Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC) (18 page)

I swallowed coal and put it down with a shaking hand, not looking his way even though his stare was burning into the nape of my neck. I kept wandering around the edge of the room. Taking in his cluttered living room, motorcycle parts, beer bottles, and magazines swallowing the coffee table in front of his leather sofa. “It’s a terrible paradox,” I continued. “I’m old without the peace and wisdom that comes with age. I’m just jaded.” I regarded the mirror I’d wandered to. I didn’t have the lines of age, and my pale skin was in surprisingly good condition considering the fact I more often than not slept in my makeup, barely got any sleep, and shot poison into my veins. My jet-black hair was similarly healthy, shiny, and tumbling down to the faded ends I dip-dyed when I needed a splash of color in my gray world. It was my eyes. That’s what sold it. “Old, jaded, and hard,” I said to my reflection. “And I’m so terribly fucking young because I make decisions based on what’s directly in front of me. Don’t consider consequences. Or other people, for that matter.” My mind went to Lily, the way I’d started to drag her down into my downwards spiral before Asher yanked her out.

Gabriel had been silent for my whole monologue. So silent that, if it weren’t for the heat at my back from his stare, I would’ve thought I was talking to myself.

Which I kind of was.

I sighed. “You know, I used to think drugs gave me clarity. That I could see the world for what it truly was when I was high.” I laughed. “Yeah, I was that deluded. Now I’m clean.” I fiddled with the fireplace pokers. “Or at least trying to be. And I can see everything so much clearer than I ever have. I don’t exactly like it, but it’s me. So I’ve got to deal.”

Suddenly he whirled me around and clutched my neck roughly, his eyes alight.

“Know your secret babe.”

My heart dipped and acid crept up my throat. “My secret?” I repeated in a small voice, all traces of bravado gone like a plastic bag in the wind.

His hands circled my hips, pulling my body flush to his. He regarded me in a way that made me want to freeze the moment. I’d never had anyone look at me like that in my entire life. Like I was someone worth something. Worth the devotion that glittered in the backs of those eyes. “Yeah, firefly. The secret you keep to your chest.” His finger trailed my breastbone lightly. “Beneath all the hardness you put so much effort into building up. Beneath that hard beauty. There is the most beautiful and caring soul I’ve ever encountered.” Somehow the look in his eyes became more intense and I felt myself unable to tear my gaze away, as much as self-preservation screamed at me to.

“The hard, babe, it’s for the world out there. A world that was hell-bent on destroying you. I get that. In fact, I stand here utterly fucking shocked that I’m not holding the broken pieces of that beautiful woman I’ve been dreaming of since I laid my eyes on your sweet ass.” His eyes twinkled. “Somehow, by some miracle, you’re not broken. You’re whole. Beautiful. And soft. Most beautiful kind of soft ’cause the rest of the world gets hard. I get this.” He circled the area above my heart, sending a wave of heat to my toes. To the place I thought would be icy cold forever.

“I may hate that you’ve had to build that shield, babe, that life has made it necessary. Another part of me is glad as fuck it’s there ’cause without it I wouldn’t be holding you in my arms, wouldn’t be able to taste how sweet it is beneath that.” He paused his monologue to press a chaste kiss on my mouth. I yearned for more, for it to deepen, the fire in my belly burning brighter than ever.

He pulled back slightly, his nose still brushing mine, and I watched him as if his impossible words had hypnotized me. “Don’t worry, firefly. I’ll keep your secret. I just want you to know that you don’t need all that hard. To use up all that energy trying to shut out the world. That’s my job now. To protect that soft, all the while making sure no one knows about it ’cause then I won’t be able to do a damn thing all day but knock motherfuckers out who try and get my girl.” He gave me a look. “No motherfucker’s gonna get my girl. Therefore, I need to hide the evidence that, in addition to being a fuckin’ knockout with tits, ass, and legs, and a beautiful vocab to boot, you’re also soft and beautiful on the inside. That’s for me. Only me.” His hand moved to my neck to grip it firmly. “Also, I have other things I want to do with my days apart from knocking motherfuckers out. Though, it is good for the soul to punch a douche every now and again.” He jutted his chin up in false thought. “I can think of one thing I’d much rather spend my days doing. Making love to my girl.”

I was about to open my mouth and ruin that beautiful moment by declaring I was most certainly not his girl.

My words were swallowed in a kiss.

As was my protest.

Because the way he fucked me all night long had me believing I might just be his girl.

Until I woke up, at least. And the grim light of day exposed his beauty… and my reality. So I snuck out before I was tempted to say ‘fuck reality’ and lose myself in that beauty.

If I had the luxury of seeing the future I wouldn’t have snuck out. Wouldn’t have left that beauty. I would’ve clutched it in a death grip if I’d known it was the last slice I’d ever get. Before ugliness swallowed me whole.

