Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC) (9 page)

Then he leaned in to place a gentle kiss on my head before yanking me into the crook of his shoulder, circling his arms around me.

I was going to protest, try to escape his arms, but then I didn’t. I was tired of fighting myself, so I decided to surrender to him. At least for the night. The morning would bring the light of day and hopefully I would have found enough strength in my slumber to fight him off.

“
T
here’s
no drug on Earth that can make life meaningful
.”

-
Sarah Kane

I
don’t need a fix
. I don’t need a fix.

That was my mantra, my fucking prayer. Playing on repeat while sweat trickled done the corner of my forehead and I struggled to keep my body from shaking

“Do you take Asher Breslin to be your lawful wedded husband?”

Yeah. I was thinking about shooting up while standing beside my best friend in a beautiful dress her mother bought her before she died. Craving oblivion while my sister finally got her happy ever after.

“I do.”

I don’t need a fix.

I would say I was going to hell, but I was already fucking there. Trapped in my own body, suffering and mentally flagellating myself for being so fucking self-deprecating on the best day of Lily’s life. I had my own little Hades inside my skull.

I squeezed my hands around the bouquet of flowers, taunting me with their beauty when all I wanted was filth in my hands to shoot into my veins.

“You may kiss the bride.”

For one second, beautiful clarity, the thing I’d taken for granted before, settled over me. I was freed from the clutches of the monster that had its grip on my soul to watch Asher grasp Lily and lay a hot and heavy one on her that was so not a chaste kiss. I found it in myself to grin. A real one. Happiness shined through the cracks of my damaged soul because if there was one thing I loved more than heroin, it was Lily. My kind and loving best friend.

And she was happy.

She was free.

For that split second, so was I. And then, for the second after, when Lucky’s hazel eyes met mine, I was something else. Not free, but not held captive by something twisted and ugly. I was clutched by the promise in those eyes, the potential. Held hostage by a beautiful dream.

Then it was gone.

Reality burst back in at such a speed my teeth chattered together and the itch came back full force.

The cocktail of the need for my fix coupled with my disgust in myself and happiness for Lily reached a bottleneck, and traitorous tears leaked from my eyes.

Tears!

I hadn’t cried since… since that night I curled up under dirty sheets, after my childish innocence had been stolen and I thought tears were something useful. That someone might hear my sobs and tear me away from the life that had become a nightmare.

No one did. That night I realized tears were useless, and I never cried again.

Until now.

And I was wearing winged eyeliner. It would fuck up my whole look. Who was I kidding? I was already a total mess; smudged makeup wouldn’t do much to make me look worse. I already
was
worse.

I hastily wiped my eyes and glanced at Lily, who was getting swallowed by Lucky.

“I love you,” she mouthed.

I tried my best to chase away my demons and let the warmth of this moment swallow me up. “I love you too,” I mouthed back.

“No party,” Asher growled, his rough voice puncturing the soft moment.

I tried to hide my grin, a real one as Lucky looked like Asher had just ran over his puppy. I also tried to ignore how the ensuing bickering over the need for a party to celebrate Asher and Lily’s nuptials made me fall even deeper for Lucky. The way he was such a contradiction. The way he looked like he robbed convenience stores for fun, but then he treated my fragile best friend with a gentleness that she deserved. The way he treated me like I was something.
Somebody.

I tried to shake myself out of it. What the fuck was I thinking? Was I falling for him?

Jesus Christ.

This wedding thing was like a drug of its own, hypnotizing me in its thrall, making me think pink sparkly thoughts that were even more dangerous than the prickly black ones I’d been swimming in. At least I could swim in those. I reckoned I’d drown in the former.

I jerked myself out of my head just in time to see Lily convince her husband—so weird that that’s what the massive biker was now—that yes, they would indeed go to the party Lucky was whining about. I smiled on the inside. Lily was changing, growing. She was healing. Before, a party at a biker clubhouse would’ve had her running a mile, but now she was ready. She was stronger. I didn’t miss that it wasn’t me who made her that way, but Asher. It was a bittersweet feeling. I was beyond happy that she was slowly conquering her own demons, but I was upset that I wasn’t the one helping the only person who helped me. The only thing I’d done was given her a bottle and a substance to abuse. The only way I knew how to cope was destruction.

