Point of Redemption

by Stacey Lynn

  As I awoke, the vicious and unrelenting pounding inside my head quickly reminded me of my error in drinking too much. Cain had never allowed me to truly kick back and enjoy the feel of getting drunk before. He said sloppy drunks made for sloppy whores.

  Waking up with one of the few hangovers I’d ever had almost made me thank Cain for the one small thing he’d ever done to protect me.

  But then I remembered how much I despised him, and slowly, as I showered and got dressed and headed out to the kitchen to find something to settle my stomach, the memories of the talking I had done last night entered my mind.

  Shame at how callously I had spoken of the things I did under Cain’s control filled my already queasy stomach. It was no wonder I hadn’t heard from Ryker that morning.

  A small part of me had hoped that I’d wake up enclosed in his strong, muscled arms, but that was stupid. No way would he want to be with me after I’d spewed all my verbal vomit.

  “Good morning.”

  I snapped my head to Olivia as she practically waltzed into the kitchen behind me.

  I took in her bedraggled hair and sleepy eyes and smiled. “Looks like you had a good night.”

  Her cheeks blushed as she reached for the coffee pot. “It was an early morning before Daemon and the men left.”

  I cleared my throat. “Left?”

  She turned to me, her head cocked to the side slightly. She took her first drink of coffee, sipping it slowly. “You seemed surprised.”

  “I…” I turned to the eggs, cracking them into a bowl. “Where’d they go?”

  “You can’t think you could tell Ryker everything you did last night and he wouldn’t handle it immediately, do you?”

  What? My eyebrows drew together and I paused on whipping the eggs. “Tell him what?”

  “You don’t remember?” She smiled and then laughed. “You told Ryker about Cain’s brother on a lake or something,” she paused to wave her hand dismissively, “I don’t know, Daemon tells me little, but he said they were riding out early this morning to go see him.”

  My throat went dry as I stared open-mouthed at Olivia. “I told them… about Nathan?” The kitchen tipped and tilted on its axis as I realized what I had done. “And they went to see him?”

  “Yes…” Faith said, slowly. She closed the space between us and took the bowl of raw eggs out of my hands. “Sit down and tell me why knowing that makes you look like you want to puke.”

  “It doesn’t,” I insisted. “It’s just… Nathan’s innocent in all of this, and I can only imagine what Ryker would do to him.”

  I listened to the frying pan sizzle and spit as Faith poured the eggs into it. She was silent for a moment before she turned to me, her hip propped on the counter next to the stove top. “He’ll kill Nathan if he doesn’t get the information he wants from him. You know this and yet act like it surprises you.”

  I examined Olivia and the truth she spoke. I remembered the way she looked, so innocent and sad, when we met for lunch for the first time in five years a couple of months ago.

  “You’re different,” I told her.

  She nodded and checked the eggs. “I suppose when you remember who you are and the weight of trying to be someone different is lifted, you tend to change.”

  I stared at the girl who was two years younger than me, but suddenly seemed so much wiser and older. Two months ago she’d snuck her way into Penny’s Boarding house, begging for my help, and I hadn’t been able to turn her away then. Now, I knew that I would do anything to repair my friendship with Olivia Masters if only so I could have one good thing to hold on to once again.

  “Who did you remember you are?” I asked, filling my own coffee mug and dumping in a spoonful of sugar.

  I returned to the kitchen counter as Olivia plated up eggs and toast for us, a bottle of hot sauce included. My favorite.

  She grinned at me, showing a full mouth of sparkly white teeth. She seemed so happy her eyes might have actually sparkled. “The Princess of the Nordic Lords…” She raised an eyebrow, half in jest and half in reminding me of my own club heritage. “Don’t you know who you are?”

  Princess. I hadn’t felt like a princess since I was eighteen years old and fell in love with Ryker. I doubted I would ever feel like a princess again.

  I shook my head. “I’m happy for you, Liv.”

