Gently, I sat him on the counter. He immediately ducked his chin even as his hands lingered on my arms, like he didn’t want to let me go.
“Leith, are you…are you hurt badly anywhere?” I felt like an idiot for asking, but I needed to know. There were bruises all over his body, but I couldn’t tell if there was more dangerous internal damage.
He shook his head, eyes still downcast.
“Hey.” Slowly, he met my eyes. “If you’ll let me, I think I can cut this”—I placed a finger on the collar—“off of you.”
The trembling got worse. His fingers fidgeted and twirled in the dark hair covering my forearms.
I took a step closer and lowered my voice. “He can’t hurt you anymore. Collar or not, you’re leaving here with me tonight. You’re safe now, Leith.”
Biting his split lip, he nodded and pulled his legs up on the counter as he turned so that I could get to the back of the collar. It was snug against his skin, but I managed to slip a finger between him and the leather. Pulling out my pocket knife and keeping the sharp edge toward myself, I started to saw through it. Thankfully, I always kept my knife sharp. Otherwise, I would have had to leave him to find something else to use, and that really wasn’t an option right now. There was no way I was walking out of this room without him in my arms.
Finally, the leather gave way. I quickly flicked my knife closed and stuck it back in my pocket, then carefully pulled the cut collar from around Leith’s neck. There was a red circle where the collar had sat, like a heel rubbed raw after walking a day in new shoes. I didn’t think my rage could get any hotter. Didn’t think the protective—and if I was being honest, possessive—instincts rising up in my chest could be any stronger, but seeing the darkened skin where that collar had rubbed him raw felt like tearing open my chest and releasing some wild man that wanted to throw Leith over my shoulder and hide him away in my cave.
Leith let out a big breath and lifted one hand to his neck. He was pale beneath the bruises and looked so small sitting there naked on the bathroom counter.
Pulling off my vest, I laid it on the counter beside him and lifted my black t-shirt over my head. “Here,” I said, holding the shirt up for him to slip his head and arms through.
He turned back to me and didn’t hesitate to let me help him pull the shirt over his head. A knock sounded on the door. Leith startled, and without thinking, I put my arms around him. He snaked his around my waist and held on tight. It felt like a balm to have him pressed against my bare skin, his breath ruffling my chest hair and fingers digging into the skin of my back.
“It’s okay. It’ll be Mace or Lex.”
He nodded and let me go. I pulled the door open only enough for Mace to see my face while blocking the rest of the room with my body.
"Lex and Zach got your bike loaded. Do you need help getting him downstairs?" Mace asked. I liked Mace. He was a good guy and an excellent Sergeant-at-Arms. It didn’t surprise me that he’d called for the truck or that he knew there was no way I was going to be separated from Leith right now. I glanced back to the sink counter where Leith was still sitting, his eyes lowered and his hands in his lap, looking so small and beaten down, and I wanted to break something all over again. I couldn’t fucking wait to get him out of there.
"No, I've got him if you don't mind getting the door?"
"No problem. I'll be in the living room.” Mace stepped back and turned away as I pulled the door open.
“Leith,” I said quietly, coming to stand in front of him and slipping my vest back on. “Our ride is here. Can I carry you downstairs?”
“Yes, please,” he whispered and lifted his arms to wrap around my neck.
I got one arm around his torso and the other under his knees and lifted him off the counter. He curled in on himself so tightly that his knees were nearly touching his chest, and I felt like I was carrying nothing at all, let alone a full-grown man. My shirt hit him about mid-thigh. With the hand under his knees, I gathered the hem in my fist so it wouldn’t droop and expose him.
“Okay?”
He nodded, forehead moving against my skin where it was pressed against the side of my neck.
“Then let’s get you out of here.”
Chapter Two
Leith
Silence filled the cab of the truck. Axel had folded his big body into the small back seat with me, letting me press myself against his side. My body ached, and my mind felt fuzzy. I didn’t know the guy driving, but he had a Heretics’ vest on. My eyes kept drooping closed, making me jerk as I fought to keep them open.
