Save Grace (Blood Legion MC Book 2)

by Rie Warren

  But instead of outing my secret, he nodded at Killian. “Bien, bien. Just another one of dem haints.”

  He ambled back to a barrel-like construction and lifted the lid. The homemade barbeque pit emitted mouthwatering savory smells and sizzling sounds, and he began hawking his food to the customers who filed in and out of the biker bar.

  His rusty voice in the background, Killian whispered near my ear, “I just want you to see.”

  I let him guide me toward a window, much cleaner than the grime encrusted panes of the White Lair.

  I peeped over the sill, and it took only moments to locate Mercy among the big burly men.

  My hand clenched around Killian’s.

  He drew his arm over my shoulder, bending down to nuzzle the top of my head.

  Tears stung my eyes.

  “She’s okay.” I spoke through a rock in my throat.

  “Yeah.” His voice sounded just as strained.

  Mercy was more than okay.

  The tears slid hotly down my cheeks, tracking salty traces to my lips.

  Inside, Mercy appeared to be taunting the tall blond man in front of her, waving her finger under his nose then pressing him back with both hands on his chest. He threw his head back to laugh, and she wore a flirty smile. His hand coasted up her arm, and I noticed new tattoos.

  Which reminded me of the horrific brand her uncle had burned into her skin.

  Mercy tapped the hilt of a blade strapped at the waist of her skirt then flounced away.

  Grin on his mouth, her amorous pursuer darted after her to snake an arm around her waist. But she didn’t fight him. She just laughed when he hauled her around and kissed her deeply.

  Angel and Mercy.

  She’s clean. Alive. In love. Glowing.

  I burrowed into Killian’s chest. “Thank you. Thank you for showing me.”

  He smoothed a hand down my back, a bulwark of strength—he soothed me even while he set my body alight. My unlikely hero. The damn man who wouldn’t give up on me.

  He kissed the top of my head and guided me away from the front of the building. He kept me tucked against his side as Sol passed him a plastic bag filled to bursting with tangy-smelling vittles.

  And they shook hands.

  I swiped at my eyes, turning back one last time to look at Mercy.

  Hope for her filled my whole chest.

  No matter what happened to me, I could be happy for her now.

  We climbed back on the bike, no one the wiser.

  Killian had kept his vow.

  With the motorcycle once again rumbling thunderous vibrations, the black man—thin as a lamppost—leaned over me, his worn wise face wearing a sympathetic expression.

  To me alone, he whispered gruffly, “You be in da family way?”

  I nodded.

  “Bon dieu te benisse, et tes enfants.”

  ****

  We only stopped again when Killian had reached some sort of outdoor meadow. At this time of night, and in this cold, only a solitary, gigantic live oak stood sentinel over the hoary grass. Resurrection ferns feathered up from the knobby branches of the tree, and the whole thing took on a hauntingly beautiful silver glow from the moon up above.

  After hopping off the bike, Killian led me to a grassy knoll, although the grass was crunchy with a layer of frost.

  He spread a blanket, a self-conscious smile winging across his lips.

  “Midnight picnic?” I sat across from him, cupping my hands in front of my mouth to warm them.

  He immediately passed me a thermos, the heat from inside radiating against my palms.

  “Coffee in there.” He jerked his head, taking two stacked Styrofoam cups from a bag.

  Then he opened the fragrant bundle from Sol. “And I imagine some very tasty barbecue and homemade slaw in here. We should eat. You should eat.”

  I poured the coffee, and he opened the packages.

  Within moments, we were feasting on the most delicious pulled pork sandwiches, juices dripping down to our wrists.

  Killian thrust a wad of napkins at me, appreciatively watching each bite I took.

  He didn’t realize of course the baby kept me famished nearly all the time.

  Afterward, I sipped the strong coffee.

  Roark had me on a strict no caffeine diet.

  I didn’t think one cup of the good stuff was going to hurt, but the asshole micromanaged every step of my pregnancy . . . as was his right.