  “I’m happy for me, too.” She pointed a fork full of eggs at me. “I’ll be happier when you’re happy again, too.”

  I rolled my eyes, but somehow, her lightheartedness and kindness infused the space between us.

  “Do you know what we need?”

  I raised my eyes to Liv’s. She looked full of mischievous plotting. It wouldn’t be good for me. “What?”

  “A girl’s night.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Come on,” she said, planting her hands to the kitchen counter before pushing off and began cleaning up the plates. “Me, you, and Jules need a night out at The Tavern. We’ll get drunk, we’ll dance on bars—”

  “Please tell me you’ll do this while taking off your bras and getting naked.”

  We snapped our heads to the male intruder. Liv immediately grinned at Finn as he stood in the doorway, encompassing the space with his large chest and angrily inked forearm. He smiled, something I learned he didn’t do often. That, along with talking.

  Liv pointed a finger at him. “That would drive Daemon crazy and probably get me on lockdown for a month.”

  Finn pushed off the doorway and helped himself to the leftover eggs. “Probably why you’d do it,” he said, his mouth full of eggs that he ate directly from the pan with his fingers.

  I watched their flippant conversation in envy. Liv had only been back in the club for less than two months, and yet seeing her in the space we had both occupied so freely as children and teenagers, she was the only one of us who looked like we still belonged.

  “I don’t drive Daemon crazy,” Liv demanded. Then she crossed her arms and made a funny face. “At least not intentionally.” She shrugged over Finn’s smirk and turned back to me. “Come on. We’ll have to take guards—probably that lug.” She pointed to Finn who grunted. “And I can’t imagine Ryker won’t be there, too. But it’ll be fun and I really think you need to kick back and have some fun.”

  “If the fun you’re intending is going to leave me with a hangover like I have today then I’m going to pass.”

  “Gin.”

  “What?” I dragged my confused face to her smiling one.

  “Gin. It doesn’t give nearly the wicked hangover as all that yeast-filled beer does.”

  I knew the look she had. I knew that look like I knew her when we were kids. Her grin and her clasped hands told me I was going whether or not I wanted to.

  She squealed and threw herself into my arms when I finally agreed.

  The parking lot was crowded and full of women and men when we pulled in on our bikes, parking them in line with the rest.

  I wasn’t surprised. Since Daemon had put the club on lockdown when we took out Black Death weeks ago, and with no word from them or what their closest charter was doing with the remaining members, he was too cautious to let everyone roam free.

  But for a bunch of men and old ladies who joined a club life for the sole purpose of being able to live free, being caged was difficult.

  I scanned the lot until my eyes fell on Faith. She was sitting on a wooden park bench with Liv at her side, who was saying something to her using wild hand gestures, but Faith’s eyes were locked on mine.

  And they were full of concern. I headed toward the women, Daemon at my side, when Switch appeared in front of us.

  “You get it done?” he asked, his eyes on me but his words meant for Daemon.

  Daemon flipped a blade so it landed in Switch’s greased hand. “Finished it in a way that would have made you proud, old man. No sign of Cain, though.”

  Switch snorted. His bald head sweated under the hot, humid sun, and his long greying
beard needed a trim about six months ago. Daemon told the truth. By the time he and Jaden had finished with Nathan, there wasn’t enough of his abdomen left to hold his guts in.

  I had walked back in once Tripp and I searched the entire resort only to come up with very little. Blood on an old tattered mattress in one of their underground tornado shelters gave us the only hint that Cain or Faith’s mom had been there.

  We knew it was Faith’s mom, Roxy, because the only thing left behind the room other than the mattress was a silver locket that contained an old black and white image of Faith’s dad.

  Switch slid the blade into his back pocket and nodded once, giving his approval of the way the new President handled the situation. I saw Daemon fight a small smile. He may have become President, but he still wanted—and needed—the approval and respect of the other men.

  “That should bring Cain out of hiding.”