* * *

I
closed
the trunk of my car and tilted my head towards the sky, smiling. Yes, smiling. And doing something as simple as appreciating the warmth of the sun.

Of course, such a gesture would most likely singe my pale skin and open me up to potential melanoma, but for once I was seeing the silver lining.

I was basking in the light.

I was doing well.

One could almost cautiously say I was doing great.

I still craved it. Every single day. But I was learning how to handle it. Learning how to fill my life up with other things. Healthy things. No, I wasn’t drinking green juices or foregoing Pop-Tarts—that would never happen—but I was being more outgoing. Hanging with Rosie, and with Lily when she wasn’t studying or wrapped up in her husband. I was making friends with some of the girls at the club, despite the fact they’d fucked the guy I couldn’t admit was a huge factor in how well my life was going.

Of course, since it was going well, when the sun was beginning to rise, that’s exactly when the eclipse hit.

No, that’s when the whole entire sun exploded in spectacular, painful disaster and I was wrenched into permanent darkness.

I’d just finished a grocery shop. One I could actually pay for and have some left over. I was toying with the idea of treating myself to some new boots when a figure blocked out the sun in front of me.

When I saw who it was, my good mood dissipated. “No. Not happening,” I said, trying to skirt around Dylan’s steroid-abused body.

A hand at my arm stopped me. Pain erupted from the tightness of his grip.

“Let me go,” I hissed. My eyes darted around the empty parking lot.

Just my fucking luck. Right when I might welcome a hero, there were none to be seen.

“Not so fast, bitch. Carlos would like a conversation,” Dylan growled, yanking me into his face.

“Well, considering I’m no longer employed by that dickweed, I don’t have to come running when he calls. And because I’m no longer too high to care about things like self-respect, I’m not screwing you anymore. So let me go,” I commanded.

His eyes turned to slits. “It wasn’t a fucking request.”

Then there was nothing. The sunshine seeped away.

I’d never feel its warm glow again.

“
H
ell is
empty and all the devils are here.”

-Shakespeare

He woke up without even realizing he’d been asleep. It was a strange feeling. Like surging up from underwater and still having liquid seeping into your lungs. He thought it was from some bender he’d been on, a particularly bad hangover. He reached for her.

Then he realized some things. He didn’t ‘do’ benders. Not anymore. Not since her.

Since he’d found his beautiful, wild, and fucking damaged girl. One who had so many demons behind those green eyes he’d be fighting them the rest of his life.

She’d tried to fight one set of demons with a whole other monster. One who’d almost taken her off the face of the earth.

So he didn’t tie one on anymore. Didn’t abuse any substances apart from the fucking intoxicating pussy she had him addicted to.

It was out of respect for her and because he didn’t fuckin’
want
to. He mostly partied and fucked different women to escape his own shit, the darkness he spent every second of every day hiding.

He didn’t have to hide with her, and he didn’t want to escape with her. It was because of his own darkness that she was herself with him.

That’s where he recognized the second thing. She wasn’t there. Not because he couldn’t touch her but because he couldn’t smell her. And from his experience of sleeping with her, despite her insistence of giving them ‘boundaries,’ she’d clung to him in unconsciousness when her waking hours were spent pushing him away.

So he almost always woke up with his little spitfire attached to him and her scent imprinted on him.

The only thing he smelled was a harsh chemical. Something he recognized. He also recognized he couldn’t move his hand, and there was a fuck of a lot of cotton in his mouth.

He fought against the heaviness of his limbs and managed to open his eyelids. The first thing he saw was a tube attached to his arm, and that’s when the memories came back.

Fucking Carlos in the club. He and his goons had Lily. Shot him. He’d remembered that. It hurt. A lot. He was sure he was a goner. You didn’t survive a bullet wound to the chest.

And when he’d lain there, the life seeping out of him, he’d been scared. Terrified. Not at meeting the reaper; that was something he’d expected ever since he’d patched into the Sons.

Everyone was living on borrowed time. Putting a patch on and a gun every morning just made it stolen time.

Someone was stealing it back.

That also didn’t scare him.

It was the fuck’s words that echoed in his brain before the pain had exploded into his chest. It was the gloating smugness that had been behind those words that haunted him before Carlos tried to turn him into a ghost.

He’d been ordered to go to the strip club to get accounts or some shit. A prospect job, surely, but he’d go. Because he knew, and Cade knew, he’d take any fuckin’ excuse to go there. Or to find some reason to burn the place to the fuckin’ ground in order to stop Becky from taking her clothes off for money.

Yeah, she was good at it. Had a fuckin’ talent for it, like she was born to it.

But she wasn’t. She was born for more. So much fucking more. To conquer the goddamn world with her fire and beauty, and to bring him along for the ride.

She was born to be his. He knew that. He’d known it since he’d fuckin’ met her. He just had to wait for her to realize it.

