Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC)

N
o part
of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

T
his is a work of fiction
. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

L
ucky’s story
is one that I have wanted to tell since we met him in
Making the Cut
. I knew I couldn’t write it until the time was right. His character is so much more than the joker we’ve met in previous books. There is darkness in him that has never seen the light of day — until now. This is still a love story, but it’s darker than I’ve ever gone. Bex is a complicated character with heartbreaking demons that might be triggers for some people.

T
his book depicts addiction
, rape, child abuse, and violence. It’s different than previous books in the Sons of Templar series but I love every page of Bex and Lucky’s story, even the parts that broke my heart to write.

I
hope
you fall in love too.

A
nne

xxx

E
veryone measures time differently
; the most common, of course, is hours, minutes, years, days. People count the days until weekend, until their next holiday, the moment they can sink onto a sofa after a long day. That’s what life is, a big yawning expanse of time, and we find different ways to measure it along the way. Pass it. Find ways to distract ourselves from the grim reality of mortality.

I say we. I mean
they.
It’s tempting to include myself in the proverbial we, to give myself at least the illusion of belonging. But I don’t have time for illusions. For euphemisms.

They
measured time like that. I didn’t. Ever since I was old enough to grasp the concept, I understood I was different. My mind never thought in those terms, searching for a yardstick to measure my existence. I was too busy trying to
survive
. I lived in the present, the moment. I had to. The luxury of daydreams or plans for the future meant getting lost in my own head. Being more vulnerable than I already was.

That’s my long-winded way of saying I had a less-than-stellar childhood, where I had to be on the ball if I wanted to stay alive. If that’s what it was back then.

In this yawning tunnel of the present I’ve found myself in for most of my life, there was a time when I did venture tentatively into the future. Made plans. Dreams.

Then it was all shot to shit.

I couldn’t tell you, not even an estimate, on the amount of time I’d been in the damp concrete matchbox with a prison-style bed and steel bucket serving as the only décor. The rusty handcuff on my wrist served as my only accessory. I mean
only
; nothing else covered my body. The rough cotton sheet scratched my bruised skin when I huddled under it for warmth.

Hours. Days. Weeks. Months, even. It was possible. I couldn’t say. I also couldn’t say how long it had been since I’d eaten, showered.

I was measuring time differently now.

The next hit.

There was no such thing as the passing of the sand in the hourglass. The rising or setting of the sun. Only the yawning chasm of loneliness and despair between now and my next fix.

It had been a while, I knew. Too long. A thin layer of sweat covered my body, despite the chill in the air. My heart thumped in my chest, the beats seeming to hasten with every passing second. I had been deprived of my medicine, my escape, once before, and I knew it wouldn’t be too long until I was hunched over that bucket, sick from not getting what I needed.

Dying. Convinced I was, anyway.

I sat on my hands, the only way to stop from picking at my skin. My eyes were glued on the steel door in the corner of the room. Not so I could devise an escape plan, but willing it to open, for my next fix to be on the other side. That was the only escape I needed.

A murky memory surfaced as I distractedly hummed a long-forgotten lullaby.

“You’re stronger than this,” he told me, his voice serious and soft.

“Than what?” I half hissed, aware that my voice was far from soft.

He stepped forward, cupping my chin in his hand, choosing to ignore the way my body stiffened at the contact. “Than letting some demon have control over your body, like your skin is merely a vehicle, an empty vessel,” he said, eyes blazing.

I blinked, his words jabbing me like tiny spears. Anger bubbled up from the cauldron it had been simmering in. Not because he was wrong—because he was
right
. That was the problem. For someone who seemed so obtuse, he knew far too much. Saw far too much.

“You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about,” I snapped.

With a tilt of his head and a hardening of those hazel eyes, he saw. Saw it all. “I know what it’s like to have the monkey on your back, to feel the need not to fill the void in your soul but disguise it.” His hand tightened on my chin. “I may not know everything, as much as I’d like to think I do. But I at least know that. I also know what beauty is. True beauty. Mostly ’cause I’m staring straight at it. I know there’s nothing I can ultimately do to make sure that beauty don’t get tainted with ugly. That’s up to you. What I can do is remind you that you’re
more
. More than you think you are. A fuck of a lot more,” he declared.

I blinked at him. His words struck a chord deep within me. Maybe it was because no matter how hard I tried to deny it, I felt something for him. Maybe it was because it was unnerving to see him so serious, not a glint of joking in his hazel eyes. Whatever it was, in that second, that moment, I believed him.

The screeching of the metal door on rusty hinges jerked me out of my daydream.
Lucky too
, I thought for a second. Maybe unluckily.

Lucky.

I wished I could stay in that intangible place in my mind, get lost in that memory. Because now, after hurtling out of it, my entire body showed what a failure I was. How weak I had been.

“Junkie ready for her medicine?” a rough voice asked.

I scrambled as close as I could to the figure in the door, not caring about my nudity. I had in the beginning.

Before.

Before I gave in, I had cared about a lot of things. What they were going to do with my body. What my future held. The fate of my friends. My only family.
Him
.

