Promise Me

by Brent, Cora

  PROMISE ME

  (DEFIANT Motorcycle Club)

  By Cora Brent © 2014

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  This book contains adult themes, explicit language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature audiences.

  CoraBrentWrites@yahoo.com

  Check out my Author Page to see what else I’ve been up to.

  This is a stand alone novel, but if you would like to read more about the Defiant MC and all its colorful characters, Know Me, a short novella, is already available.

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  PART TWO

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  PART THREE

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  (Mojave Desert outside Quartzsite, Arizona)

  GRAYSON

  He nursed his latest beer and watched the girl. She didn’t realize it; nothing in her peculiar past had taught her how beautiful she was. He was still uncomfortably hard from the impulsive dance they’d shared there on the sticky floor of the Riverbottom. Grayson had pulled back reluctantly when he’d felt himself rising but the way she had pressed against him with even more resolve told him all he needed to know.

  Then came the shouts and catcalls from his brothers and he’d scoffed, retreating for the moment as she stared at him with a puzzled look in her pretty green eyes. Grayson wanted to tell her why.

  No baby, not like that, no dirty ride in a back room for you.

  But he just eased onto a chair in the rear of the bar and tried to will his wooden arousal into submission.

  “Guess who’s making fucking trouble?” Casper said by way of greeting, sinking down across from him.

  Grayson looked at the VP of Defiant Motorcycle Club. He had an important history with this man. Picacho Prison hadn’t been titled the ‘Gladiator School’ for nothing and allies could get you killed or they could save your life; it was a crapshoot. Ever since the betrayal which had cost him his freedom at age nineteen, Grayson regarded friends as a liability. But he saw quality in Casper Weitz, and started to believe that maybe there were still men who honored each other. So when the sky opened up and rained down shit, he stepped up for Casper and wasn’t sorry, even when it cost him a year in The Walls. Solitary. That was the sacrifice which earned him a place here, in Defiant, and he was glad.

  Casper lit a smoke and waited patiently for his response.

  “Goddamn it,” Grayson sighed, leaning back in the chair. He didn’t have to guess. He blamed himself for not getting wise to Talia a lot sooner. But she’d jumped on him when he was on the outside fewer than twelve hours. Six years of young life was a long time for a man to go without a woman’s body. Grayson had never been too versed in the mysteries of the female mind and so that cold snake was able to fool him. For a while.

  Casper’s old lady, Rachel, hurried over, her lovely face anxious. “Cas. Mojaves are outside.” Her manner made it plain the visit wasn’t a usual sociable one.

  Mojaves. Mojave Marauders. Grayson’s hand tensed into a fist. Mojaves were friends, mostly, a club out of nearby Parker. But Grayson knew that some friends turned on a dime.

  Orion Jackson got to the door first. He was the Defiant President, and a big son of a bitch who never shrunk from charging in first. He didn’t even look behind him to see if any of his boys followed.

  Grayson glanced around shrewdly. Besides himself and Casper there was only a shitfaced Brandon, who got unsteadily to his feet when Casper jerked on his arm. He lurched into Grayson’s side as his blurred eyes tried to sort out what the hell was going on.

  Grayson’s breath caught when he noticed the girl staring directly at him. The fearful look on her face as she clasped her hands together twisted a part of his soul which hadn’t been right ever since the day she’d stumbled into him, pleading for help. No, he wouldn’t allow her to be terrorized. Whatever the Mojaves wanted wasn’t for her eyes.

  “Rachel,” he said hoarsely, jerking his head. Rachel understood and ushered the girl behind the bar.

  When he stepped out into the clear desert night the first thing he heard was Orion’s ominous voice instructing someone to go piss twice and fuck himself.

  “Make him answer for his own goddamn ass first.” Grayson knew the voice before he saw the man. He was Angelo, VP of the Marauders. He was also the man whose bed Talia had filled since Grayson had thrown her over.

  Orion’s arms were crossed and he was all but growling. No one rode up to his place and tossed out orders. This could be bad. Grayson quickly counted eight other Mojaves behind Angelo. Some grinned eerily as the prospect of violence loomed; others shifted uncomfortably, disliking this confrontation with associates.

  Angelo noticed him and pointed a fat finger. He was more than halfway drunk. “You,” he snarled. “You think you can dick me out of money and then laugh about it?”

  Grayson cursed to himself, recognizing Talia’s hand. Likely she had plied Angelo with mind-numbing garbage and fed him some crazy bullshit.

  “Look,” he said, stepping from behind Orion and addressing Angelo, “I don’t know what the hell she told you, but no such thing ever happened. Take a fucking minute to think it through and know that you’re being played.”

  Casper stood beside him. “’Lo,” he shook his head at the Mojave VP and spoke with firm sincerity, “since when does the word of some nutty whore come between men?”

  Angelo may have been drunk and angry but reason hadn’t completely deserted him. He spat into the sand. “Never,” he grumbled. Some of his boys murmured in agreement.

