Exquisite Danger (28 page)

Then that stupid male ‘I need to talk to you, bro’ look would happen and from that point on they would ignore me and just bullshit with each other about biker stuff. I swear to God it was like dating an accountant and listening to him talk numbers with his colleagues. Instead of figures, they were talking about a buddy of theirs who was currently in jail, or using that stupid biker slang, that I didn’t totally get, and losing me altogether.

I never doubted that Smoke was on high alert. Despite his relaxed demeanor, he was never more than a couple inches away, but I was still getting restless. Thankfully, the long-sleeved shirt and pants kept me from feeling most touches, but every once in a while someone would brush my hand, and I’d have to swallow hard. Smoke must have noticed, because he soon gave me a bottle of water, rubbing my hands when he did, and the yucky sensations vanished.

Alisha’s voice came from next to me, and I twitched, startled by her sudden appearance. Dressed in a low-cut, pale blue, sparkly dress with almost as much makeup as I was wearing, she blended in with the sweet butts in spite of her bubbly, innocent looks. “You need a bathroom break?”

“No, I’m good. Smoke took me a couple minutes ago.”

A frown flitted across her face as someone bumped into her. It happened so quickly, I wasn’t sure I’d even seen it before her dimpled smile returned. “Okay, how about a beer?”

“No beer,” Smoke growled, turning his attention momentarily back to me.

I pointedly looked at the beer in his hand and gave him my best ‘Really?’ look. “Why not? You have one?”

“You’re on heavy pain meds. One beer and you’ll be fucked up, and not in a good way.”

I had no good comeback for this, so I just glared at him.

He stared at me, but before we could start arguing, Donkey motioned for Smoke, and he took a couple steps away, leaving me with Alisha. I leaned down and spoke close to her ear. “Fuck him, get me a beer.”

With a giggle, she moved off through the crowd, leaving me with the small victory in my minor rebellion and easing the knot in my belly.

Returning to scanning the vast open space, I thought I heard a familiar laugh to the right of the room where the bar stretched out along the far wall and tended by women in cut offs and bikini tops. I could have sworn it sounded like Sarah, but from my vantage point, all I could see were brunettes, blondes and a couple of auburn-haired women among the mass of bodies. Cyclone was now over there as well, huddled up on the couch with a stacked redhead. I quickly moved my gaze from them, not wanting to even think about that skank. I’d hoped that she was the spy, and we could take out at least one threat, but Smoke swore Cyclone was loyal to the club and wouldn’t betray it. He told me that she would be at the party, and since she’d been set up, he asked me not to pick a fight. Of course, if she said anything to me, I was welcome to beat her ass, but Cyclone had been told to keep away from me. She was currently on the other side of the big room, as far away from me as she could get, talking to the redheaded chick with large breasts. She hadn’t so much as looked my way, so I tried to dismiss her from my mind.

Alisha returned a few minutes later and handed me a water glass with an inch of amber brown liquid in it and held an open beer bottle in her other hand. “Here, shot of Southern Comfort.”

Grinning at her, I took the glass and quickly downed it before taking the beer with a gasp. “Thanks.”

“Welcome.”

She vanished off into the crowd with a guilty look thrown at Smoke’s back. He was now talking to Hulk with another two guys I didn’t know, the men forming a cluster of black leather while they leaned in to mutter with each other. I turned my back to Smoke and took a long drink of the beer, grateful for the bracing chill racing down my throat as the bitter taste filled my mouth and replaced the sweet, syrupy burn of the Southern Comfort. The heeled boots I wore weren’t super tall, but they were high enough that my feet were starting to hurt after standing around for hours despite my fading pain meds. I could have taken a seat, but every surface of this place had been or was about to be defiled, so I put up with my sore feet and wondered when I would be able to go to bed.

I was fucking beat and the beer and SC shot were mellowing me out since I drank on an almost empty stomach.

