by A. J. Downey
Stoker’s Serenity
The Virtues Book IV
A.J. Downey
Contents
COPYRIGHT
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Also by A.J. Downey
About the Author
Published 2019 by Second Circle Press
Text Copyright © 2019 A.J. Downey
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner and are not to be construed as real except where noted and authorized. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or names featured are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Editing by Barbara J. Bailey
Book design by Maggie Kern
Cover art by Dar Albert at Wicked Smart Designs
Dedication
To my dear readers who wanted more. Here it is. Also, to all my Metal friends. Your nobility is duly noted and inspiring. Like MC folk, you guys are a cut above. It was time that was recognized.
1
Serenity…
The din of the concert venue was out of this world. I guess I hadn't expected it to be so loud as Linny drew me through the crowd by my hand, laughing.
I'd had to borrow her clothes. I didn't have anything she'd deemed worthy for a night out on the town and by ‘worthy’, I mean ‘revealing’. I wore a pair of tight-fitting jeans and knee-high black velvet boots. Those were at least mine... the boots. The jeans were a new purchase, and the top was Linny's.
Shiny and metallic, it was held up by strings around the neck and around the back like a bathing suit.
The shiny silver material fell like water, pooling between my breasts, which were quite a bit bigger than Linny's and by sheer force of will, seemed to defy gravity enough to make the top bearable.
Still, I felt all kinds of exposed, and the only thing that helped keep me from feeling like I was running around naked was the black velvet choker that was around my neck.
No ornament, just simple and black, to match the boots and dark jeans.
"Come on!" Linny cried. "Closer to the mosh pit!"
I rolled my eyes but acquiesced to her enthusiasm as the metal guitarist on stage shredded his solo into oblivion. The crowd, whipped into enthusiasm, rolled and roiled like the sea on a stormy night and my link to my best friend was severed.
“Serenity!” she cried out, but she was swallowed by the crowd and I was swept in the opposite direction, buffeted by a tide of muscle, sweat, leather, and chains.
I yelped in surprise as I was thrust up hard against a guy with a red Mohawk, practically shirtless, his tee in shreds around his waist, the guyliner dripping from his eyes like ruined tears from how hard he was sweating.
“Hey, baby, what you doing out here?” He grinned and I tried not to cringe at his discolored teeth. Meth mouth was something prevalent out here.
I was grabbed and pulled another direction, hands reaching, groping, and helping themselves to my body, a handful of my ass, a breast, even so bold as to grab me by the front of my jeans over my crotch.
I cried out and found myself fetched up against another man who crowed like a rooster, his head thrown back, and clearly drunk. He snatched a fistful of the front of Linny’s silver shirt and jerked.
I screamed, my arms going up and covering myself as the strings holding the material to my body gave way, popping loose from their moorings and leaving me exposed for real. The cloth was dragged from my body, fluttering to the floor to be trampled under a mix of black combat and steel-toed work boots.
“Hey!” someone shouted, and a wall of leather moved in between me and my assailant. A scuffle ensued and I forced my way away from it, rounding my shoulders, hunching forward, moving my smaller frame between the crush of bodies whenever a gap or opportunity presented itself, working my way doggedly toward the edge of the undulating crowd, most of them oblivious to my distress.
“Hey, hey, hey! It’s okay!” I heard just as thick leather, warm with body heat, enveloped my shoulders, and cut me off from view of any would-be prying eyes.
Tears slicked down my cheeks as an arm went heavy across my back, guiding me out of the mash of people. My white knight tucked me into the front of his much larger frame and bodily shoved people when necessary, moving us both out of the concert crowd and toward the front of the building where the bathrooms and the merch tables were.
“Hang on, hold up; wait!” The voice was warm, velvet with a core of steel and I froze, letting my long dark hair hide my face. I stopped in my tracks, my chest heaving.
The voice shouted over the top of my head, hands kneading my shoulders through the thick leather of his coat reassuringly.
“Rory! Gimme a band tee!”
“What size?”
“I don’t care!” the voice barked. “Just give me one!”
Whoever Rory was, he flung a tee, and the person at my side caught it one-handed and thrust the warm cotton over the top of my right shoulder and into my hands. I struggled to grab the offer of more substantial cover without letting the coat that was my only shield for my modesty gape, rendering it ineffective.
“Come on, this way,” he urged and took me to the line of waiting ladies for the bathroom. He marched me past all of them and thrust me toward the door, telling a couple to leave me alone when they got upset.
“Quit‘cher bitchin’! She’s not going in there to pee, your spot in line is safe!”