He’d been brainstorming ways to speed up that particular process—whipped cream featured heavily—when he ran into Lily. Then he ran into trouble. Big fucking trouble. Trouble being Carlos and his fuckin’ goons ambushing them in the deserted strip club in the middle of the fuckin’ day.

Biggest of trouble being the last words Carlos had said before someone plugged him with a bullet.

“I’m afraid Rebecca won’t be coming to the phone right now.”

Then there was nothing but white-hot pain.

The memory was like an electric shock to his limbs. He tried to move but it was beyond a struggle, like someone had attached cement blocks to his arms and legs.

“Easy, brother,” a voice warned.

Lucky glared at his best friend and struggled against his hold, but he was weak. Apparently getting shot took it out of you. It was laughably easy for Asher to push him back to horizontal.

“Lily?” Lucky asked with concern, memories of the club coming back in a flash. Not just Becky in danger, but Lily.

Asher’s jaw hardened and Lucky’s form tightened. If anything happened to his best friend’s wife, it would haunt them both for the rest of their fucking lives. Lucky would blame himself for the rest of his fucking life.

“She’s good,” Asher reassured him.

He allowed himself to sink back into the lumpy bed.

“You get to her in time?” Lucky asked.

Something worked behind his brother’s eyes. “Not exactly,” he said, his voice thick.

Lucky sensed the heaviness in the air. It made him more than a little uneasy. “What happened? Obviously the big guy upstairs, or downstairs, has bigger and better things planned for me, hence me being awake and still stronger than you,” he teased. “What did I do? Drag my bloodied body to Carlos and snap his neck?” he asked hopefully.

Asher shook his head but didn’t smile.

Lucky was unnerved even more.

“Brother?” he probed.

Asher sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “After they shot you, they tied Lily up, set the place on fire,” he explained, his voice flat.

“Fuckers,” Lucky hissed.

Asher nodded. “Lily managed to get free. Dragged your lazy ass out of there before you could get barbequed.”

“Lazy?” Lucky repeated. “I’d been shot. I deserved a cat nap. Tell me Lily’s okay.”

Asher’s eyes darkened. “She’s good. She got a burn on her hand. It’ll scar.”

Lucky could feel his brother’s fury; it mingled with his own. “Please tell me they’re dead. And that you left one for me to play with. And that Becky made sure whoever was stupid enough to try and catch her is sterile.”

There it was again, that look. It was something more than his woman’s life being threatened, though there was plenty of fury on that score. Something else hid behind Asher’s cold eyes.

Something that turned Lucky’s own blood.

“Not exactly,” Asher said.

Lucky sat up, grunting at the effort. “Tell me,” he gritted out.

Asher eyed him. “How about we wait until the bullet wound isn’t quite so fresh?”

“Fuckin’ spit it out,” Lucky ordered.

“I tell you, you gotta trust that the club’s got it covered.”

Lucky nodded.

“Need your word.”

“Fuck, you’ve got my word. You know I’d trust the club with my life. Spit it out. I need my beauty sleep.” He could feel darkness edging closer to the center of his vision.

“We didn’t get her back. By the time we got to the club all traces of Carlos were gone. He’s in the wind.” Asher said quietly.

Lucky froze. “What?”

“Bex,” Asher muttered, his eyes dark. “The whole club’s already out. We’ll find her—”

Lucky ripped out his cords and shit to push out of the bed. Asher had to stop talking in order to restrain him.

All sorts of machines starting ringing with a shrill beep.

Lucky ignored it and fought against Asher’s grip. “Fuckin’ let me go!” he roared.

Asher didn’t stop. “You said you’d trust the fuckin’ club.”

Lucky might’ve had a bullet in his chest, but that meant nothing,
nothing
,
when he knew they had her. It’d take a bullet to his skull to stop him from fighting to get to her.

“I trust the club with my life. Not with hers. I trust no one with hers. Let me go, brother, or I’ll fuckin’ kill you!” he yelled.

Doors opened and doctors rushed in. Lucky ignored their shouts. He had one destination in mind.

Becky.

Hers was the last face he saw when they injected him with tranquilizer.

And it wasn’t the beautiful face he was used to. This one had been overcome by demons she was just beginning to chase away.

“I need it to be said that I highly advise against this,” the doctor said, frowning.

Lucky shrugged on his cut, not wincing at the pain that came with the movement. He embraced it. The pain was his fucking fuel. He felt a renewed sense of power with that leather on his back.

“So noted, Doc,” he replied.

The doctor stood in front of him, blocking his way. It took a fuck of a lot of restraint not to push him bodily. It didn’t matter that the guy was pushing fuckin’ sixty and was a goddamned civilian, one who’d saved his life at that. His rage didn’t discriminate. This man was an obstacle standing between him and Becky. Obstacles were to be eliminated.