Last time I’d had a beer, I was standing in my parents’ backyard watching the wind move the trees in the valley below our hillside spread. It felt like a million years ago instead of just a few days. A time when I was just a woman trying to survive, not a killer in my own right. The image of shooting that man began to play out in my mind, but I ruthlessly locked it away, and wondered how my father was ever able to ignore the memories of the people he’d killed. A man getting a blow job in a corner roared out his orgasm and snapped me out of my dark thoughts. I took another drink of my beer, trying to focus on the here and now. Like the fact that Breaker was alive and I’d landed in the uncomfortable role of hero. I didn’t need or want the recognition. My dad taught me to blend in, and I was doing a craptastic job of it so far. Time to focus.

I was positioned in the room so I had a good view of the staircase leading upstairs. From my vantage point I could see a pair of sparkly blue hooker heels, with dolphins on them, that I instantly coveted and a couple pairs of men’s motorcycle boots. I was so busy admiring the woman’s shoes that I didn’t register something small and dark had been dropped from the stairs while she quickly walked away. As it rolled down the last few steps, I realized what it was and screamed.

“Grenade, everyone down!”

Smoke crushed me to the floor an instant before a big bang hurt my eardrums and the lights went out. I couldn’t hear any screams over the ringing in my ears, just muted shouts of panic as the room filled with dense smoke and chaos. The lights flashed on and off, in an almost strobe-like effect that made me dizzy. Smoke grunted as someone stepped on his back hard enough to push him into me. Fear clawed at me as I considered that we could get trampled to death as the crowd started to panic. I was completely blinded by the time we got to our feet, and Smoke clung to me, telling me to stay close.

He got us up against a wall, and it afforded us a bit of safety from the crowd.

“We should head for the stairs,” he yelled then coughed. “Front and back doors are too dangerous.”

Instead of answering, I nodded right before loud bangs and screams came from the front of the room. Smoke and I immediately drew our guns and began to edge along the wall. I almost shot Hulk when he appeared out of the dense smoke, but I recognized his shape enough that I pointed my gun at the ground instead of him.

Smoke jerked him down to a crouch, and I followed suit. The air was better down here and I scanned the area while Hulk told Smoke that there were snipers, one out front and one out back, firing warning shots at people. He eyed me and lowered his voice, then Smoke nodded.

“Let’s go.”

I found myself being pulled between them and was almost to the stairs when a second smoke grenade when off somewhere to my left. A moment later, I was completely blind as someone grabbed me out of the oppressive gloom. Then another hand from a different direction grabbed my shirt. The hand on my forearm was a woman’s hand, and I went to break her wrist when she twisted me in a move my dad would have envied, jerking me away from whoever had a hold on my shirt and said in my ear, “Swan, it’s me, Sarah. We need to get you out of here. Up to your room, now.”

My heart stopped as I recognized her voice, but I couldn’t see shit. “Prove it.”

“Your first crush was Slater on
Saved by the Bell
. You had a pillow with his face on it that you kissed because you’re a pillow-molesting pervert.”

“Sarah!” I coughed out a sob, reaching out for her and finding her other hand.

Smoke roared out somewhere to my left, and I tried to tug Sarah toward Smoke’s bellowing voice but she dragged me in the general direction of the stairs. “He’ll find us. We need to go, now, up to your room. All the guest rooms have security doors, and it’ll be easier to make a stand there than down here. Los Diablos and a couple bounty hunters with tranqs are in here looking for you and trying to flush you out. If they find out we’re both here, we’re fucked, so I need you to
move
.”

Without another word, I followed her as best I could, sliding around people, taking the stairs in a stealthy manner that would have made my father proud. Windows must have been opened because the smoke was beginning to clear, but people were still yelling, and I saw more than one gun out in the open. I’d somehow lost mine during the tug of war downstairs. As the air cleared, I caught glimpses of Sarah’s green dress and the crazy auburn wig she was wearing along with what had to be a big prosthetic nose through the fog still clouding the stairway. I grew dizzy and disoriented for a moment, but managed to gather my thoughts and push through.

At the top of the stairs were two prospects in gas masks who ushered us up to the third floor while they continued to scan the stairs with their guns trained on the crowd below. Thank fuck they were on my side. I could hear Khan roaring from somewhere behind me in the area of his office, but all I could really focus on was the fact that Sarah was here, alive, and dressed like a high-class hooker. We were almost to my room when I felt a sudden weakness rush over me, and my fear went into overdrive.

Shit, I knew this fuzzy feeling all too well.

