Knight (62 page)

Like it was fair to chastise me for things that happened five years in the past. I pointed back.

“You said not to hotwire
your
bike again.”

Lyn, Scotch, and Gold laughed. Brew tensed as I turned away from him.

“You listen to me when I’m talking to you.”

He grabbed my arm. The adrenaline surging through my body snapped the fragile hold on my sanity. I didn’t hesitate.

I slapped Brew across the cheek. Hard. Quick. With enough force to leave a vibrant red streak over his jaw.

Keep jumped between us, but I was smacked around enough in the past hours. I expected Brew to do it too. Just like Exorcist. Just like Dad. Just like every other testosterone-fueled, drug-addled, violent criminal who used me for their agenda or entertainment or disgusting purposes.

“Bud.” Keep’s eyes dilated. He blinked hard, but the veil of whatever pleasure he pricked at the end of a needle separated me from whatever comfort he offered. “We’re just worried about you.”

“Bullshit.” I pushed past both of them, though each step drove a shard of glass deeper into my heel. “Where the hell were you, Tristan?  You were
worried
about me?  Why weren’t you at my show?  Why didn’t you come support me?  Why couldn’t you spend two freaking hours cheering on your sister without having to shoot up first?”

Keep bristled. The drugs tempted his rage, and I was grateful I slipped toward the stairs before provoking him.

“I made a mistake,” he said. “That okay with you?  You pawned a guitar. I had a bad night.”

“Every night is a
bad
night
. At least I only pawned the guitar once!”

“Careful, Rose,” Brew warned.

“Or what?” My voice charred the word like I still carried the fire with me. Even Gold lost his telltale smirk and busied himself behind the bar. “You’ll put me back in the burning building?  You’ll hand me back to Exorcist?  You certainly won’t let me go back on stage.”

Brew’s profanity echoed through Pixie. “That’s it, Rose. It’s all about the
music
. Every-fucking-thing revolves about the goddamned music with you. It’s a fucking obsession!”

“It’s all I have.”

Keep punched the bar. I doubted he felt the sting. “I’ll tell you where to shove that guitar.”

Brew took his side. “You ever want to sing again, you change your goddamned attitude real quick.”

“Because you two are the perfect managers for my act?” I pointed to Keep. “You didn’t even come to my show. And you!” I held Brew’s stare. “Keep can’t fight his own addiction, but I knew you wouldn’t help me. You’ve never protected me before. Why start now?”

 The brutal honesty hit him harder than any slap, but he didn’t understand anything I said. And I wasn’t about to explain it. Not now.

I escaped the tears until I slammed the door of the only damned room that offered me any peace.

But Thorne’s bedroom wasn’t a good place for me to hide.

And a terrible place for me to feel safe.

I ripped off the ruined dress. The stench of the night clung to my skin. Smoke. Fuel. Fear. I hobbled to the bathroom. My foot bled over Thorne’s floor. It wasn’t the worst to ever stain his room. Thorne wasn’t a gentle man. A little bruising and dirt probably made him feel alive. I caught sight of his bed in the mirror before I shut the bathroom door.

A man like Thorne probably knew just how to recover after a night like this.

My stomach fluttered, but it wasn’t injuries. I pulsed far lower, and that wasn’t something I ever, ever thought I’d feel.

Especially not now.

Especially not for him.

I ducked into the shower. The water instantly steamed, and I stood under the blistering stream if only to ensure the heat settled over my body and didn’t linger in the confusion between my legs.

I closed my eyes and let the water wash everything from me. Usually I would sing in the shower. Hum. Plan a set or drum a beat. The quiet padding of the shower scared me more than the crackling fire. I forced the song from my burning throat.

I was no opera singer, but nothing else felt hard enough to distract me from what happened. Mozart wasn’t Joan Jett. My voice cracked before I sang even a full line. I didn’t care.

The water turned to slurry, but I preferred rinsing away the dirt to the never-ending pinkish stain as I washed the matted blood from my hair and pulled slivers of glass from my cuts. I worried about the gash in my thigh. The water only stung it. I couldn’t clean the wound without my stomach swirling as badly as my head.