He clenched his fists at his sides.

Two more seconds.
What it would take to shake this guy off. That was two more seconds Becky was wherever she was.

There it was again. The pain. Not from the wound inches from his heart. It originated a couple inches to the left.

She’s strong. She’ll last.

It didn’t matter that even the strongest souls could be defeated.

“You run the risk of infection, blood poisoning, even cardiac arrest,” the doctor listed on his fingers.

Lucky shrugged again. “I’m feeling fit as a fiddle. If I feel like I’m goin’ into cardiac arrest, I’ll give you a bell.” He tried to step past him.

The doc grabbed his arm.

We don’t kill civilians.

“You go into cardiac arrest, you won’t get to ‘give me a bell.’ You’ll die,” he informed him gravely.

“Then I’ll tell the big man hey from you,” Lucky said. He pulled out of the man’s grasp and didn’t look back.

“What did the doctor say?” Brock asked as soon as Lucky left the room. He didn’t slow his pace as Brock and Gage stepped on either side of him.

Lucky looked forward. “I’ll be running marathons and kicking your ass better than ever,” he grunted.

He felt his friend’s gaze. “Bullshit,” he said. “You were shot in the chest. Less than three weeks ago.”

Lucky kept walking. “I’m aware.”

Brock grabbed his arm, bringing him to a stop. There was a fuck of a lot more pressure there than the doctor. Lucky glowered at him, his temper barely under control. Brock was lucky he didn’t have his piece.

“You ain’t no use to her dead, brother,” he said quietly.

Lucky met his gaze. “I’m goin’ for my woman. You try and stop me, then I’m not responsible for my actions.”

He wasn’t responsible for his actions if he found her and it was too late. He was damned for fuckin’ life if they found the broken pieces of her.

Then he’d be as good as dead.

I’m coming, Becky. Hold on.

After Bull kicked in the door and Lucky rushed in, he froze. It was only for a split second, less than that. But for the rest of his life he would torture himself over that split second. That slight hesitation. Because that moment, however fleeting it was, was another moment his firefly had to go through
that
. Another moment he could never get back, one that would be seared into his memory. Torture his soul for the rest of his life.

He hesitated, and then he moved. He didn’t make any conscious effort to do it, every part of his being pushing him towards that rickety bed where
that
was happening. His vision, which had been red around the edges, was completely tainted with vivid scarlet. He barely felt the pressure at his knuckles, or the blood splatter his face as he kept going. It was red. Everything was red.

He felt strong hands at his shoulders, pulling him back, robbing him of his revenge.

He made a guttural sound at the bottom of his throat and fought off the thief of his vengeance, kneeling once more to batter the thing that had been doing that.

“Brother.” A voice was urgent in his ear as hands clutched his shoulders, yanking him to his feet.

He breathed heavily, eyes not moving, vision still scarlet. Mind still only on one thing.

“Brother,” the voice repeated, a large hand twisting his neck to move his face away from the crumpled red form on the floor.

He took in Bull’s face like a lion might glare at a competitor for his prey. At that moment, Bull wasn’t his brother, one of his best friends. He was the man stopping Lucky from punishing the thing who had been hurting her.

“Lock it down,” Bull commanded.

“Fuck off,” he snarled, struggling to wrench himself from the iron grip.

Bull’s hands didn’t move, and neither did his blank gaze. “You need to lock this shit down, or we’ll lock it down for you. You don’t want that,” he said, demons dancing behind his flat gaze. “She needs you.” He nodded to the side.

Lucky slowly followed his gaze. The red subsided just enough so he could register the small form in Gage’s arms. The horrifyingly empty look in those eyes. The way her inky head was bowed and a shaky hand traced his brother’s arms. She did not take in anything else around them.

He looked at the legs draped over Gage’s elbows. Little more but skin and bones. Filthy. Naked. Covered in bruises.
Handprints.

A slice of agony so intense rippled through his entire body he was surprised he stayed standing. He did. And he swallowed that pain. Embraced it. A white-hot calm settled over him and the red left his gaze.

He met Bull’s eyes once more, nodding once. “I’m good.”

Bull regarded him for a long second, searching for the truth in that statement. He must have found it because he nodded and the hands on his shoulders left, Bull stepping back.

Lucky very calmly reached into his cut, took out his gun, and emptied the clip into the body on the floor. The echoing silence that followed the rapid shots seemed to yawn on forever. He could feel the pulse of energy rippling off his brothers.

Then the silence was gone. “We’ve got to go,” Cade declared, his face hard.

The prez’s voice seemed to jolt everyone out of the terrible clutches the actions in that room had over them.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Cade continued. His hard gaze turned to Gage, the bundle in his arms. Lucky watched as a glimpse of what he was feeling inside flickered on his prez’s face before he moved his attention to Gage. “You got all your shit in place?” he asked.