what she goes through when she hears about my childhood. It’s like being robbed, I suppose.

  “No, but I finally have enough friends to giggle over my sweet boy’s photos with,” she says. “You have no idea how hard it is to have female friends with how these assholes fuck up their relationships. It’s not like I can make friends with just anybody. Too many secrets.”

  “I so get that. If you need any help, let me know. Ryan’s going to drop me off at Nic’s on his way out. I’ll be back in time for stew.”

  She opens her mouth to say something, but I quickly turn and rush out the door. Mom is chatty, and I don’t have time for all that.

  I barely beat Ryan to the van and climb into the passenger’s seat. He opens the back door and tosses in a few black duffle tags he had slung over his shoulder. They make a loud thunk on the steel floor, reminding me of the trip out here from New York when everything was so new and scary. It’s still scary but not quite so new anymore. That trip was the one and only time I’d been inside this van. I honestly haven’t missed it. When Ryan climbs into the driver’s seat, he says nothing and starts her up. The drive to Nic’s house is too short to get into any real conversation about what we’re doing—because I’m fairly certain that Ryan isn’t actually dropping me off there—but long enough that it gets awkward sitting in silence with the person I’m closest to in the entire world.

  But then Duke strides out of his house before we even come to a complete stop. I sit awkwardly in the passenger seat until Ryan puts the van in park and climbs into the back. I follow his lead and move to sit next to him. Duke sits himself in the passenger seat, confusing me. Then the driver’s door swings open, and Jeremy climbs in. Okay, so Ryan hasn’t told me to get out of the van and go inside. And now Duke and Jeremy are here, and I’m so uncomfortable that I can barely breathe. Duke turns back toward us, and his eyes slide over my frame.

  “What the fuck man?” he says. My nerves get the best of me, and I look first down and then anywhere but at Duke. I shouldn’t be here, but I fought like hell to get here, so despite it all, I’m staying.

  “Don’t start. Cub wants to know what we do, so she’s about to find out.”

  “Uh,” Jeremy says. He turns to Duke and tries not to look my direction. He fails twice. “Is this gonna cost me my top rocker?”

  “Fuck if I know,” Duke says. “Just drive.” And he does.

  I manage to lean over enough to see outsid
e Duke’s window but just barely. All the windows in the back are blacked out, though some better than others. The last time I was here the windows were just tinted. I guess the job called for greater privacy.

  We swing by a house I don’t recognize—a small ranch that looks like every other ranch in Fort Bragg—and at first I assume it’s a club property despite how well its kept up. But then Ian steps out with both Sergeant Mercer and Mindy hot on his heels. Sergeant Mercer says nothing, just gives Ian and the van dirty-ass looks as he comes to a stop at the edge of his grass. Mindy, however, doesn’t make it but five feet from her front door before she backs herself into the house and shuts herself inside.

  The side door to the van slides open. Ian’s scarred face stares me down. He shakes his head and then focuses in on Ryan. “I don’t know what fucking game you’re playing here, but our next stop had better be to drop my sister off back home before we take care of business.”

  When Ryan doesn’t respond, I get nervous and look up at him. “Don’t you dare take me home.”

  “Christ. She’s coming with us?” Ian says and sits across from us. The door slides shut slowly, and Sergeant Mercer’s face disappears behind the painted glass. Ian does nothing but sit in his spot and glare at Ryan disapprovingly.

  Ian’s foot has been twitching since we hit the edge of town, and by the time we’re halfway to Willits, his twitch turns violent and he kicks Ryan in the shin. The first kick Ryan ignores, which seems to aggravate Ian into kicking him again. And again. Ryan slides off the seat beside me and lunges toward his brother—my brother—slamming him into the steel behind him. Ryan attempts to block him, but Ian wraps his lanky extremities around Ryan’s bulky body in what looks like some crazy praying mantis move. Ryan’s legs kick backward and hit me in my knees. Quickly, I move sideways and cling to the back of Jeremy’s seat, bringing my legs up underneath me to avoid as much injury as possible.

  From the front passenger seat, Duke laughs and turns toward me. His blue eyes shine as he says, “Break it up, Princess.”

  “They’ll call it quits when they’re ready,” I say. It’s not that I’m afraid of breaking it up—it’s just that it’s not my place. And I don’t really know how to break it up. They seem awfully invested in what they’re doing.

  Duke snorts and turns back around, ignoring the scuffle. Across the van, Ryan and Ian have fallen off the bench and are on the ground, each on their sides, taking swings at one another. I’ve seen them go at it before, and I can tell they’re not really angry with one another. They just need to break the tension before we do whatever it is we’re about to do.

  Aside from the sound of skin hitting skin, the van is eerily silent for the next hour. I can hear just about every word Ian and Ryan are saying to one another as they put each other in headlocks and head-butt one another. Ryan is pissed at Ian for spending so much time at Mindy’s house, and Ian is pissed at Ryan for bringing me along. It’s a while before they finally get to the meat of the argument—that they each feel the other is placing a chick above the patch—and once the real problem is out there, they both seem to calm down. I’d rather not listen to this, though, so I turn my attention to Duke and Jeremy, who are bickering about something else entirely.

  “I was watching the road,” Jeremy gripes, now with both hands firmly on the wheel and his eyes straight ahead.

  “No, you were texting Miss Priss,” Duke says.

  “Wishing her a happy Valentine’s Day?” I ask Jeremy, inserting myself into the conversation in every effort to avoid the crap that’s going on behind me.

  “Something like that,” Jeremy says with gritted teeth.