I clamored out of the water as the bleeding didn’t slow. It needed stitches, but it wasn’t like a Darnell to voluntarily head to the hospital. Cuts were stitched at home, Mom had more than enough pain medications to treat most bumps, sprains, and gashes, and, unless one of my brothers stopped breathing, Dad usually kicked them in the ass and told them to be a man.

Of course, Dad told me something different.

Doctors asked too many questions. He didn’t want me talking to anyone but him.

Especially if somewhere hurt.

I shoved the towel too hard against the cut, but the sting cleared the darkness from my thoughts. I changed into a clean shirt and hopped onto the sink for a better view of the injury. It was red and ugly, but the sink’s cool tile helped center my stomach to the task.

My hands shook as I removed the towel. A few bits of cotton fuzz stuck to the cut’s ragged edges. That was it. My stomach wimped out.

The bathroom door rattled with a hard knock. The nausea fled in fear of my anger.

“Go
away
!” I didn’t care which brother attempted contact. They deserved nothing but silence.

Thorne didn’t acknowledge my tone. “How bad are you hurt?”

“Oh, sorry, I thought...” My voice faded as I doubted he cared one way or another about the display downstairs. “I’ll be fine.”

“There’s blood on my floor.”

I winced. “I’ll clean it up when I’m done.”

The doorknob jerked. I yelped.

“I’m not dressed!”

Thorne grunted. “You think I haven’t seen a naked girl before?”

“You haven’t seen
me
naked before.”

“Do you want my help or not?”

I tucked the shirt lower, but the pink of my cotton panties peeked between my legs. I shifted the towel before the door lurched open and Thorne invaded the tiny bathroom.

He didn’t wear a shirt, and his chest glistened with rivulets of water still dripping from the dark hair licking at his broad shoulders. I didn’t know what was more impressive—the strength tensed beneath the aching muscles of his chest and abs, or the streaks of raging ink wrapping his arms, shoulders, and sides.

Black. Fierce. The same demon patched onto his cut bled through onto his back. The men in the MC weren’t subtle. Anathema possessed each and every inch of them. Their minds. Their hearts. Their families. Their tempers. Even their flesh.

It should have frightened me. The tattoos weren’t beautiful images, and he didn’t sculpt them around his muscles. He scarred himself. It marked him as someone more than a man and every bit the demon of Anathema. His jeans hung low on his hips. The tattoos disappeared under the denim.

I looked away before I wondered what else he hid under the jeans.

“You’re bleeding.” Thorne stepped too close to my bare legs.

I panicked and countered. “You’re wet.”

“I jumped into Keep’s shower.” He reached for the towel. “Let me see.”

“No, really—”

He swore when he saw the cut, knocking my hands from the wound. I tucked them over my panties. Like that was any better.

“You’ll live,” he said. “Did you clean it?”

“I tried. I think there’s still glass in it though.”

“Shattered over top of you?”

My voice hollowed. “No. The scarred man rubbed my leg with a handful of the shards.”

Thorne’s jaw tensed. “He try anything else?”

“There wasn’t time.”

His profanity wasn’t polite. He exhaled before reaching under the sink for a first-aid kit.

“His name is Bounty,” Thorne said. “He’ll be the first to die.”

I didn’t answer, though the appropriate thing would be to refuse vengeance, plead to end the bloodshed, and be grateful I was finally safe.

Except Anathema stole my innocence and my excuse for naivety.

When danger and safety were offered from both sides of the gun, life limited one’s choices.

For as much as I begged, wished, and prayed to free myself from the club, I didn’t have a veil of ignorance to shield me from the violence. My name marked me as Anathema just like a cut. Just like any ink that might have colored my skin.

I’d never be safe if I left the club.

I had one option. One recourse. One desperate attempt to live another day, sing another song, and forget the past which shadowed my every movement.

I needed someone stronger, fiercer, and more dangerous than the darkness that pursued me.

And that man was Thorne.

I lived my life fighting fire with fire but had no idea how to survive the brimstone cloaking Thorne. Or how to escape it.