  Killian reclined half on his side, one leg drawn up. He rolled a cig, lit it, and sent spirals of smoke into the glittery black night.

  Lying back, I shut my eyes.

  The smoke, his leather, his scents surrounded me.

  And all the old memories tumbled back in a rush. Memories dredged and dug up from seeing Mercy—very few of the remembrances good in recent years.

  “What is it?” Killian asked.

  I shook my head.

  “What happened to you, sweetheart?”

  “That’s a darn long story.”

  “We have all night.”

  “We don’t though,” I said.

  “I know.” His hand cruising up my arm, he shifted his eyes aside.

  I could tell Killian was hiding a hurt inside himself, just like I was.

  Except I kept hiding so much more.

  He deserved some of the truth, at least.

  “I’m sorry I sprung the whole Mercy thing on you tonight.” He cupped the side of my face.

  I turned toward the warmth of his touch.

  I turned toward him.

  “I’m not.” I drew his fingers to my lips, kissing the tips, and he sucked in a breath and held it.

  Even though the night was chilly, heat surrounded us.

  Stubbing out the smoke, he gathered me to him until I rested in the lee of his shoulder, staring up at the infinite starry sky. “I met Mercy years ago, when I helped out her memaw at the homestead in Tennessee.”

  “She talks about her memaw a lot.”

  “She was the very best woman. Always a kind word. Mind, she could curse a person out, but she always had a place in her heart for lost souls. A place in her house.”

  I fell silent, and Killian jostled me a little. “What else?”

  “The first time I ventured out to the cabin, I’d been begging for food or work or both. Walking through knee-deep meadows sure made a change from beating the sidewalks, pretty much an urchin after my mom threw me out of the house because she got more money from the government for foster kids.”

  “Grace . . .” Leaning over me, Killian blotted out the sky.

  “Please don’t pity me.”

  He dropped back down, but I heard the clicking of his throat.

  “Those years were . . . magical. Think Disney World magical to a kid like me.” I snuggled closer to Killian, and he hugged me tight.

  “Except there weren’t any carnival rides. And there was lots of tough work to be done, but there was Mercy and her memaw . . . they took me in. They made me feel like part of the family too.”

  “You liked it there,” he murmured.

  “So much. Up at dawn to milk the cows and then—oh lord—the canning and pickling and the weeding. But there was always music. Sometimes Memaw and Mercy played the piano, but she had a record player too. And we ate . . . ate until our bellies were full of the good stuff we’d grown in the dirt.”

  Tilting my face to his, Killian peered at me with an intensity that bored inside my soul.

  “It all changed after Memaw passed. Everything changed.” I shut my eyes.

  “Their kinfolk didn’t let Mercy get the farm. Instead they put us into service for good use.” Shuddering when Killian scooped me against him, I mumbled, “Drugged us. Dragged us here. Made us fuck. And the night you all saved the other women, Ned was already selling me to Roark.”

  “Jesus fuck.” Killian rolled to his haunches, a dark distraught emblem hovering above me. “I went back for you. I went back for you so many fucking times.” He rub
bed his hands over his face. “We didn’t know.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “Well you goddamn should. I do.”

  How could he bear such guilt when he hardly even knew me?

  Up on my knees in front of him, I wrapped my arms around him. I tried to ease some of his burden just by holding this man who probably didn’t let anyone comfort him very often.

  I teased him lightly, “If you’d found me then, would we be having our little late night picnic now?”

  He chuckled wryly. “Don’t think that’s much of a consolation prize. I mean, biting cold isn’t exactly picnic weather, is it?”

  Then he drew back, but both of us still crouched together.

  He stared at me with hooded intensity, some kind of fire in his gaze that landed on my lips then traveled down my torso.

  “I do like the look of you in my leather though.”

  “Killian . . .”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” Except he huffed out a hoarse chuckle and he kept stroking his big hands up and down the column of my neck, his thumbs circling around my crazily thrumming pulses.