“I’ll take this one in the cage.” Lucky jerked his head to me and my whole body tightened. An enclosed space with him while battling cravings that rattled my entire body? No fucking way. Especially when the threat of destruction meant the prospect of something, or
someone
, to stave off that destruction was almost as enticing as the needle itself.

“And you take your bike,” Lucky continued, his attention back on Asher.

Before I could do something to get out of the situation, like fake a heart attack, Lucky’s hand snatched mine and dragged me away from the blushing bride and her biker.

“You want that hand to remain attached to your body, you remove it from mine right now,” I hissed as he dragged me along. The anger was for my own good more than anything else. His strong, large, and dry hand clutching my small, clammy one had me feeling some type of way. The wrong type. The pink sparkly type.

Lucky looked straight ahead, directing us out of the double doors. “I’m willin’ to take the risk of dismemberment to hold your hand, Becky,” he replied, a smile tickling the corner of his mouth. “Plus, I heard they’re doing great things with prosthetics these days. Maybe I’ll get a hook hand. I reckon I could work that shit.”

A hook hand?

I struggled in vain as he led us out of the hallway and opened the door to the parking lot. I flinched back as the harsh sunlight assaulted me and caused black spots to dance in front of my vision.

Lucky stopped immediately, standing in front of me. His large body obstructed the rays of the devil ball, thankfully.

Spots still danced around my eyeballs, so I couldn’t gauge the look on his face.

“Shit, it all makes sense now,” he said.

I squinted at him. “What makes sense?”

He yanked me closer to his body, as if he were trying to shield me from the sun. “You’re a vampire. I’ve never seen you in daylight, and I knew no one human could possibly look like you and do the things you do with your body. How could I not know before? A creature of the night. Of course you sold your soul to the devil. That’s how you hypnotize me so,” he deadpanned.

I blinked at him a couple times. He was right on one score; I did sell my soul to the devil, or I’d tried. Even he wouldn’t take that mangled thing. “You’re insane,” I muttered.

He grinned at me. “Only two doctors have come to that conclusion. The rest just say I have an overactive imagination. Let’s get my little vamp to the car.” He made a big performance of lifting his leather cut in front of my face. “Don’t want that beautiful skin getting scorched.” He grinned at me when I scowled at him. “If you’re a really good girl, I’ll even let you suck my blood. I’m tasty, you know.” He winked.

“You’re something,” I replied, almost lower than a whisper. Something was dangerous. Especially when I’d almost killed myself to escape something in pursuit of nothing.

As soon as we got in the cab he seemed to sense my unease. Though it wasn’t exactly easy to hide. And I was doing a crappy job.

“You gonna tell me what’s wrong, or am I going to have to torture it out of you?” he asked blandly, putting his hand over the back of my seat so he could reverse out of the lot.

I stared at the caramel, sinewy, tattooed flesh. I had an unbearable urge to lick it. That’s all my body and mind was it seemed—animal urges. Lick people, get high. Whatever.

“Torture what?” I asked, my response slightly delayed as I watched the journey of his arm back to the steering wheel, hypnotized by the way his veins pulsed from his skin.

His eyes flickered to me. His voice and face may have been easy, as was his default, but the depths of those hazel irises showed something different. Something that unnerved my newly sober eyes. Everything off the junk was clearer, starker, and not in a refreshing way. The world was jarring, and it rubbed up my skin the wrong way. Seeing it without the film of a high was uncomfortable because it was reality. I thought the worst thing was looking in the mirror, but it wasn’t.

It was looking at Lucky.

I’d convinced myself that my feelings for him were intermingled with my feelings for junk, and going cold turkey would wash away the daydreams of the cheerful yet deadly biker.

Oh, how wrong I could be.

The air in the cab of the truck was so stifling I felt like I might choke on it. Or throw up. I really hoped I didn’t throw up.