“Easy,” Axel whispered, setting his hand over mine where it rested on my thigh. “Sleep if you want.”
“Where are we going?” I hadn’t even thought to ask. That’s how out of it I was.
“To the clubhouse. Our doc is going to meet us there.”
I hummed. Resting my temple on Axel’s upper arm, I let my eyes drift closed.
It felt like only a moment had passed before Axel’s body jolting beside me woke me up.
“What the fuck?” Axel growled at the same time the guy in the front seat said, “Holy shit, that’s Eben!”
The truck screeched to a stop, and the driver jumped out. There was commotion happening just outside the vehicle—panicked voices and someone was crying. Eben…that was another member of the Heretics and Cody’s boyfriend.
“Stay here, okay?” Axel said a moment before he swung the door open and climbed out too. Scooting to the window, I looked out to find we were halfway up the drive to the Heretics’ compound. Arden and the driver were standing over Cody and Axel, who were kneeling next to someone on the ground. A moment later, JJ came running from the building pushing a gurney like you’d see in an ambulance.
Axel said something—I couldn’t make out the words, just the deep rumble of his voice—then Arden was pulling a sobbing Cody back, and the driver and Axel were picking Eben up.
“Oh my god,” I gasped. Eben’s face was ashen and he was awake, but the shirt beneath his vest was soaked in blood. They got Eben settled on the gurney as headlights shone through the truck’s cab from behind me.
Axel pointed at the driver, then Eben, and barked, “Get him to the infirmary!” Turning back to the truck, he jumped into the driver seat. “You okay?” He glanced in the rearview mirror at me even as the truck lurched forward.
“Yeah. Is Eben…” I was terrified to ask. Cody had looked absolutely shattered.
“The doc’s here. He’ll get Eben taken care of. Then he’ll see to you.”
I huffed. My injuries were so minor compared to whatever I just saw. “What happened to him?”
Axel’s voice was grim. “Someone shot him and took Pax.”
I pressed a trembling hand against my lips and squeezed my eyes shut. Oh god. After Dustin had chained me up, he’d asked me a thousand questions about the Heretics, about security at Spritz, and about Pax. And now he had Pax. It had to be him. “I-I think Dustin took Pax. The man that had me. He kept asking me questions about Pax and all of you—” My voice was a reedy, pathetic thing, and I couldn’t finish that statement anyway as bile crawled up my throat and dry heaves racked my body.
The truck door opened, letting in a wash of humid air, and Axel reached in, pulling me to the seat’s edge so I could spit outside. Throat burning and eyes watering, shame washed through me, leaving me feeling like I was baking inside my skin. Dizziness made my head spin, and the last thing I remembered was Axel’s hands grasping onto me as I plunged toward the concrete.
“No, please!” I wheezed, breath taken by fear and pain. He pressed the knife against my skin anyway, as if he hadn’t heard me at all. I knew he’d heard me. He just didn’t care. “This isn’t what we agreed! Red! Red!”
He pulled the knife away from my skin, and I sagged. “My boys take what I give. Your agreement isn’t necessary.” Sharp, stinging pain lanced through me as he cut a quick, bloody line across the top of my naked thigh. I screamed.
Jerking awake, I
grunted in pain. Not the pain of a fresh cut, but the dull throbbing ache from all of them and the bruises combined. Gently, I eased open my one good eye and found a dimly lit room. A blind was pulled down over the only window, and soft gray light shone around the edges. Panic started to rise in my chest until I noticed that both the doors in the room were open—the first open wide revealing a darkened interior, and the second was closed until only a sliver remained, showing the hallway beyond. There was a beer company clock on the wall and a Lazy-Boy recliner in the corner. The Heretics. Axel had brought me to the Heretics’ clubhouse.