  Orion was already tired of the whole business. “So are we done with this shit? You and your bitches come inside and have a round on the house.”

  Angelo lifted his head slowly. The fire may have gone out of him but he still wouldn’t walk away looking weak.

  Grayson took a step forward, spreading his arms wide, recognizing the man’s dilemma. Angelo had hauled his boys and their bikes out here for a reason. It didn’t matter that the reason didn’t exist; he couldn’t just meekly let it go. “What’ll it take?” Grayson asked quietly.

  Angelo gave him a grim smile. “Two from my fist and keep standing.”

  Grayson glanced back at Orion. The big man nodded. Grayson removed his leather cut and the faded t-shirt underneath, tossing them back to Casper for safe keeping.

  “Go,” he said.

  The first blow was a stiff uppercut which caught him underneath his left eye. Angelo was a head shorter but outweighed him by a good fifty pounds and he’d been a boxer before his burgeoning gut got in the way. Grayson had to take a step back to stay upright but it was okay. The second punch aimed for his ribs. He’d taken dozens of hits like that clamoring through the teeming mess of Picacho and knew how to stiffen his body and
let the muscle bounce it.

  Grayson exhaled as his abdomen relaxed and his face swelled. They weren’t too bad as blows went. The Mojave Marauders VP was trying to save face and be fair at the same time. He slapped Grayson on the shoulder good naturedly as he followed Orion into the Riverbottom Bar. “We’re square, kid.”

  The tension loosened among the other men and they began to mock the hell out of each other. Casper handed him his clothes back and shook his head with a grin.

  Grayson returned the smile but then it fell away a second later when he saw her. She was pushing her way through the broad backs of the men to reach him.

  He said her name, “Promise,” trying to keep his voice even to let the girl know it was all right. But she had witnessed everything and wouldn’t be held back.

  “Gray,” she whispered, touching the swelling under his eye with one hand while allowing her fingertips to trail across his bare chest with the other. Then she threw her arms around his neck as she had when they danced, only this time it was urgent.

  And he groaned as his body instantly responded to the feel of her. She knew it, arching into him. When their mouths met it was the sweetest agony he had ever known. His hands moved all over her with their own plan and she clutched him more tightly. When he lifted her with ease, her legs went around his waist, their mouths still fastened together. As she broke the kiss briefly she looked soulfully into his eyes and whispered a single word.

  “Now.”

  He carried her back to his trailer as her lips moved tortuously along his neck.

  He had told himself that he wouldn’t allow this. He reasoned that the last thing she needed was him. But he hadn’t counted on the fact that her desire was as great as his.

  Grayson had to force himself to play gently as he peeled off her clothes and covered her with his mouth, his hands. She moaned, helping him get where he wanted. She touched the rigid outline of his organ tentatively, and then more insistently, as she released the length and held it in her hand while Grayson just about lost his goddamn mind. He had to have her.

  Now, she had demanded. And now it would happen.

  This, after all, was a dance older than time.

  This was how they were meant to be.

  PART ONE

  “Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.” -Abigail Adams

  “Ditat Deus.” God enriches. -Arizona State Motto

  “You are now beyond Hope.” Painted billboard outside Hope, Arizona.

  “No man can judge me.” -Words tattooed on Grayson Mercado’s left shoulder.

  Chapter One

  The dress was beautiful. The women who were to be my sister wives had shopped for it in Phoenix. They’d meant it to be a kindness. The four of them presented the large box to me at my mother’s house the day before the wedding in the presence of my father and the Bishop, who was also my uncle. I accepted it with false gratitude and held it up to my body as they exclaimed over the sight in one voice. It was a lovely material, though plainly patterned with no embellishments. The sleeves were unfashionably long to accommodate the church’s modest requirements but the bodice was fitted and the skirt was full.

  My mother brought her small dressing mirror and held it up so that I might see the way my red hair showed a stark contrast to the blindingly white fabric. The satin was soft against my skin and I knew it had to be expensive.

  Yes, the dress was beautiful.

  And I’d never hated anything more.

  “Well, girl,” my uncle clucked me under the chin, “it’s been a long time coming and you’ll make a fine bride.”

  My gaze swept the beaming faces. Only my younger sister, Jenny, lowered her eyes with sympathy. She was the only one who suspected the dread which consumed me over this arrangement. Winston Allred had first announced his intentions for me when I was Jenny’s age, sixteen. My father, at the command of his brother, had agreed.

  But then several things happened at once. The state of Utah raided our sister city due to an anonymous tip that underage girls were being forced into plural marriages with men old enough to be their grandfathers. Families were separated and some of the prominent leaders of the Faithful Last Disciples and Saints were taken away. And though our town of Jericho Valley was across state lines, we knew the leaders of Phoenix eyed us suspiciously.