Somehow Lucky’s attention was on me even though he was in control of a motor vehicle. It should have unnerved me, but it didn’t. I felt safe with him.
That’s
what unnerved me. I wasn’t safe with anyone, not even myself. Safety was an illusion and surrendering to the feeling was the moment you opened yourself up for destruction.

“The reason behind this,” he answered my question, his jaw hard as his eyes flickered up my seated body.

I clasped my hands together at my knees. I knew I looked like shit. Even though I’d tried my best to paint my face and disguise the toll the loss of my ‘medicine’ had taken, it was impossible. My arms were skinny and my face was sallow. I was always pale, but now my skin had a grayish sheen to it and the bags under my eyes couldn’t be covered with industrial strength concealer. So not cute.

“I ate a bad burrito a couple days ago,” I lied. “What doesn’t kill you makes you thinner, right?” I went for bravado but fell short. Everything was falling kind of short. It was hard to make an effort on maintaining the façade while battling the itch beneath my skin at the same time. It didn’t help that a renewed itch prickled my arms with Lucky’s gaze.

“You’re full of shit,” he ground out, not taking his eyes off me. “Tell me the truth.”

I glanced at the windshield to escape his gaze. “Shouldn’t you be watching the road?” I asked, changing the subject. “When I die I want to be wearing a better outfit than this. Also I’d quite like to turn up to my death a little drunk.” The joke was a little too close to home. I’d almost turned up to the pearly gates, or more likely the entry to the nine levels strung out in a dirty bathroom stall.

My gaze flickered to the steering wheel as Lucky’s hands tightened on it. His eyes still didn’t leave mine. Seriously? The truck was still dead center in the right lane. Was he Superman under that cut?

“Let’s get one thing clear here. You got a smart mouth. You make jokes, not as well as I do, but your sense of humor was bestowed on you by the devil himself and I dig that.” His eyes burned into mine. “One thing you don’t joke about, you don’t
ever
fuckin’ utter it again, is the prospect of you disappearing off the face of the earth,” he growled

I was stunned silent. That didn’t happen very often. I not only had a response any time someone tried to tell me what to do or say, but I had a multitude of responses, usually liberally peppered with curse words. Theoretically, a big alpha male badass telling me what to say and not to say would have exploded Volcano Bex. Not this time.

Maybe it was because I didn’t have the energy to throw sass when I was too busy fighting my body’s scream for junk. Maybe it was because I was feeling all weird after watching my friend tie the knot which challenged all my assumptions about true love being a crock of shit. It could have been any of those things. But it wasn’t. It was the way he was looking at me coupled with the fact that sentence communicated his care for my well-being. Someone other than Lily or Faith actually giving a shit about me.

Because he was Superman, or Superman’s evil biker older cousin, he sensed the intensity of the moment and my inability to handle it. A grin tickled the corner of his face.

“You especially aren’t allowed to speak of you leaving this earth without giving me a taste of that sweet ass.”

He winked at me and his eyes flickered back to the road, finally. We were pulling into the clubhouse. Thank Lucifer for small favors. Not thanking God because I was sure he or she had given up on me a long time ago. Or I’d given up on him.

I scowled at his profile. “You bet this ass is sweet. Sweeter than any club skank you’ve sunk your teeth into. But do you know where this sweet ass is going?” I timed my line perfectly as he pulled into a park. “Out of this car and away from you. Have fun watching me walk away because that’s the closest you’ll get.”

I darted out of the car before my speech filtered into his mind. These guys were weird as fuck, taking rejection to be foreplay. Not what I had in mind. I slammed the door and sauntered towards the clubhouse. I didn’t look back but I still heard his shout.

“You’re killin’ me, firefly.”

I gritted my teeth. “Nope. Saving you, actually,” I muttered.

“
N
ormal is an illusion
. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

-Morticia Addams

I
’d clutched
my beer so hard I thought it might snap, and somehow resisted Gwen and Amy’s offer for cocktails. I wanted hard liquor more than I wanted a new pair of Doc Martins, but I knew it was a slippery slope. The minute that drink trickled down my throat was most likely the minute I lost it all. So I said no. Being stone-cold sober at a biker clubhouse wedding reception was like being at a One Direction concert—not fun.