Fuck.

“I don’t feel good,” I managed to mumble out from my numb lips.

“What? How?”

“Don’t...know. Feel weird. Stoned.”

“Did someone drug you?”

“Pain meds…did a big shot of Southern Comfort. And beer.”

She snarled at me. “You dumbass! I can’t believe you did that!”

I tried to walk with her but it was getting harder, and she was soon supporting me. “Don’t you fucking puss out on me, bitch. Get your ass in gear.
Fight
. Never give up.”

That managed to get me three more steps, and I slumped against the wall as warmth flowed through me.

This was nice. I really didn’t care about anything at the moment. I could probably withstand torture if I felt like this. Mellow.

Shit.

My life was so utterly fucked up.

Sarah flung my door open, dragging me behind her, and when I went to look behind me I saw an unfamiliar guy dressed like a biker with a couple days’ worth of beard. The rage distorting his face, as Sarah slammed the door shut behind me, I threw back the lock. Sarah went to shove the dresser in front of the door and I helped her as best I could in my current state, my breath coming out in ragged coughs as I struggled to free my airway from the smoke I’d inhaled downstairs.

A sickening lethargy spread through me, and I limply grabbed onto Sarah’s arm as she dragged me into the bathroom. She hauled me over to the toilet and stuck her finger down my throat. Despite the increasing lassitude, my body knew what to do when my gag reflex was triggered. I threw up until my stomach was cramping. Sarah eased me back, then cleaned me up and massaged my stomach, easing the pain until I was lying there panting, sweaty, and exhausted. My last thought before unconsciousness claimed me was that I was really fuckin’ tired of passing out.

I woke up sometime later to the harsh noise of Sarah in über bitch mode going off on someone. My thoughts were slow and muzzy. We must have been drinking pretty hard last night, because my head ached and my mouth tasted like someone had taken a dump in it while I was sleeping. Moving took too much effort, so I just pulled in a deep breath and shouted, “For fuck’s sake, Sarah, can you stop yelling at Dad for ten damn minutes. Shit. And go get me some orange juice and some aspirin.”

I managed to pull the pillow over my face, already half asleep, when it was rudely jerked away from me. I had to close my eyes against the light searing my pupils. Rough fingers touched my face, and I squinted and focused on what turned out to be the somehow familiar face of a super hot guy. Blinking at him, I reached out and traced his lips, and the sight of his red eyes disturbed me enough that I blinked against the stinging light to try and see him better.

I cleared my throat and croaked out, “Do I know you?”

An expression of fear crossed his face, and my sister spoke from the side of the room, “She’ll be fine. Give her stupid brain a chance to surface past her attempts to kill it with alcohol and drugs.”

“Bitch.” I lifted my head to look at her, then clasped my hands over my throbbing skull as I tried to hold it together. “Owwww.”

Slender fingers pried my hands off my eyes and Sarah looked down on me. The wig was gone as well as the fake nose, and her pale blonde hair brushed her shoulders while the remains of heavy makeup streaked her face. Her blotchy, swollen face told me she’d been crying. Neither of us shed pretty tears. She’d lost weight and appeared really, really run down.

I reached up and touched her sharp cheekbone. “Sarah, are you sick?”

Pressing her lips together, she glanced around the room then back to me. “I’ll talk to you about it later.”

“Khan is on his way,” a man said from the other side of the room and Sarah swallowed.

I licked my dry lips as memories began to surface. “Khan…like the wrath of…he’s scary.”

My sister gave a brittle laugh. “He can be, but he’s also a pussy cat. What else can you remember?”

The breath left my lungs in a low rush as my mind began to fill with my life. “Smoke.”

I immediately reached for him, and he picked me all the way up, cradling me in his arms. His body shook, and I clumsily tried to pet and soothe him. If he started to cry I was fucking done for.

“Hey, hey, I’m okay.”

When he looked up I realized he wasn’t shaking with sorrow, but rather anger. “You’re okay,” he repeated in a low voice.

“I’m okay, I’m here, I’m alive,” then I kissed him to prove it.

“Alive,” he whispered against my mouth with apparent profound relief.

Before our kiss could get dirty Sarah said, “Ha! I knew you had a thing for her.”