Insurmountable (Serpentine #1) (10 page)

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Dark Romantic Suspense

Irrevocable, Book 1

Release date: May 4, 2015

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Sometimes when you can’t go back, the only way out is to descend into the darkness.

my Captor

When I woke in that place, I just wanted to survive. But survival came at a cost, for which they demanded my will and body.

my Master

With pain came acceptance. Fully-dependent on the man who claimed me, I learned to appreciate what I had-life and relative safety.

my Protector

I watched him spill blood and tend my injuries. With betrayal came a revelation.

The only way out was to bring them all down or die trying.

Through the haze of sleep, I felt hands on me. Cold and rough. I thought for a fleeting moment that it might have been Kyle.

Then, I remembered our break up.

It had happened weeks ago, but maybe that part was the dream. My memory was fucked and I couldn’t latch onto a thought long enough to ride it out of the fog.

“Did you make a decision?” Kyle asked.

I rolled over and pulled the comforter up to my neck. I had decided that I didn’t want to make a decision—mostly that I didn’t appreciate him trying to force me into a decision when I had told him time after time that I didn’t want him moving into my apartment even after six months together.

“You can barely afford the place anyway since your sister moved out. I don’t get why it’s such a big deal unless you don’t want to be together.”

I did, and yet, the threat of him leaving seemed like a relief….

Hands groped and pulled—rough against my skin and digging into muscle and bone. Too many hands. The bits of memory faded as I tried to retreat from the onslaught. My back pressed into a hard surface beneath me, and my nostrils filled with the smell of musk and damp stale air.

I had no idea where I was, or how I’d gotten there.

I kicked and gasped, trying to get back to the surface where reality lurked. It shimmered in the distance, just out of reach, like the sun on the surface of the water during a dive.

A hand latched onto my hair and held my head back. My eyelids were finally freed from the sticky muck that held me in semi-consciousness, and I opened them to find myself staring up into unfamiliar eyes.

I only held his gaze for a few seconds—if that—but it seemed like it lasted for hours as my brain fought to categorize the details. Its useless attempt to understand what was going on.

The man clutching my hair had vivid green eyes, but they may as well have been black given the emotionless void they displayed. His hair was shaggy, brown with a mix of grey, the same colors that stood out in his unkempt stubble.

As if he needed any help looking rough.

He exhaled and his breath settled over my face, reeking of booze and cigarettes. The smell made me queasy, but I didn’t have time to dwell on that, as another set of hands tugged at my jeans.

My gaze traveled around the room, taking in the small crowd. At least half a dozen men surrounded the table where they had me spread out like a holiday feast. All dressed differently, from ragged tank tops to well-fitting dark button-down shirts, they all projected an air of unchecked danger. Necks marked with tattoos, hands covered in callouses and scars. Scruffy faces accented their sneers and smirks, as they stood above me staring down with eyes starved of humanity and full of lust.

Apparently, they didn’t expect me to put up a fight, because aside from the hand tangled in my hair, no one seemed concerned with keeping a tight grip on me. Probably because they outnumbered me, and I assumed they would have no problem beating the crap out of me if I struggled.

They’d downright enjoy it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t fully consider how that scenario would play out. I bucked and managed to knee the one pulling on my waistband in the face. He grunted, but I can’t imagine I inflicted as much pain as did his retaliatory blow to my ribs. I sucked in air and rolled, curling around the injury and gasping for each painful breath as the sickening throb exacerbated my confusion.

This couldn’t be happening. All I wanted to do was curl into a ball and protect my body, but their hands kept me splayed. Helpless. I jerked, pulled, and squirmed with every bit of strength I had, but a five and a half foot girl against a circle of rabid men was a hopeless battle.

And, with my defense, I had broken the dam on their violence. Seven pairs of hands turned on me, spreading me across the table. Bony hands squeezed my arms and legs, and adrenaline took over my judgment.

I screamed and a hand clamped down over my mouth, half-covering my nose as well. Every time someone moved the wrong way, his hand slid up, cutting off my air completely. I clamped my mouth closed, not letting another sound escape in hopes that he’d get bored of holding my mouth closed.

Where ever I had ended up, all I knew was that I didn’t want to die in some dank concrete room at the hand of a group of ruffians. I’d just started living my life. I made it out of the small town to find a place where I wasn’t constantly answering to someone about every decision I made. At sixteen, I had dyed my hair blue and our minister told me I was going to hell.

Well, I had found it, but I doubted this is what he’d had in mind.

Threats, insults, and random profanity echoed against the cinder block walls of the room and roared in my head propelling my struggle.

One of my shoes slipped off, giving me an opening. As that attacker attempted to readjust his grip, I straightened my leg quickly, hitting him square in the chest. He grunted and took a step back, then slammed my flailing leg against the table. The impact sent a bolt of pain up my body and for a brief moment I stilled, letting the pain radiate through me and then pushing it to the back of my awareness.

I sunk back into my mind, trying to distance myself from the pain. I couldn’t believe it was real. How quickly I had gone from planning to have dinner with my friends to being groped in some dank basement by a group of disgusting bastards.

They must have thought that my pause meant I was giving up, because the one holding my arm loosened his grip and I slipped free again, this time, planting a punch to the nose of another attacker. It took him a second to shake it off, but I was instantly restrained again by yet another. The man I’d punch snarled and ripped open my shirt, then pulled a knife from his pocket and flipped it open.

The room went quiet, and I froze, watching the silver tip of the blade move closer to my sternum.