  “Phone.” Duke reaches his hand out to Jeremy and wiggles his fingers while he waits. Jeremy side-eyes Duke and then takes a quick peek behind him in the rearview mirror. Our eyes meet, with his looking half-panicked and half-annoyed. Whatever he said in the text isn’t something he wants shared with Duke.

  I pull my phone out of my back pocket and pull up Cheyenne’s message thread. The last time we talked was a few days ago, and she didn’t really know what to do about Jeremy. He’s been doing that creepy Forsaken man thing where he doesn’t talk to her but just kind of hangs around her making her suspicious. I’ve tried to give her what advice I could, but it’s not like Ryan and I went about the whole getting together thing in the healthiest way.

  WHAT DID JER TEXT YOU?

  Checking on Duke and Jeremy, I find that Duke still has his hand out and Jeremy is firmly ignoring him.

  STILL THINKING BOUT UR ASS.

  CAN U BELIEVE THAT???

  I try to stifle a giggle but can’t help myself. The noise catches Duke’s attention. He still hasn’t lowered his hand, and I doubt he will until Jeremy hands over the phone. One thing about Duke—he’s stubborn as all get out. It’s no wonder Nic gave up and stopped running from him. Well, that and the whole being pregnant thing—having to waddle doesn’t help her mobility much.

  “That is not how you tell a lady you like her, Jeremy Whelan.”

  Jeremy gives me a death glare in response to my admonishment. With a heavy sigh, he hands over his phone to Duke and stays as still as he can while he takes us off the main highway and down a dirt road. We pass a sign that reads MENDO CATTLE RANCH suspended over the road.

  “Grady is going to chop off your nuts and toss them in a fucking blender.” Duke’s voice practically sings as he taunts Jeremy. He turns his blue eyes to me and winks inappropriately.

  “I got your girl on speed dial,” I threaten and straighten up as much as I can, being shoved into this corner. The men on the floor are both red-faced with a lack of oxygen and each with their forearm against the other’s neck. Duke and Jeremy have moved on to something else that has nothing to do with Grady or Jeremy’s balls.

  Trying to ignore Ryan and Ian fighting on the floor proves to be too difficult. They’re on their way to hurting each other for real, which isn’t something I can deal with. I’m not even supposed to be here, and there’s no way these two mama’s boys are going to be able to lie convincingly to Mom if they come home beat up. Jim will assume it’s club related, and he’ll demand to know what happened. This just spells disaster.

  “Hey, stop it!” I shout and turn toward them. From behind me, Duke chuckles. I swear, I could freaking slap him right now—not that I’d dare actually raising a hand to anyone.

  “Stay out of it, Cub,” Ryan says through desperate breaths. His face slowly morphs from red to purple. My stomach drops and my hands shake. Tears spring to my eyes, but I pull them back. I get enough crap for how often I cry. I refuse to prove to Ryan that I’m too fragile for this life. I can do this. I can break this up and show him that I’m in this for the long haul and not just when it’s convenient.

  Ryan kicks his leg out and wraps it around Ian’s, grabbing him in a hold that leaves Ian struggling for control of his lower half. The new position seems to afford Ryan slightly better control and more oxygen, but now Ian’s the one turning purple. Ian coughs and shakes with every breath he barely pulls into his lungs. What started out as a stupid pissing contest has turned into something very real, and it’s scaring me half to death.

  “Knock it off,” I say and lean down slowly over Ryan’s back and place my palms on his shoulder blades. I’m no good in situations like this. If I don’t think about it, I can deal with it, but once I have time to process what I’m about to do or how I should go about taking care of things, I freeze and can’t function.

  “Back off, Cub.” His words are strangled, though he doesn’t seem to be lacking oxygen. It sounds more like frustration. I know that voice well. It’s the only one he uses with me anymore. I just have to distract him and stop this stupid fight. It isn’t even much of a fight, but it could have severe consequences.

  “Are you bored with me?” My voice is quiet as I say the words. I’d rather not be manipulative with him, but he leaves me no choice. His shoulders stiffen, and I remove my hands and sit back down on the long bench that s
tretches from the back doors up to right behind the driver’s seat. Ian struggles beneath Ryan and manages to shove him off a little. He doesn’t retaliate with his newfound freedom, so I think it’s safe to say they’re done with their little fight. Good. Then it worked. My mouth keeps going.

  “I mean, if you’re sick of me, just say so.”

  “Not the time, babe.” Ryan lets go of Ian but doesn’t otherwise move. He stays in that position, crouched down with his hands on the floor of the van. Ian scoots back and sucks in heavy breaths while giving Ryan a look that could possibly kill. I don’t care how improbable that sounds either.

  “Now is the time. I can’t seem to keep your attention for anything these days, so maybe being stuck in this van is the best time to talk this out.”

  In a flash, Ryan’s turned around, still with his hands on the van’s floor and his black hair falling over his forehead. His gray eyes practically pierce my soul with how he’s looking at me. Tiny lines form at the corners of his eyes, and for the first time today, I see slight circles around them. How tired is he? Did I not notice this before, or is it a trick of the light? I would know if he’s not been sleeping well, wouldn’t I? He sleeps next to me every night.

  “I said not now.”

  “Too bad,” I whisper. His stock-still pose frightens me a little. He’s so intense and brooding in this moment that I worry the old Ryan I barely knew is back. I’d half convinced myself that who he was before I was kidnapped was just a persona, one he plays to get through the day. His job is dangerous, and I do take it seriously. I know the trouble I’ve caused, and I know the danger the entire club is in because of me. He always tells me I have no clue, but he’s wrong. I see the worry and protective way he responds to me. He loves me, but I also know he can be cruel when he wants to be. I’ve forgiven the things he did to me, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to forget them. I guess, in a way, I’ve just been waiting for the bottom to fall out of my fairy tale.