by Jax Hart
DESERT KING
JAX HART
DESERT KING
JAX HART
© 2020 Jax Hart
All Rights Reserved.
[email protected]
Created with Vellum
Contents
Royal Bastards Code
BLURB
NOTE FROM JAX
Prologue
1. Amber
2. Amber
3. Tarak
4. Amber
5. Tarak
6. Amber
7. Tarak
8. Amber
9. Tarak
10. Amber
11. Tarak
12. Amber
END
DESERT ROSE
CREED MC
Shanna
Duke
ROQUE
Royal Bastards Mc Series
Royal Bastards Code
PROTECT: The club and your brothers come before anything else and must be protected at all costs. CLUB is FAMILY.
RESPECT: Earn it & Give it. Respect club law. Respect the patch. Respect your brothers. Disrespect a member and there will be hell to pay.
HONOR: Being patched in is an honor, not a right. Your colors are sacred, not to be left alone, and NEVER let them touch the ground.
OL’ LADIES: Never disrespect a member’s or brother’s Ol’Lady. PERIOD.
CHURCH is MANDATORY.
LOYALTY: Takes precedence overall, including well-being.
HONESTY: Never LIE, CHEAT, or STEAL from another member or the club.
TERRITORY: You are to respect your brother’s property and follow their Chapter’s club rules.
TRUST: Years to earn it...seconds to lose it.
NEVER RIDE OFF: Brothers do not abandon their family.
BLURB
You need to be tough to survive the desert. It's ruled by outlaws, gangs, cartels, and dirty kings. Now the new Prez of the New Mexico Chapter of the RB MC has set his sights on me. But he's not the only dark ruler who wants a queen.
I'm caught between rivals, fought over like a prize.
But I'm no man's possession. I'm as wild as the desert itself, full of rough edges and hair that blows like a tumbleweed. No man has tamed my rebellious heart yet.
Tarak Cassadore is a black hole sucking me into his universe of mayhem. His Apache blood is strong and hot. His lineage shows in every hard plane of his face, in every corded muscle on his body. But If he thinks I have stars in my eyes like every other sweetbutt, he can think again.
I'm not a sucker for the new Desert King, even if the heat in his eyes brands me with some sort of unspoken promise.
But his want puts an even bigger target on my back. The leader of the Black Scorpion MC decides to make his move against Tarak by taking me prisoner, bound to both MC's... which one will I choose?
They all want to break me. Bend me to their will. But when I'm done, every desert king will bend the knee to me, their desert queen.
To Z and Z. Again, for putting up with my disorganized, ADHD a**. To all my readers who continue to follow me on this journey. I appreciate each and every one of you. And to all the authors of the RBMC. What a great collaboration and I’m sorry my personal life this year took me out of much of it. I’ll do better next time!
JH
NOTE FROM JAX
Dear Reader,
This book is different than your typical MC. During these unprecedented times, we all are experiencing different feelings and emotions. This story features Amber’s. She is us. Pieces of all of us can relate to her. Especially, now. Stay safe. Stay strong. I hope each of us can create a future like Amber did for herself.
JH
Prologue
Amber
“Don’t do this.”
But he doesn’t listen.
“I-I’m falling in love with him.”
“But you want me.”
I rip my eyes from his. I’m ashamed, embarrassed. At one time, I wanted them both. I was undecided between who I’d choose. But I did choose.
He steps closer. I’m on my knees with my hands tied around my back. His finger traces the curve of my cheek. “Damn, mouse. You became beautiful.”
“Is that what this is about? …felt like you missed your chance with me, and you want to know what he has?”
“By the time I’m done with you, mouse, you’ll forget how his hands feel on you…what he tastes like. I’m going to erase his every touch.”
A shudder rips through me as Edge bends down. His beautiful hazel eyes burn as they roam over my face. The pad of his fingertip skims my cheek. He laughs low in his throat. My nipples peaked under my thin shirt, betraying me. Tarak might have my heart but my body wants them both. Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to deny the desire singing through me.
His lips find the crook of my neck.
A moan escapes me.
“Please. I can’t. Don’t put me in the middle of your war.”
“You’ve been there since day one, babe.” The hairs on his beard scrape against my neck. My stomach clenches. “Smile.” I open my eyes, blinking them quickly after the flash on his phone goes off. “Perfect.”
“He’s going to kill me,” I whisper, feeling my throat close. My eyes are glassy—my dusky nipples, visible beneath my shirt. My cheeks flush with desire. Next to my face is his smirking one. He attaches it to a text and hits send.
My stomach drops.
Tarak will never touch me again if Edge seduces me. I know this deep in the marrow of my bones. He drags me closer against the hard planes of his body.
“What’s it gonna be, little mouse? Him or me?”
“Him. You know that.” I breathe.
“Liar. I saw you first. I kissed you first. Why did you go with him?” He stands suddenly, his balled fist popping right through the drywall.
“You never made a play for me.”