Being stone-cold sober on Planet Earth was not fun.

In addition to Lucky’s stare and pretending not to watch him shrug off the girls, I had to deal with the narrowed eyes of Evie, who had been perusing me since I walked in the door. Or, more accurately, watching Lucky watch me. I’d been the object of disapproval many a time, so I recognized it on her face. Mostly, it didn’t hurt; I’d learned to let such gazes bounce off the hard shell I created. But this one slithered through the cracks and stung because I knew what she was. The matriarch of this little family. Motley it may be, but this gathering of outlaws and ‘whores’ and the rugrats running around was a family. One Lily had been welcomed into with open arms. One that, despite my outward protests, I yearned to be a part of.

That look cemented my outsider status, despite the warmth I got from the rest of the women. Kindness was all well and good, but it wasn’t real most of the time. Disdain may be uncomfortable, but at least it was real. It was too much—the happiness in the room; the hard, kohl-rimmed stare of the biker queen; and most certainly the hazel gaze that itched my skin worse than withdrawal.

I had to escape. The only reason I’d stayed that long was because I loved my best friend and didn’t miss the way her gaze flickered to me every now and then. Didn’t miss the way her smile dampened just a little when she took me in, concern evident on her face. Nor did it escape me that her husband, who had hold of her the entire time, glanced my way when she did, his own gaze hardening.

I tried my best for jaunty smiles when that happened. I wasn’t going to fuck up Lily’s wedding day with a breakdown. I’d done enough.

So it was lucky I slipped outside when both of them were heading off down the hallway to consummate their marriage, based on the look on Asher’s face and the blush on Lily’s.

I sucked in a breath of fresh air, flattening my back to the outer wall of the clubhouse. There was a sprinkling of men in cuts around the grassy area, most smoking and drinking beers. A couple glanced my way but didn’t give me a second look. I wouldn’t give me a second look either.

I tried to suck in another breath. Useless. The air was too fucking clean, too crisp. My shaking hands reached into my bag and I managed to get what I was looking for.

Sucking in the poison and smoke was a relief. One that curbed the craving—not a lot but a little. Enough that I could go on standing and not curl into a little ball in the corner.

I didn’t smoke before. Abhorred it, actually. Being premed, I’d learned all about the effects of the little death sticks. Yellow nails and decaying teeth? No, thanks.

Ironic that I stayed away from cigarettes but took the needle without as much of as a second thought. They were the only things that got me through, swapping one addiction for another. Though the way I was feeling right then, an early grave was a little too enticing.

I managed about five seconds of peace with my death stick. Alone time wasn’t something you got even when you lurked on the fringes of this outlaw family.

“You doing okay, sweetie?” Rosie asked softly, her brow furrowed in concern as she leaned beside me on the wall.

Like Evie’s, that look punctured my shell too, but for a different reason. Because it was genuine. Because she cared. Ever since that day at our place, she’d treated me with respect and kindness, not with judgment or disdain for dragging her into my twisted world. It was unnerving, something I could get used to but something I didn’t deserve. I couldn’t escape it, though, as she texted almost every day and came around to Lily’s, all the while acting like I was a girlfriend, not an ex-stripper junkie.

I did my best to smile at her. “Totally fine. Peachy, in fact.”

She raised a perfectly plucked brow at me. Everything about the fucking women in this club seemed to be perfect. Gwen and Amy looked like they strolled straight out of
Vogue
and their outfits could fund a deposit on a house. Or keep me in drugs for the rest of my life. You know, if I did that sort of thing.

Rosie was different. From what I’d seen of her she changed personas with her outfits. Right then her chocolate curls were a mass of plaits on her head, spiraling down her back. She was wearing a vintage maxi skirt with a huge split down the thighs and a barely there crop with a multitude of tribal necklaces looking like they’d snap her skinny neck.