He stopped me with a shouted, “Hey!” and I paused, turning halfway, but still not looking at him. I kept my eyes fixed studiously to the wall, instead. “Bring me back my jacket and cut as soon as you get that on,” he called to me. I gave a curt nod and darted into the bathroom and away from the din, confusion, and dirty looks from the girls out there in line.
The atmosphere inside the beat-up bathroom was vastly different from outside of it.
The ladies in that bathroom were everything, helping me into the tee as I sobbed, listening to my story as I shook, and thrusting the man’s jacket into my hands as they fussed over me and fixed my makeup so I didn’t look so dreadful going back out th
ere.
I stared at the colorful embroidery on the back of the patch, a giant orange octopus dragging a ship under the waves. I’d seen it before, but on very rare occasions, out on the highway.
“There you go, hon. Good as new,” a blonde woman proclaimed, as she took a final swipe of a damp paper towel under my eye.
I thanked her, my voice shaking, and, unsteady on my feet, I stumbled back out into the noise. The cacophony of wailing guitars and screamed-out lyrics was overwhelming; the dim light, broken by strobes, confusing; the hot, oppressive atmosphere too much.
Thank God he came up to me and took his coat back from my trembling hands. I hadn’t thought to look at him before, through my anxiety and humiliation. I didn’t know who he was, but as he swung his coat around and put his arms through the heavy sleeves, I nearly swallowed my own tongue.
He was gorgeous.
Muscles lean, body cut, long black hair, and a face that belonged on a classic statue or painting of the devil himself, freshly fallen to earth.
Most people don’t realize that the devil isn’t as horrific as he is typically portrayed. No, he wasn’t all horns and cloven hoof. The fallen angel who reigned in Hell was quite the opposite, said to be so beautiful that it hurt to look upon him.
This man was like that, too. So beautiful to me it took my breath away, a sort of fractured ache taking up residence in the center of my chest, where my heart still quailed from my humiliation and recent trauma.
“The name’s Stoker,” he shouted over the noise, folding himself at the waist to put his lovely lips closer to my ear. “What’s yours?”
“Serenity,” I answered, swallowing hard. “My friends just call me Ren.”
“Sorry, I can’t hear you,” he half-shouted and I tried again, raising my voice.
“Serenity!” I called out.
“Nice to meet you, Serenity,” he shouted for my benefit. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head and blurted out, “I just want to go home!”
He frowned in empathy and put his hand on my shoulder giving it a quick squeeze, turning me towards the open doors and the deep Florida night just outside. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ll take you home myself if I have to.”
2
Stoker…
“I don’t know where she is, her boyfriend drove us here. We got separated in the crowd and, well, you know the rest…”
Her cheeks flamed under the supernova-harsh blue-white light of the floodlight at the front corner of the venue. The captain was in hardcore conversation with some of the bouncers, no doubt giving them a rip for not being more attentive. He had a talent for tearing your ass a new one without doing it in such a way that you got all butt-hurt over it. No doubt, knowing him, knowing our history with coming up against traffickers and sexual predators, he was talking them into looking the other way while the rest of the crew beat some fucking ass out in the parking lot. The little shoving match close to the pit was just a preview of coming attractions; those assholes inside just didn’t know it yet.
I turned back to little Serenity. She was a petite thing, almost doll-sized, practically drowning in the band tee Rory’d tossed my way. He was the guitarist for the band I was in. We’d been one of the opening acts earlier in the night.
Her skin was pale for Florida living, her eyes large and dark under long and equally dark hair that fell to her waist, just above the perfect curve of her ass, which was hidden by the dumpy black band tee, and yeah – I know – it was my band’s tee, but she was suited to something like a size small, something that would hug the swell of her breasts and caress the inward curve of her body before the flare of her hips.
She was beautiful, a perfect hourglass figure under the extra-large shirt.
I knew, because I’d been planning to talk to her before she’d been swept away by the surge and roll of bodies at the edge of the mosh pit.
Her voice was light and lyrical as it broke through the feminine spell she had unintentionally cast on me. Fool, you cast it on yourself, I chastised myself, but didn’t spare it another thought, tuning in to what she had to say.
“I need my keys and my purse… I can’t get into my apartment and all I have is my ID in these damn jeans.” She slid her hand into her back pocket and extracted the little laminated rectangle of cardboard, then put it back.
“Wouldn’t be a problem if they gave us some actual pockets,” she complained and scrabbled her fingertips against where, it appeared, front pockets existed in her jeans. But they were sewn shut, no pockets to be had. I never got that. Still, she was being hella cute and I cracked a smile and had to chuckle.