That was then. Now I didn’t care about the horrors my vacant body endured while my mind numbed me from the pain of the present, took away the filth that lived under my skin. Didn’t care about the pain, which there was a lot of. It was creeping back now as the numbness receded. The steel of the cuffs had scraped a lot of the skin on my wrists away. It wasn’t pretty.

Though I guessed from the way I smelled, and with the matting of blood, dirt, and grease, that I wasn’t going to be winning any beauty contests.

A hand reached down to squeeze my breast roughly. I flinched at the pain, intensified by the fact my body was in the first stages of withdrawal. I was unable to move far past my position on the floor, and my flinch caused my head to collide with the edge of my bed.

There was a cruel laugh from above me.

“Don’t pretend you don’t love it, whore. I know better than anyone how much you enjoy me, how much you want it,” the voice sneered.

I glanced up, anger bubbling from deep inside me. Somehow, I managed to muster a glare filled with contempt and venom, despite my body and soul crying out for what he held in his brutish hand.

“Fuck you,” I hissed in a barely audible croak. My voice was raw from screaming, although I thought I had endured it silently—the torture, the abuse of my body. Obviously not.

He grinned and I felt sick to my stomach at the sight of it. Of him. His muscled body dwarfed my small form curled on the floor. Even if I had been standing, he would have towered over me. He was built, though not all muscle; his stomach protruded over the belt of his slacks. His hair was combed over and thick with grease. His beady dull blue eyes held me captive. Not a hint of humanity lingered beyond them as they roved over my battered and filthy body.

“I’ll do that soon. You’ll be begging for it,” he mused, then held his meaty arm out in front of me.

My eyes bulged at the object. Despite wanting to be as far away from the sick fuck as possible, my body betrayed me, lurching forward to snatch the precious package from his hands.

I wasn’t quick enough, and he yanked it out of my grasp. It wasn’t hard; my entire body was shaking and I barely had the energy to hold my weight. I knew it was because of malnourishment, of the abuse I had endured, but none of that mattered.

“Not so fast,” he cooed, making a clicking noise with his mouth. “You get this”—he swung the package—“only when you agree.”

I stared at his hand. “Agree to what?”

He nodded. “Agree to anything we say. We
own
you now. As long as you agree, then we’ll take care of you. We’ll give you your medicine, as much as you want, for as long as you perform for us,” he explained.

I didn’t watch his facial expressions. I couldn’t. My gaze was fixed on the one thing that would help, that would make the shame, the filth, everything go away.

“We’ll take the handcuffs off,” he continued. “Maybe even let you shower, if you’re a good girl. As long as you keep your customers satisfied, keep Carlos satisfied.” He grasped my chin roughly and yanked my shaking body off the ground. Beady eyes met mine. “Keep
me
satisfied,” he drawled, his putrid breath making me gag.

My violated body knew the meaning of those words. They’d kept me there for however long, strung out and abusing me when the need came to them, which was often. I knew there was an endgame.

This was it.

“I agree,” I said without hesitation, holding out my shaking hand.

He smiled, revealing yellowing teeth. “That wasn’t hard, was it? Why did you give us so much resistance before?” He clucked his teeth once more.

Had I resisted? All I remembered was giving in. Finally taking the escape they offered after they’d beaten me. Starved me. Until I surrendered. How long ago was that? It felt like forever. Like nothing had existed before this. Like I’d always been there.

Something dangled in front of my face.

I snatched the package and frantically tore open the bag. My entire body was convulsing, and it took me a frustratingly long time to get it where it needed to be. To get out of this room. To escape the filth covering every inch of me. The filth that was me.

I finally got it—the escape, the relief. Everything melted away once more and my mind was freed from the shackles of my body. Gloriously, I barely registered the brutal way my body was pushed onto the rickety bed. The stinking weight that settled on top of me, the intrusion that pushed into me, dirtying my insides once more.

I wasn’t there. I was somewhere else. Beyond caring. Beyond anything.

I didn’t even jump at the dull bang that seemed to echo in my head. At the sudden emptiness above me as the body was yanked away.

My vacant eyes danced to the source of the noise, the reason for the various male curses and fury that even I could feel.

Then I watched, with a vague sort of detachment, as a familiar man in a leather vest savagely beat the creature who had just moments before been raping me. The rational part somewhere deep inside me both cheered and reared away from this.

He’s killing him
.

That was good. No, that was great. But
he
, the man who smiled at almost anything and always had a joke on his lips, was killing him. Because of me. That was a mark on his soul I would be responsible for.

I wanted to say something. To tell him to stop. But I couldn’t. I was paralyzed.

I felt myself being covered with something, rough leather that smelled of tobacco and oil. The voices above me moved in slow motion, muffled as if my ears were stuffed with cotton wool I couldn’t get out.

The room swayed.

Or maybe it was me who swayed because I was no longer on the bed. I was floating like a cloud, watching the man with the hazel eyes kick something on the floor. Shapes moved around him, trying to pull him away, I guessed.

My cloud moved. I shifted my gaze. I wasn’t floating. I was in someone’s arms. Strong arms. Scarred arms. The rippled patches on them seemed like they were moving. I held my finger to them and trailed it lightly along the moving scars, hypnotized. Everything else in the room was forgotten.

But not the man with the hazel eyes. He still existed. Somewhere.