“Is that it? Did you need romance? Hearts and flowers and all that shit? Well, fuck that. I stole you, sugar. You’re my property now.”
Edge walks back over, jerking me to my feet.
“Am I worth a war?”
“I don’t know. But I’m willing to risk finding out,” he grinds out, capturing my lips. I scream against his kiss. It’s of no use. He’s just as unrelenting as the scorching desert sun. And I have a bad feeling I’m about to burn.
1
Amber
“What the?” My eyes are glued to the rearview. There’s nothing in front of me but open road. But behind me? Well, that’s a different story altogether. A line of bikers are coming up fast on my rear bumper.
Come on!” I plead with my old Subaru to give it all she has. My foot hits the gas and she lurches, begging me to stop. She’s got 160,000 miles on her rusted, faded-paint ass, but I still loved her anyway.
The bikers started out as tiny black specks—a line of marching ants dotting the dust behind me. But now an army of chrome and leather breathe down my neck.
“Where in the hell are they going?” I’m stumped because in front of me is nothing. Completely nothing. The barren land rolls for miles in all directions. There are no birds because there are no trees to land. The only thing that breaks the monotony of nothing is the promise of the black mountains rising to meet the sky on the horizon. My destination is a tiny, quiet town nestled somewhere between those mountains. It was Santa Fe, New Mexico, or bust. But right now, it seems more like a bust.
“Shit!”
My fists pound the wheel. The car chokes, sputtering smoke from under the hood. All the engine lights and warning systems chime.
The car is dying. “Oh God, what have I gotten myself into?” I gently brake and pull off to the shoulder. The motors from the bikes buzz like chainsaws as they roar past. “Assholes!”
They know what happened to me and keep flying with their backs to the wind. Regardless. I envy them. Flying down the road to nowhere like they give zero fucks. All safe in a pack. While I sit in my broken-down car with no cell signal and miles between me and help.
Gulping down my fear, I check my purse for the pepper spray and tiny pocketknife. I tuck both into my jeans and open the door.
“Help! Please!” I scream, waving my arms wildly as the parade of testosterone keeps zooming by.
Damn. They’re hot. But I’m not naive enough to believe they’d save me. I have a sinking feeling these men would probably sell me to the Cartel I’ve heard about just South of the border. But maybe, just maybe, they’d take pity on my scrawny broke ass and decide to be better men today.
A shiver runs down my spine despite my tank top clinging to the sweat on my back. One by one, they scream past me, each wearing sleeveless leather cuts with “Bloody Scorpions” embroidered on their broad backs.
“Am I invisible? Hello?” But the engines racing like a group of hornets, drown out my yell.
Finally, one slows as he passes, pulling over up ahead and slowly reverses.
“Well, Hallelujah!” I grumble, swallowing the dust their bikes churned up from the road. My mouth is parched. My lungs rebel, and desperately try to cough up the road dust. I turn, bracing my hands on the hood from the spasm in my lungs only to scream as my hands burn as if they touched fire. The engine under the hood is cooked. The metal was scorching to the touch.
A low chuckle comes from behind me. “Already, bent over and ready for me, sweetheart?”
I spin, facing the giant looming just behind me. His eyes are hidden behind a pair of reflective aviators. A red bandana is tied behind his neck, protecting his mouth and nose from the fine brown dust choking me right now.
He shakes his head. “You’re in a world of hurt, doll.”
“Just please help me.”
He cocks his head. “I can tell you’re not from around here.”
I roll my eyes, gesturing to my Florida plates and piles of belongings stuffed in the back. “Obviously, Einstein.”
I can’t tell if my dry humor even makes this giant smirk. His legs are enormous. His jeans are a bit too tight. Either that or his package is supersized just like the rest of him. No man is naturally this big. He must juice and inject steroids. There’s just no other way.
“I don’t do that shit.”
“Huh?”
“You spoke out loud.”
I swallow hard, still tasting nothing but bitter desert dust. “… can you help me?”
“You sure you want our help?”
I nod. “I’ll die out here. I could call Triple-A if your cell has service?”
“Triple-A?” This time he does laugh. It sounds like booming thunder during a rainstorm in July. “She wants us to call Triple-A!” He turned, telling his fellow biker army who had all spun around, sitting idle on their chrome horses.
They all snicker, shaking their heads at me. “The only thing out here is the Triple XXX, sweetbutt. You wanna ride there?” One of the soldiers lowered his scarf to call that helpful piece of info out.
“The Triple X?”
“It’s a strip club, sometimes a sex club, doll. Although they’ll take one look at you and throw your skinny ass out.”
“Gee, thanks. I’m a survivor of COVID-19, asshole!” I call out, raising a finger. I spent six weeks on a ventilator and an IV drip of drugs. There was nothing. I didn’t even dream while in a medically induced coma. I’ve stared down death. This herd of oversized bikers won’t scare me. I’m a survivor. I might look small, weak, and pathetically pale, but I’m alive.
“Well, shit. We need to help.”
The huge giant in front of me puts his hands on his hips and turns to his man. “I decide, Prospect. Not you.”