  Daemon agreed right as Liv ran up to him. His arm instinctively went around her waist, wrapping her tightly to his side, and pulled her in for a kiss.

  “Everything go okay?” she asked as Faith walked up behind her. Even with the scars and the marks I knew she had that would never fade, she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

  “Good as it could,” Daemon replied.

  “You okay?” Faith asked me as she reached us. Her eyes slowly scanned my body as if she was searching for my own injuries. But other than the purple bruise on my cheek from the boxing match with Jaden, I was all good.

  “Didn’t find Cain or your mom.” I reached for her hand and dropped the locket into her palm. She gasped when she saw it. “But we found this.”

  Her eyes immediately filled with tears. “She never went anywhere without this.” Her chin trembled as she lifted her worried and sad eyes to mine.

  “She could still be okay, Faith.” I squeezed my hand around hers. I doubted my words as much as she doubted hearing them. I didn’t give a shit whether her mom lived or died, but the sadness and paleness in her eyes and face eroded an acidic hole in my gut. I was so fucking tired of seeing her sad all the time.

  “You can’t cry,” Liv said, pointing her finger at Faith. “We’re having girl’s night tonight.”

  “No way.”

  She twisted out of Daemon’s reach and planted her hands on her hips. “We’re going out and having fun.”

  “Are you fuckin’ mad?”

  “No. I’m tired of being cooped up in this smelly old club, and Faith needs to dance and let loose.”

  “It’s fine, Liv.”

  Liv shot her scolding eyes to Faith before she glared back at Daemon. “We’re only going to The Tavern, and you can send men with us to keep us safe.”

  Daemon shook his head. I stood back and bit back a laugh seeing my little brother so worked up. “What did you say to me just a few weeks ago? You’d do what I said because you knew I was keeping you safe.”

  “I also said I’d take a guard if I had to, and I’m agreeing to that.”

  Daemon snapped his head to mine, a look of disbelief all over his face.

  I bit back a grin. “Don’t look at me, brother. She’s your woman.”

  He shook his head again, and then glanced at Faith who was watching all of us and our easy banter with a look of envy and sadness painted all over her. Fuck. What I wouldn’t give to see her acting like the woman she used to be.

  Daemon noticed it, too, because he turned to Liv and pointed a finger in her face. “We’re coming with. You can have your girl’s night alone when we’re not worried about blowback on us.”

  “That’s fantastic,” Liv said, clapping her hands and tugging Faith’s hand out of mine. “It’ll be like the time you baby-sat us at the mall all over again. So much fun!”

  She turned her sarcastic grin to Faith.

  Faith laughed. It was soft and over quickly, but I heard it. And I fucking loved it.

  “I can chain you to my bed, again, Liv. You thought that night was fun.”

  Liv’s heated cheeks were enough of a giveaway to tell me I didn’t want to know anything more about the night she was chained to my brother’s bed.

  “Looks like we’re going to a bar tonight,” Daemon said once the girls were out of hearing range. His eyes never once left Liv’s ass as she walked away though.

  Not that I was watching what he was doing… my eyes were firmly glued on Faith’s ass.

  “Another round of drinks, please.” Faith shouted the words as she bent half over the bar at the Tavern. The music was not only loud, but it was obnoxiously country. It hadn’t stopped Liv from grabbing Faith’s hand as soon as the girls hit the bar and spent the past hour shaking their asses on the dance floor.

  Jules and Liv had seemed like they were having a blast. For the first thirty minutes, Faith had looked like her choices were either dancing in public or having her fingernails ripped off. Neither appealing, but the dancing was slightly less painful.

  Daemon and I had stood back and watched the crowd and the men who dared get too close to them. Several times I watched Faith’s eyes roam the room, watching men.

  It had taken her several times of doing this, several times of a few men acknowledging her presence with a quick head bob, for me to get it.

  Fucking clients. I had tensed; my hands balled into fists and then I headed for the dance floor, only to be stopped short by Finn yanking on my cut.