I looked like… exactly what I was beside her. A junkie stripper.

“Bullshit,” she said, snatching the smoke from my hands and taking a puff for herself.

Now it was my turn to raise a brow at her. Normally such actions would unleash my inner bitch, but my inner bitch was in a death match with my inner demons. Even if she weren’t, I didn’t make a habit of being a bitch to people I actually liked. I was a bitch to a lot of people, sure. But that was because I didn’t
like
many people.

She inhaled and exhaled, blowing smoke from her blood-red lips. “You look like shit,” she continued. “Not as bad as you should, mind you.” Her heavily made-up eyes flickered up my body. “Somehow you’re working this.” She waved her arm at me and my black lace ‘bridesmaid’ dress, which I’d paired with combat boots and winged liner, of course. “Takes a special person to look hot while recovering from what you went through.” Her eyes went soft as she handed me back my smoke and squeezed my other hand. “Also takes a special kind of person to stand next to their best friend at her wedding, fake a smile and happiness while she’s crumbling on the inside.”

I blinked at her. Then I took a long drag of my smoke, mostly to buy some time, to find a way to chase away the fucking tears lurking at the corners of my eyes. “Lily’s my best friend,” I said by explanation, shrugging. “This is her day. I’m not about to fuck her life up more than I already have.”

Rosie frowned at me. “Sister, you have not fucked up her life, or your own for that matter.”

I gave her a look. “So having shitty taste in men, becoming addicted to drugs, and almost killing myself with a cocktail of the two is living the American dream?”

Rosie gazed at me and, to my surprise, burst out laughing. When she finished, she grinned at me. “Who wants to live the fucking American dream? I think I’d die of boredom.” She reached out to squeeze my hand again. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s not exactly suburbia here.” She glanced around. “We’ve seen our fair share of ugly. Of shit. Of death.” She sucked in a breath, her eyes twinkling before she shook herself and moved her gaze to me. “But we’re still standing. Maybe a little bruised, maybe a little battered, but still here. And it’s always the people who have been through the most who are most interesting. The best kind of people.”

She let us bathe in the silence after her words, not pressuring me to respond straight away. I sucked on my smoke. “You always do therapy sessions with an ex-junkie stripper outside wedding receptions?” I asked finally.

She grinned. “Oh just every other Saturday. First one’s a freebie.”

I smiled back, a real one, crushing the butt under my combat boot and turning to her. “Thanks,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Anytime, sister,” she replied. “I mean that. Anytime. You’re not alone.”

It was nice, the sentiment. But despite the sincerity in her eyes and the support in her words, that’s what I was. Alone. You were born alone and you died alone. And you were alone all the time in between.

“Oh and I’ve been thinking, about alone. I’ve been living alone for a while now and it’s starting to get downright boring,” she said. “I don’t do boring. And also the chances of being targeted by a serial killer are heightened when you live alone. Trust me, I know, I watch
Criminal Minds
,” she deadpanned. “And I’m guessing living with the happy couple might just trigger your gag reflex, despite it being amazing, yada yada yada.” She made a mouth motion with her hands. “So how about you come and stay in my spare room and lower the chances of me being dismembered by a crazy guy with daddy issues?”

I gaped at her. Not just for some of her crazy statements said with a total straight face, but the fact she was asking someone she barely knew, someone recovering from a drug addiction, to live with her. “You’re serious.”

She grinned. “Oh, I’m rarely ever serious.” She waved her hand. “But this is a rare snippet of seriousness. Don’t tell me you can’t or won’t or whatever. Just say yes.”

I was tempted. Sorely. To get out of the house that taunted me with Faith’s presence. To let Lily live without worrying about me. “I’ve got a lot of baggage,” I informed her.

She grinned. “Good thing I’ve got lots of closet space.” Her gaze flickered behind me and her face paled. “Fuck,” she hissed. “Got to go, babe. I just made eye contact with a guy I may or may not have bumped uglies with. I do not want to repeat that experience.” She scrunched up her nose. “Two words. Back hair. Not cute. And you’re totally moving in with me.” She kissed my cheek, then turned on her fringed heel and darted towards the parking lot.