Only then do my eyes lift to the patch on the giant’s right pec. “Prez.”
Well, shit. Somehow in this upside-down post-apocalyptic world, I found myself standing on the side of a burning road with the Prez of an MC named the Black Scorpions. Maybe I died after all and this plane of existence is some other world? Or maybe, I’m still in that hospital bed in Tampa and the drugs are giving me some crazy dreams?
I pinch myself hard.
“No, you ain’t dreaming sweetheart, but you did just step into a nightmare.”
“I’m done with nightmares. I’m chasing dreams now.”
“Yeah? Do you see rainbows and unicorns and shit anywhere? You came to the wrong damn place looking for happily ever after. Isn’t that place in Orlando?” He points to my Florida plates with the rusted, faded oranges with faded green numbers.
I clench my fists, feeling helpless, something I swore to myself that I’d never feel again.
“Get your shit and let’s go.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me, get your wallet and get on.” He saunters back to his colossal bike and takes an extra helmet out of a small box attached to the back.
“Aren’t you going to at least look under my hood?”
“No, thanks, sugar. I can already tell there’s nothing special there.”
My cheeks burn hotter than the sun. I know the illness stole a lot from me. But insulting my lack of curves and sex appeal at a time like this is a low blow. As if I even wanted a jacked-up asshole like him to find me attractive anyway.
The desert wind picks up speed, swirling up specks of dust. They spin around me like a tornado. I try to hold my breath, but my lungs are still weak. I had asthma before I got the virus. My lungs might never be the same and they were shit before.
The coughing goes on and on. I wheeze terribly, struggling, and blindly open the driver’s door frantically reaching for my inhaler and bottle of steroids. The steroids will help open my lungs, but it’ll take a while to work. The giant devil curses behind me. His large palm pushes me back into the car and then he slams the door. The air inside is stuffy, but clean. I gulp in huge breaths while trying to hold back tears.
I thought I was ready. I left the sick days behind. Despite my doctor’s and family’s pleas—I left my old life behind, needing something new. I craved to live. Really live. Not like before either, when I just went through the motions. My illness changed everything. Hell, it changed the whole world and I was never going back. I’m full steam ahead. A little desert dust won’t stop me, and neither will this MC full of bulky men hiding behind bandanas and bikes.
My eyes smart. Precious air fills me, but I feel defeated. I have hours to go until my destination. Help isn’t coming. I know it. I bite my lip, grab my purse and cell. I open the door and lock it. Saying goodbye to the car is hard. Every possession of mine is in there—every memory of the old world. The sweatshirt from the tourist shop in Boca, my Gran, bought me on our last family trip—my high school yearbook, filled with scribbled hopes of friends that I lost. My favorite paperback books with their faded pages, some are wearing a fingerprint or two from when I would sit with a bowl of Doritos and binge-read long into the night. I wanted a new life, but that didn’t mean I’d forgotten my old.
“Here.” The man whose name I didn’t know other than Prez held up a bandana soaked with water and tied it around my face. Before I could protest, he grabbed my hand and tugged me over to his ride. “Hold on tightly, broken butterfly.” He placed a helmet on me and fitted the strap snug under my chin.
“Do you think it’ll be safe?” I nodded over to my Subaru.
“No one messes with what’s ours.”
“Yours?”
He whistled and the Prospect got off his bike holding an aerosol can of something. Before I knew what he was about, he sprayed. I screamed and tried to move, but the giant held me in his arms. A scorpion emerged on the side of my car, painted in black. It was now marked.
“Like I said. No one will touch your shit, or they’ll get bit by the spider.” I still couldn’t see his face. But he removed one of the leather gloves on his hands, revealing a black scorpi
on tattoo going from the base of his thumb across the back of his hand.
“Ride or die, butterfly.”
I grimace as he got on and motioned for me to straddle the bike behind him. I knew what he meant. I didn’t have much water, a running car, or any cell signal. It was either go with the Scorpions or death out here. I’d beaten death already, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still chasing me.
My hands check the knot securing the bandana around my face. He’s so big. I can’t fit my arms around him. The best I can do is hug the shit out of his back and grip the sides of his hips.
“Damn, tiny thing. You’re gonna fall off. Grip my hips harder, hold on to the side of my jeans and hook that chicken bone arm of yours as tight as you can around my waist.”
“Chicken—what?” You, you ogre! You buffoon!”
“Darlin’ if you’re gonna survive out here, you’re gonna need stronger fighting words than that.”
And then we’re off.
Through the make-shift mask, I inhale the tangy smell of man, leather, and oil. My tiny arms hug him for dear life. We cut through the air and fly. The unforgiving desert sun beats down, but as the miles erase between us and civilization, I realize this is the first moment in years where I feel alive. I get it now—the fascination with motorcycles. You feel like flying. Weightless. Every fear and worry rolls off you and into the wind. It gets carried to the land of ‘giving zero fucks’, and I hope that’s where all mine will stay.