  The men had tried to run off the media trucks which kept idling curiously through Jericho Valley. We’d always been taught that our fame came from envy. That the nation looked at us with the mysterious puzzlement of the covetous and desired the simple lives we enjoyed. The women who were chosen by the select few elders of the church were blessed to carry in their bodies the next generation of Faithful. The fact that they had no choice in the matter seemed scarcely relevant.

  Also, there had been several tragic births in recent years. Joyous occasions turned to terrible ones. There was only one midwife in town who was able to tend nearly eight hundred women and she didn’t have too many years left in her.

  Meanwhile, the attentions of the media and the looming threats of law enforcement were taking took its toll. My uncle pondered what to do. One of his own daughters, a wild and beautiful girl named Rachel, had left Jericho Valley in the dead of night only hours before she was to become the sixth wife of Emory Thayne. Her name, thereafter, was a curse.

  I supposed the fact that they chose me had something to do with my father. He favored me among all his daughters. Though the girls of Jericho Valley were pulled out of school by their ninth year, I had always shown an academic aptitude and was easily tutored sufficiently to pass the high school exit tests. I supposed that was the other reason I was chosen.

  It hadn’t mattered to me why at the time. Why I was selected. I was elated for the opportunity to attend the Hale College of Midwifery in Salt Lake City. My own mother had suffered a stillbirth in my childhood. She had nearly died herself of blood loss and shock. Once I completed the four years of training I would be enormously helpful to the exhausted women of Jericho Valley. More crucially, my marriage to Winston Allred would be postponed until I graduated.

  And then, six weeks ago, on the day of my twenty first birthday, I finished my clinical studies and sat for the exam which would place me among the North American Registry of Midwives. I passed easily.

  “Promise,” my sister whispered from the neighboring bed. The room was dark and there was no moon outside. The only other noise in the small house was the even breathing of our sleeping mother. My father was spending the night at one of his other homes.

  I closed my eyes, letting a hot tear trickle down my cheek. At this time tomorrow I would be in the bed of my husband, doing what he required of me.

  Jenny had always known when I was feeling poorly. From toddlerhood she been such a sweet girl, intuitive and kind. We were five years apart in age but were the only two of my mother’s children who had lived and that cemented a rare bond.

  “Promise,” she said again in a sad voice and I didn’t answer to my name. Jenny knew my agony anyway and with a sigh she crawled into bed next to me, not saying a word as I sobbed and drifted off to sleep.

  The morning dawned brilliantly. It seemed unfair. I dressed quickly, leaving Jenny to sleep quietly for a little while longer. My wedding was in less than five hours. I needed to find my father.

  Ruth was my father’s first wife and she’d always seemed to bear my mother a grudge. She greeted me grumpily on the doorstep of the tiny prefabricated home which was a typical dwelling in Jericho Valley.

  “He’s at Connie’s,” she growled before shutting the door in my face.

  I chewed on my lip as I walked the short distance to the home of John Talbot’s third and, it was rumored, most beloved wife. I tried to piece together what I would say to him. Finally I decided it didn’t matter how the words came out. I simply couldn’t do it. I couldn’t marry Winston Allred.

  “Early for a walk, Promise,” said a low, suspicious voice and I froze in my tracks. It wasn’t my father’s voice. It wa
s my uncle, the grim church Bishop, a man to be respected. And feared.

  He leaned casually against an ash tree. His grin didn’t hide the coldness in his eyes.

  “Good morning, Uncle,” I said formally, rejecting the Bishop title, wanting him to remember this morning that we were blood.

  Aston Talbot grunted. “You’ll be wanting to get home, girl. You females are big on preparations for a day like this.”

  I clenched my fists. If this was where I needed to make my stand then so be it. “No,” I said firmly. “There won’t be a wedding today, Bishop.”

  His eyes narrowed yet he seemed unsurprised by my words. “Get on with you,” he said dismissively. “I thought you were one who wouldn’t let that schooling go to your head. The church has made a significant investment in you, young woman.” He took a menacing step toward me. “Now you will go back to your mother’s house and await the day God has ordained.”

  “No,” I said again. “I’m sorry, Uncle. I know it will cause some difficulty but I am not changing my mind. There will be no wedding today.”

  I didn’t even have time to step backwards before he reached me and grabbed both my arms in a painful grip. I winced and tried to break free but he only bruised me further. I hated him as he chuckled, the garlicky scent of his perspiration rolling of his thick flesh in waves.

  “There will be a wedding today, Promise,” he warned, only snickering when I forcefully swept my head from side to side. “Oh yes,” he said. “There will be. Whether the bride is you or your sister is a question for you to decide.”

  I stopped struggling. A cold dread the likes of which I had never known coursed through me.

  “Jenny?” I whispered.

  Aston Talbot ran his greasy hand through my long red hair. I had not braided it this morning. “Winston Allred has noticed for years how she resembles you strongly. But since you were always meant to return I thought it best to keep to the original arrangement.” My uncle gazed at me critically and coldly as if I were a farm animal. “He’s partial to your pretty face and your coloring, the same looks as your mother. The children you are to bear will add nicely to the pool of daughters.”