I watched her retreating back, shaking my head. It wasn’t long after her escape that all the demons lurking under the surface emerged once more. I resisted the urge to chain smoke there for the rest of my life, namely because of the large biker with cold eyes and scar-ribboned skin who was regarding me in a way that made me uncomfortable. Not checking me out; heck, I was used to that. No, he was looking at me like he actually saw me, the twisted black edges and demons clawing from inside my skin. He’d stared at me like that when he’d come to the club, when he’d helped ‘get rid’ of Dylan that day Lucky shot him. But I’d been too high to notice. To properly notice.

You’re imagining things
. He looked a lot more like a murderer than a telepath, but I didn’t like to take my chances so, with one last glance at him, I slipped back inside. I was planning on finding Lily, saying my good-byes and getting the fuck out of there, but she was nowhere to be seen. Plus, I had no way to actually get the fuck out of there. Lucky was my ride since my effing car was still at City Hall.

I was contemplating hot-wiring a car because Lord knew I couldn’t afford a taxi. I couldn’t afford a fucking cheeseburger. Not that hunger was something that bothered me. Not for food, at least.

I made my way through the crowd with a beeline for the ladies’ room. Most big life decisions were made in women’s bathrooms. My mind flickered back to that fateful night.
Or, in my case, death decisions.

The ladies’ room was blessedly empty and surprised me with its cleanliness. I splashed some water on my face in an attempt to wash away the insects underneath my skin, but they were like my mascara, waterproof and not going anywhere.

I had another handful of seconds to myself before my peace was again shattered. Though I was loath to call it peace. Alone time wasn’t peace; it was the opposite. And in that handful of seconds, I realized what I was going home to. I was so desperate to escape company that I failed to understand the solitude that awaited me. Lily and Faith’s house filled with happy memories and ghosts. My hands started to shake. I honestly didn’t have enough faith in myself not to relapse. In fact, I had
no faith
in myself.

Get your shit together, Bex. You can do this. People do this every day. They beat it. It’s possible. You’re the one who got yourself into this, so get yourself out.

I braced my sweaty hands on the knees of my dress and sucked in a breath. A clean breath. My mind might have been close to cracking, my little demon aching to be broken out, but I was clean. I was sober. So help me God I was going to stay that way.

I may or may not lose my shit along the way. I just had to get through Lily’s wedding night without making it all about me and my ugliness, then I’d be home free.

Or home, chained to the confines of my addiction.

Straightening, I left the stall and was about to exit the bathroom when the door burst open and precisely the last person I wanted to see in this state walked through it.

I straightened my spine in an outwards gesture of strength, or at least defiance. Inwards I was a fucking mess. “This is the ladies’ room,” I snapped at Lucky. “I know we’re in a compound full of alpha animals who think they own the Earth, but women’s bathrooms are a sacred space which no male shall breach unless he wants to suffer the consequences.”

Lucky, for once, didn’t grin. In fact, he hadn’t grinned the entire night. His watchful gaze had been glued to me, prickling the edges of my hairline with its intensity. I’d tried to ignore it, just like I’d tried to ignore the way multiple scantily glad girls sidled up to him. I didn’t judge those girls. Not for a moment. It was obvious what they were to Lucky, to the club. Some people would call them whores—the same people who would call me a white trash junkie, I guessed. I called them survivors. So I didn’t judge them, as they were my sisters in a way. Women on the fringes of society who didn’t live the way they were ‘supposed’ to. But I hated them. Not for what they were to the club, but what they were to Lucky. Jealousy wasn’t an emotion I was familiar with, but it was bitter and toxic and made me want the needle even worse than before.

Lucky advanced on me and I barely had time to retreat, my back smashing against the wall beside the basin. His bulging arms rested on either side of me, caging me in.

“You need to back the fuck up,” I said, my voice shaking.

Hazel eyes seared into me. “You need to tell me what’s going on,” he rumbled, his voice vibrating through my spine.