  “Let her see she can be out there and nothing will happen to her.”

  “Nothing will happen to her because I’ll be there.” I growled back, getting in his face. My frustration and anger were growing by the second.

  “Maybe she needs to see she can do it on her own.”

  It was as if Pete was in front of me saying the same damn things to me about Meg. I had looked out at Faith, slowly beginning to get lost in the music, her earlier hesitation disappearing before my eyes, and I had agreed.

  But now, with the way her ass was half hanging out of her too short mini skirt as she leaned over the bar, I wanted to rip off every man’s head who had ever seen her naked.

  Mine! The word repeated at an ear blasting decibel level in my head as she reached for her glasses.

  I reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist, hauling her back to my chest.

  Leaning forward, my lips brushed against her ear. I didn’t miss the way her body shivered or how she moved closer to me. My quickly hardening dick didn’t miss it, either.

  “If you don’t want me starting a bar fight and getting more innocent blood on my hands, you’re going to have to stop showing half of your ass to the men in this bar.”

  I felt a quick intake of breath before Faith tilted her head. Sweat from dancing had some of her hair stuck to her temples. Her back stuck to my leather cut and I could feel the heat from her skin through my thin t-shirt.

  “I’m not,” she said right before her hand went down to the hem of her skirt. One side of her lips lifted. “This skirt goes halfway my down my thighs. No one can see anything.”

  I could. And I knew what the men were thinking. It was enough to drive me insane.

  “Please tell me you’re not taking a play out of Liv’s playbook and trying to drive me crazy just because it’s fun for you.”

  She blinked, and her cheeks turned a light shade of pink. A small glimmer of light danced across her eyes before she blinked again. But I saw it—that small fucking shimmer of hope that Faith was coming back, letting her past go.

  It disappeared as quickly as it came when she leaned in closer. “I think I’ve played enough games, Ryker.”

  Shit.

  “That’s not what I meant, Faith.”

  She looked at my crotch. My erection obvious. It was the first time in my life I hated my own dick. “I know what men see and what they want when they look at me. I’m not stupid.”

  Fuck this. She’d been having too much fun to start wallowing now, and hell if I was going to let her take one small move and turn it into something bigger.

 
“How much have you had to drink?”

  She raised two glasses. “Gin and tonic for Liv,” she said, nodding toward one then the other, “And water and lime for me.”

  I grinned. “That why you’ve been getting the drinks all night?”

  She shrugged. “It seemed important to Liv that I get drunk, but I didn’t want to again.”

  I nodded and took the gin and tonic for Liv out of her hands. When her hand was free, I pulled her closer to me and wrapped her hand around my lower back. “Tonight, when we get back to the club, I’m going to climb into that bed with you. I’m going to put my arm around your waist like this and I’m going to hold you close all night long while you sleep.”

  I pulled back to see if she was still with me. Her mouth was slightly parted and her skin was flushed. The quickly beating vein in her neck told me that not only was I not scaring her, but she was fucking loving listening to what I said.

  “Do you know what I’m going to do then, Faith?” I asked, my lips dragging down the tender skin of her jaw.

  She shook her head against my mouth but didn’t speak.

  “I’m going to hold you like that every night until you feel safe. Until you want a man touching you in more than that way. And, maybe, if you get lucky, once you feel that way, I might even kiss you.”

  She shivered in my arms. I felt like a fucking king.

  My breath caught in my throat. Something did. Maybe it was a frog or a lodged ice cube from my glass of water. I could think of nothing I wanted to say except “kiss me now.”

  I opened my mouth to do just that, but nothing came out—only a squeak of uncertainty and shock.

  Ryker gazed down at me like he had made my safety and my security his personal mission in life. The way his black hair fell across his forehead, sweat beads glistened on his skin, and his dark eyes were pinned directly on mine made it difficult to think, much less speak.

  I settled for closing my mouth and nodding once.