The first thing I noticed, after my heart started to slow, was the smell—clean with a hint of disinfectant. The second was the IV line taped against the back of my hand. A bag of clear fluids was hooked to a stand beside the bed. It looked like a real hospital bed too, with hard plastic risers on the sides and buttons to make it move up and down. I wondered if I pushed the little nurse icon if anyone would show up. Why was I alone? Had they figured out I’d told Dustin everything he wanted to know—or, at least everything I knew—trying to make him stop?
Murmuring voices reached me through the crack in the door, and I tried to brace myself—relief and fear pounding through my veins. Regardless of what they might do to me for having told Dustin what I knew, my traitorous mind and heart didn’t want to be alone.
“Oh good, you’re awake.” An older man with gray hair and a kind face stepped into the room. Axel was behind him. “I’m Doc Joe. How are you feeling, Leith?”
My eyes darted from Doc to Axel. His bald head had a subtle layer of dark stubble and he looked tired, but his dark brown eyes were clear and trained on me. Swallowing against the dryness of my throat, I looked back at the doctor. “I’m hurting a bit, and I’m thirsty.”
Doc Joe said to Axel, “Please go grab a couple bottles of water.”
Axel looked from the doctor to me before he left the room.
“Now,” Doc said, putting the ends of the stethoscope he had around his neck into his ears and gently pressing the other end to my chest. “Big breaths.”
I breathed in as much as I could.
“Are you comfortable with Axel being present while we talk about your injuries?”
Once I exhaled, I nodded.
“You sure?”
“Yes. He saved me.”
A small smile pulled up Doc’s lips, and he pressed the scope back to my chest. “Another breath. I know it seems unlikely, but under all the gruff, they’re decent boys. Even if they don’t always color inside the lines.” He gave me a little wink.
I decided I liked the doc even as I wondered how a sweet man like him ended up being on call for a biker gang like the Heretics. I immediately felt ashamed of myself. The Heretics had been nothing but good to me.
“Here we go,” Axel said as he came back into the room. Instead of two water bottles, he had a bottle in one hand and an insulated tumbler with a straw sticking out of the top in the other. “I put one of them on ice.”
“Thanks.” I reached for the tumbler immediately, only to wince as stinging pain lit up my arm and chest.
“Easy.” Axel’s voice was a soft rumble. He stepped up beside Doc and held the cup close enough to my lips that I could get to the straw. I took a couple of grateful swallows.
“You don’t need me to tell you that you’re pretty banged up,” Doc started, pulling out a penlight and shining it in my eyes. “Only a few of the cuts needed stitches, but between those and the bruising, you’ll be sore for a while. I want you to take it easy, but I also want you to get up and walk up and down the hall several times a day. Have you been to pee yet?”
My cheeks went hot. “No, but I need to.”
“Okay, let’s get you up then. Do you want Axel to step out?”
I shook my head, and I swore Axel looked relieved. Doc lowered the rail on one side of the bed. Moving my legs was hell. Both my knees were swollen from being on the floor for so long—Dustin had told me he’d cut me again if he found me anyway but on my knees. The cuts on my thighs stung and pulled under their bandages. I grasped the hand Axel held out to me and slowly got to my feet, which I noticed were in a pair of those hospital socks with the grippy things on the bottom. The rest of me was still draped in Axel’s t-shirt.
“Slow and easy.” Axel stayed with me, holding my hand and keeping his other arm hovering behind me, until the bathroom door. “Will you be okay?”
Taking stock of my body, I found that while I hurt, I wasn’t too unsteady on my feet. “Yeah, I think so.”
“I’ll be right here if you need me.”
Looking up into his eyes caused my chest to get all tight and warm. “Thank you, Axel.” I gave his hand a little squeeze then stepped into the bathroom, but I didn’t close the door all the way.
Chapter Three
Axel
Leith squeezed my hand before he let go. I was glad he left a crack open in the bathroom door. Not because I was trying to creep on him, but I didn’t like the thought of barriers between us right now. Not after the night we’d all had and the shit storm the man who’d abducted him had created. I knew we needed to talk about that, which I was dreading. I’d seen the evidence all over Leith’s body. I didn’t want to know the details.