  Fraught desire did something to me . . . tightening my nipples and sending a flush of slick warmth to my pussy.

  Something I’d never experienced set upon me . . . the fervor of wanting a man.

  This singular man.

  And he must’ve read my desire, because he oh-so-slowly angled my neck and tilted my face toward his.

  The seriousness of his expression never abated but, more strongly, sheer potent longing emanated from him.

  Then his mouth was on mine. Oh, his lips. So warm and firm. Only our second kiss, and he wasn’t tentative. With a fierce grunt, his tongue speared inside, and he explored. He twisted and tangled and lunged then drew my tongue to his mouth, which made him groan.

  While our kiss grew wild and impetuous, his hands never strayed from those swirling soft caresses along the sensitive skin of my neck, until the pure want for him became agonizing.

  With a moan, I pushed him over to his back.

  He huffed once, then I was on him, and he gathered me to him with a strength that took my breath away.

  Our lips crashed together, and there was nothing gentle about the greediness with which we tasted. My lips would be raw, bruised, swollen, and I wanted that. Wanted to feel him all over me. Wanted him inside my body.

  Hands roaming while our heads twisted and our tongues lashed, I reveled in the depths of pleasure Killian delivered.

  When I felt the thick hard bulge of him pressed right at the juncture of my thighs, I gasped and pressed down for more.

  More of that male rigidity.

  More of that bold virility.

  He was absolutely hard everywhere.

  Then his hands slid inside the jacket. He lightly skimmed across my breasts, which yearned for more, to my belly . . .

  And he yanked his lips from mine. “My god, Grace. You’re pregnant!”

  Carried away by his kisses and caresses, I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten to keep his hands off me.

  His palm pressed right against the new firm mound where I was just beginning to show.

  Panting and wildly out of breath, I struggled up and away from him, lips still tingling from the pressure of his, from the slight sting of his thick beard.

  And his hands dropped to the blanket, then across his lap to conceal his erection. He closed his eyes. He steadied his breathing.

  He’d be disgusted with me now.

  I was disgusted with me.

  I sat away from him.

  Opening his eyes, he eased up across from me and sat there.

  He sat there silently until he said so flatly, “You’re pregnant.”

  “Yes.” Then I jutted my chin out. “I didn’t want the bastard’s child, but I want my baby.”

  Killian could think whatever the hell he wanted.

  I was done hiding.

  “I didn’t ask to be impregnated. Didn’t have a choice.” My hand climbing protectively to the small swell of my belly, I looked straight at him. “So the brothel is better—at least better than the Lair. My position is better . . . At least my baby will survive.”

  Killian bulked up like he had when confronting Roark earlier, and his blue eyes blazed with fury. “It’s that asshole’s? He fucking forced you to carry his baby?”

  “Of course it’s his.”

  “And he . . . let’s other fucks use you while you’re carrying his child?”

  I nodded. That was the whole bleak truth. Well, most of it.

  “That’s why you had Mistress Bunny tell me not to come on certain nights?” Killian put the pieces together quickly, looking more and more enraged with each passing second. He pounced up to his feet. “Those are his goddamn nights?”

  “Yes.”

  Killian stopped glaring long enough to help me to my feet when I began struggling up.

  He kept my hand in his, fingers grasping mine tightly as he searched my face for the rest of the truth.

  Then he did an about-face and shouted up to the sky, “FUCK!”

  He swung back to me just as quickly. “Fucking fuck, Grace. You want me to take you back there, don’t you? Even after all this fucking shit, you expect me to take you back there now?”

  “I can walk if I have to.”

  His face craggy with warring emotions, he stared at me until he spit out one more curse. “Like fuck. Jesus. Is it even safe to have a pregnant woman on the back of my bike?”

  He raked his hands through his hair, shaking his head at the ground. And I nearly laughed at the ridiculousness of where his mind went at a time like this.

  Still snug and warm in his leather while he wore nothing to guard against the cold except a long-sleeved T-shirt, I touched his forearm.