Then, a single voice rose from the back of the room. “What the hell breed of trouble are you lot causing?”

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Dark Romantic Suspense

Irrevocable, Book 2

Release date: November 17, 2014

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I thought I was done.

my End

I couldn’t take my eyes off her as the bullet tore through me, leaving me with nothing but the hope that I had done enough to save her. The darkness tried to engulf me—to brand me as its own and drag me to my fate.

my Darkness

Waking to see her tear-stained face above me was enough to make my heart stutter. I was alive and free from that place—but not from the toll it had taken on my mind and body.

my Strength

My story should have ended, but one woman kept standing in the way of that. The only way I could have her was to find a way to put the darkness to rest.

“How many women did you have sex with while you were there?”

It was the third time Dr. Combs had asked me that question. And for the third time I wanted to avoid it.

I had just gotten out of that hell, and I still had the bullet hole in my chest to prove it, but it didn’t stop my boss from pushing the psychiatric evaluation. What he expected it to accomplish right now, I had no clue—I was tired, cranky, and I didn’t give a damn about getting my old job back.

Dr. Combs cleared her throat, and my jaw clenched. Some things were left unspoken—better suited to the imagination of nightmares and horror movies than to be discussed openly with any other living person.

I didn’t even want to admit the number of women to myself even though I could see every one of the girls in my mind.

Kat, the red-headed braggart who thought she owned every man who walked into the retreat.

Gabby, the indignant curly haired brunette.

Raini, a gorgeous but frail girl who was transferred in right after I went undercover. I had feared that one more night in Ross’ bed would kill her before her first week was up.

Alley, a blond sweetheart who belonged to Miles, my unconventional friend.

Silver, the girl who simultaneously ruined and saved me.

She was the only reason I was alive, and the only reason I had what was left of my soul—except she wasn’t real. Like my undercover alias, Kirk, she was forged from necessity and determination. Now she was gone, and that missing piece was more painful than the hole the bullet had ripped through my side.

That crazy, obstinate woman wouldn’t back down. During the raid on the “sex retreat”, Ross had turned the gun on me, but she knocked him off balance and I ended up with a graze along my left side rather than a hole through my heart. The bullet splintered two ribs in the process, and left a long and bloody gash, but they’d managed to clean it up in surgery, and so far it was healing without complications. 

Now, somewhere out there Rose was learning to live her own life again.

At least that’s what I hoped. The day after I was shot, my superiors had me transferred to another hospital and put under protective custody until they were sure I was “safe”.

I was fairly positive they were more concerned that any real threat to my life would come from me since there were very few people who knew of my undercover involvement in the operation.

The only company I was allowed was Dr. Combs, my new shrink. I didn’t want a shrink. I wanted the woman who saved me—the only person who stood a chance of bringing me any kind of peace.

The woman I could never have. 

All I wanted to do was close my eyes and wait for the doctor to leave. But that would put me in a worse situation since she’d just report me for being difficult.

One fucking week.

I still had a hole in my fucking side for Christ sake.

“I want to talk to Trent—this no visitor thing is bull shit.”

“It’s for your own safety, and we can’t do anything until you cooperate.”

“Don’t preach to me about cooperating.” One of the machines next to me screeched and a stabbing pain radiated through my arm, but I’d felt much worse. “I gave up my life to do what was asked of me and I succeeded.”

“You need to relax,” she warned, reaching a hand toward me.

I shook it off as best as I could in my current condition. I didn’t fucking want to relax. I wanted what little I had of my life back.

And, most of all I wanted someone I had no right to want.

“James.”

She was just going to stand there and keep yammering.

“With all due respect, Doctor. Fuck off.”              

“I’ll have to compile my preliminary evaluation before we can move forward. That’d go much smoother if you’d help me out.”

Help. I guess as far as not listening—even for my own supposed good—I could give Silver a run for her money. I waited in silence as a nurse adjusted and silenced the beeping machine. Quiet moments of solitude ticked away—my respite from being expected to answer questions, but it didn’t last.

“I don’t want to talk about the women,” I said when the door closed again. The steady stream of medication weighed down my body and softened my voice, so I didn’t sound as menacing as I intended. “I don’t much feel like talking about anything, but can we just skip the women and the fucking?”

“All of the women?” Dr. Combs asked, with her usual flat exaggerated calm. “Or is there someone in particular you don’t want to discuss?”

I figured pointing out that she was still talking about what I’d asked her not to—regardless of my answer—would be a waste of breath. “You know there is. How about you let me talk to her and I’ll answer any damn question you like?”

I didn’t even have to glance over to know she was scowling. They wouldn’t let me see Trent, my best friend and contact during the investigation, I knew they sure as hell wouldn’t let me see Silver… Rose. I didn’t even know what the hell I was supposed to call her. She’d made it perfectly clear the few times I’d pressed about her past or used her real name that I had no role in that life.

“She’s fine,” Dr. Combs assured me. “But I don’t think it would be in the best interest for either of you to see each other. You put yourself in a dangerous situation with her.”

Put myself? Last I checked I wasn’t the one to drag her into the Retreat. “I kept her alive and slightly less broken than she would have otherwise been.”

“The two of you adapted to a horrible situation, found comfort in each other—”

I didn’t want to hear it.

Stockholm Syndrome.

I wondered if the captor could get it, too. Was I even the captor? It seemed like I’d lost control of the situation long ago.

But I’d still been the one to beat her, rape her, bend her will.

Just like she’d bent mine.

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