“He’s going to be okay, Axel,” Doc Joe said quietly from where he was standing at the end of the bed. Doc had kicked me out while he’d done his initial examination of Leith. I’d been pissed, but I understood. He wasn’t mine, and I had no business nosing into his privacy like that. Even though I wanted to. Wanted him.
I nodded. A moment later, the toilet flushed and the sink came on. Leith appeared in the bathroom doorway a little paler than when he went in. He gripped my hand when I offered it, and we made our way back to the bed. Once he was settled, I pulled the blanket back up over him. Before I pulled it away, he reached out and took my hand. I brushed my thumb over his knuckles.
“Leith, I know you’re tired, but I need to ask you a couple questions.” Doc stepped up to the opposite side of the bed.
Leith turned his head that way and tightened his grip with a nod.
“Did the man who took you, force himself on you? Anally or orally?”
After pulling in a shaky breath, Leith spoke quietly. “No. He did ejaculate on me though, a-after…after he cut me.”
Red swamped my vision. The image of that blond bastard taking pleasure in Leith’s pain, his fear, sent my bloodlust catapulting into the stratosphere. Leith’s thumb stroked the side of my hand like he was trying to comfort me. Fuck. I took a slow breath and smoothed my thumb over his hand in return. I needed to be strong for him, not the other way around.
Doc reached for his other hand. “Okay. I gave you a tetanus shot last night and a shot of antibiotics. I’d like to draw some blood for testing, and in a few days, I’d like a urine sample to test for HIV.”
Leith squeezed my hand. “Okay.”
“There’s something else, too. I’d like you to think about talking to someone about what happened. It doesn’t have to be a therapist, but I think you should consider it. My office has connections to several good and trustworthy people. And if you won’t consider, then I hope you’ll talk to someone you trust.” Doc’s eyes flicked to me before settling back on Leith.
My heart squeezed in my chest watching his lip tremble as a tear streaked down his cheek. “I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I ask. I’m going to give you pain medicine in your IV that should let you rest easy. When you wake up this afternoon, they’ll have lunch for you, then a short walk. I’ll be back to check on you in the evening. Sound good?”
“Yes, thank you.” Leith wiped his face with the hand not holding mine.
Doc pulled a loaded syringe out of his kit and injected it into the port in Leith’s IV line.
Leith settled back against his pillows, and I lowered the head of the bed a bit.
“That good?”
He nodded at me, but his eyes were already drooping
.
As Doc gathered his things, he said, “I’ll write out instructions before I leave.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
Doc gripped my shoulder on his way by. I stood there, holding Leith’s hand, long after his breathing evened out and his face relaxed with sleep.
It was the whimpering that woke me. My eyes snapped open when another pained sound came from the bed. I threw off the blanket covering me and kicked in the footstool on the recliner in the corner of Leith’s room. He whimpered again as I reached his side. There was sweat on his forehead, and he had one hand fisted in the blanket so hard his knuckles were white.
“Leith.” I tried to keep my voice soft because I didn’t want to scare him, but I didn’t want to leave him in whatever nightmare he was having, either. “Leith, wake up!”
He startled, but his eyes popped open. At first, I thought he was still asleep, still locked inside his head, but then he sucked in a hard breath, and his body went lax against the mattress.
“Hey,” I said gently, offering him the water cup. He took it, clasped between both of his hands and took a long, slow drink.
“Thanks.” His eyes moved from me to the chair I’d just vacated. “Sorry if I woke you. You don’t have to stay if you don’t—”
“I’m not going anywhere unless you want me to, but I’d rather stay with you.” He looked at me with wide, shiny blue eyes. “Hang on.” I headed into the bathroom and grabbed a washcloth, soaking it with cold water and wringing it out. Going back to Leith, I took the tumbler when he handed it to me and gave him the washcloth. He sighed as he dabbed it over his face and settled it on his forehead. “Better?”
Disarm (Iron Heretics MC Book 2) Page 2