  “I’m sorry, Killian.”

  If I thought he’d looked worried or burdened or as if he carried the weight of the world on his broad shoulders before—well—now he just seemed as lost as I felt.

  “I’m sorry too, Grace.”

  I felt my throat constrict as tears threatened.

  With efficient moves, Killian discarded our trash, packed up the rest, folded the blanket on which we’d rolled around.

  He took my hand, led me to the Harley, buckled on my helmet then his.

  “You know, Sol figured it out with just one glance,” I said.

  “He would. He notices things others don’t. Not even me.” Killian’s gaze wandered to my belly, and he lifted his hand as if to touch me but stopped just short.

  “He said ‘Bon dieu te benisse, toi et tes enfants’. What does that mean?”

  Killian’s mouth curved into a sad semblance of a smile. “Something about bless you and your children.”

  That knot in the back of my throat returned.

  And stayed there.

  The entire ride back, Killian vibrated as much as the motorcycle, except it was rage pouring from him.

  He gunned down in front of the big white house, and his back bowed forward for a moment. He lifted himself off the bike then helped me. He took off my helmet, holding it in both hands.

  “I don’t have a choice,” I whispered.

  “That is such utter goddamn bullshit. You have choice. I’m giving you a choice!” He bellowed.

  And suddenly the doors of The House of Midnight opened, Roark and Mistress Bunny and myriad other women flooding onto the porch.

  Jaw clenching, Killian could’ve shot bullets with the lethal glare he pinned on my owner.

  “You recognized Roark earlier, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. You’re goddamn right I did.” Killian slowly returned his attention to me.

  “Whatever you’ve been up to, Killian Slade, I’m begging you stop it right now before everything gets a whole lot worse.”

  He acted like he didn’t even hear me. Instead he plopped my helmet down on the seat and hauled me into his arms.

  The kiss he gave me sent my world spinning. It was possessive.
Dominant. No less of a turn on despite the situation. Killian swept me fully up against his body and absolutely devoured my lips. I could only gasp and plunder back, looping my arms over his shoulders and pressing into him harder.

  When the thrilling combustible kiss came to an end, my knees were so weak I thought I’d collapse.

  But I didn’t.

  I could’ve collapsed or given up a thousand times before.

  But I hadn’t.

  I wouldn’t.

  Not even in that most painful moment when I gave Killian back his leather jacket when all I wanted to do was fall asleep with the scent of him wrapped around my body.

  “Goodbye, Grace.” His voice sounded hoarse, croaky.

  I couldn’t speak at all.

  “Come to me, Gracie,” Roark called from the porch.

  I hurried up the walkway before I could regret anything else.

  And I didn’t look back.

  Good. It was done. I didn’t have to see Killian again.

  I wouldn’t see him again.

  Except nothing had ever felt as good as his arms around me, his bulwark of strength against me, his warm lips slanted across mine.

  Nothing had felt as incredible as the sheer possibility with him.

  And nothing was more impossible.

  He probably hated me now.

  I wouldn’t blame him.

  For once Bunny didn’t have any smack talk or jokes or smiles. Just sad eyes as Roark quickly ushered me inside. She discreetly patted my hand—a sign of solidarity—and that was that.

  Chapter Seven

  SLADE

  GODDAMMIT!

  I wasn’t able to help Grace.

  I was helpless.

  Again.

  I was beginning to question my sanity.

  Ha.

  I’d begun thinking something was seriously fucking wrong with my judgment years ago. But goddammit. This whole situation . . . the fuck? Not only was Grace’s predicament disturbing and horrifying, it was seriously fucking fugazi.

  She was pregnant? She’d been forcibly inseminated? And the baby was that redheaded cunt-bag’s?

  Except this thing with Grace had never been a strategic plan.

  It wasn’t a simple operation.

  It sure as hell wasn’t cut and dried.

  And I just couldn’t quit Grace.

  No matter how much she pissed me off with her acceptance of the raw deal she’d been given.