“I don’t get why they do that to girls,” I said, for lack of something smooth or clever to say instead.
She frowned. “Same reason they do anything. Money and greed,” she said simply. “No pockets means we have to buy their accessories, like wallets and purses. Fashion trends dictate we have to buy a purse and shoes for every outfit. It’s a racket.” She pressed her lips together and averted her gaze, her cheeks coloring bright pink all over again as she muttered, “Don’t get me started.”
I laughed a little and said, “I’m sure your friend is looking for you; she’ll find you out here soon enough. I can wait with you.”
“Thanks.” She hugged herself like she was cold, which was a joke in and of itself. It was like standing in somebody’s sauna out here. Mid-eighties and humid despite the deepening night. Summers in Florida were nothing to fuck with, especially this far inland. I was seriously missing the inner coastal region where Ft. Royal lay, practically on the bubble of the curve of the penn.
It wasn’t cooler by much, but any breeze off the ocean was better than the stagnancy out here.
“Where do you live, anyway? I can maybe take you home.”
She opened her mouth to reply, the rush of her inhaled breath sharp, but she closed it so sharply before speaking I could swear her teeth clacked.
“I mean, I have a ride, I just have to wait for them to come out. I don’t want to put you out any further than you already have been.”
“Hey, I told you.” I spoke gently. “It’s no trouble, and before you even suggest it, I’m not leaving you out here to wait all alone.”
She smiled and it was edged in a sadness, but she murmured a thank you. A long pause ensued and she let out a shuddering nervous breath before asking, “So what do you do when you aren’t saving hapless females from concert ruffians?”
I had opened my mouth to reply when the fast-paced clacking of approaching boot heels interrupted me, followed shortly thereafter by, “Ren! What are you doing out here!? I’ve been looking all over for you!”
“Oh, God, Linny!” Serenity intercepted her friend, brushing past me, and her perfume, a light, airy, floral scent tickled my nose slightly. I liked it. I figured I would like her, given a chance to get to know her. I turned and her much taller and much blonder friend embraced her smaller, darker, counterpart.
“What happened?” Linny demanded. “And where’s my shirt?”
Serenity went about filling her friend in, and she couldn’t help it, she got tearful again. I got the impression that she didn’t get out much, which was a shame. She was a beautiful girl.
Her friend hugged her when Serenity started getting apologetic about losing her friend’s shirt, of all the dumb things, and shushed her. “It’s fine, it’s just a stupid shirt!” she exclaimed.
“I know, but you trusted me to wear it and –”
“You didn’t even want to wear it, you goof, and I’m not the least bit worried about it. I’m worried about you.” Her friend looked up at me, and said with a sigh, “Thank you for looking out for her. I hate to ask, but do you think you could wait with her for just a little while longer while I go find my boyfriend?”
I nodded and said, “It’s no trouble at all, you do what you gotta do. She’s cool.” I winked at Serenity, who was looking back at me over her shoulder, and her friend stepped back and let her go.
>
“Two minutes, I swear, and then I’m getting you the fuck out of here. I’ve never seen a crowd do that before. Usually metal guys are like him.” She thrust her chin at me. “Some of the nicest guys out there. I’m so sorry, Ren.”
“It’s okay,” Serenity said, taking a step back from the taller blonde. “I just want to go home, though.”
“Absolutely, two minutes, I promise!” her friend called, walking backwards back to the door. My captain and his woman were looking this way and I gave them a nod. They went back to talking softly, over by the bikes, and I turned back to Serenity who was wincing as she looked at me.
“You must think I’m a total headcase,” she said.
I shook my head. “No. I have to figure you don’t get out much. Makes me feel bad for you that when you finally let yourself be talked into going out this is the kind of shit you have happen.”
She let out an explosive breath. “You’re right,” she said, gazing out toward the street with its occasional passing set of headlights. “I haven’t been getting out much aside from work. Partially because money, but mostly because I’m just a homebody. Linny really wanted me to come, although I prefer low-key to all of –”She waved her hand back at the building and the drone of muffled bass pounding out from the walls. “This.”
I smiled and nodded, burying my hands in the pockets of my frayed jeans. “I’m headed that way myself,” I said honestly, sucking in a breath between my teeth. “The older I get, the more I’m liking spending time on the beach by the bonfire versus the constant grind of gigs that cost me more money than they pay out, only to get absolutely nowhere. It’s frustrating, you know?”