Or if I even wanted to run from it.

“This might hurt,” Thorne warned.

If he only knew. I braced for pain for the last twenty-one years. Now I expected the final blow.

Instead, Thorne spilled some alcohol over a bit of gauze and pressed the cloth against my leg. I hissed, but his hand gripped just above my knee. Firm. Not unsympathetic though.

He watched as I flinched, nodded when I sucked in a quick breath, and ignored me when it released in warm confusion.

He held up a sliver of gleaming glass and laid it against the sink. I pretended I didn’t see it, but the wound did feel better once the jabbing chunk slipped from my skin. The gash bled a bit more, but I pressed the gauze into my leg. Thorne ripped off a clean wrapping for my thigh.

“You don’t need stitches.” He gestured to the scars pebbling the rest of my leg. “It’ll blend right in.”

“Thanks.”

“That from falling off your dad’s bike?”

I nodded.

“He didn’t dress you in any gear?”

Dad rarely dressed me at all. My throat tightened like I swallowed a fistful of glass.

“It happens,” I said. “Live and learn.”

He didn’t answer. He gripped my hips with determined hands and pulled me closer to the edge of the sink. I blushed, but he pried apart my legs just enough to thread a bit of gauze, tape, and an ace bandage over my thigh.

His fingers pressed against my skin as he wrapped. I wished it was just the injury that pulsed in time to his touch.

“I think you’ll survive,” he said.

I avoided the steel in his gaze. “Wasn’t sure I would today.”

“Me either.”

My chest hurt from stifling the warbling cry I stuffed away. My eyes burned with tears that hadn’t fallen. My trembling fingers couldn’t hold a brush, and my exhausted mind pretended The Coup rattled the walls and hid in the shadows.

I stared at the tattoos marking Thorne’s chest. They were beautiful. They were frightening. I wanted nothing more than to feel their strength under my fingertips.

Thorne towered over me. The blood seeped through my bandage.

“When did you know you wouldn’t get out?” I whispered.

“Get out of what?”

“This life? This danger?”

I asked the warrior if he regretted the war and expected him to understand.

He didn’t.

“This is my life,” he said.

“But what kind of life is it?”

“It’s mine.”

“It’s dangerous.”

He smirked, though the amusement only hardened his features more. Impenetrable. As permanent as the ink and as unashamed as the darkness possessing his flesh with the insignia of his club.

“I like danger.” His hand brushed along my knee. I shivered. “You do too.”

“That’s not true.”

His hand moved up. “What got you hot tonight?  Singing?”

I pretended not to count the goose bumps he created on my thigh. I hid my disappointment in a whisper.

“You were the only one who actually listened to my set.”

“Is that a yes?”

My throat tightened over every last note I sang. Thorne’s palm enveloped my inner thigh. His touch drifted inward. I flinched as if another layer of glass jammed into my flesh. It didn’t hurt. I wished it had.

“You escaped a kidnapping, almost died in a fire, and sped home on a stolen bike.” He took a searing breath that burned my lungs with a shared heat. “You liked that more than some gig.”

“It...wasn’t a good gig.”

“You’re lying if you say you want out of this life.”

I wished I hadn’t stared at his lips, or concentrated on the baritone threat of his words, or willed the twisted beat of my heart to slam against my chest.

“I’m not part of Anathema,” I said.

“No, but it’s part of you. And all the concerts and college loans and temper tantrums won’t get you out of the club. So what is it?  Why are you so desperate to leave?”

His fingers teased along the too-pink lace of my panties. My cheeks flushed with the same innocence, but I didn’t let him scare me.

“Why are you so desperate to keep me here?” I asked.

He liked that challenge. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d go running to your big brothers.”

“My brothers and I aren’t talking at the moment.”

“Maybe you should be a good little girl and apologize.”

“And if I don’t?”

I stilled as he brushed my cheek. Thorne wasn’t gentle. His calloused touch claimed when it should have caressed, and his forearm flexed with the rigid strength of a man barely containing the demon of lust corrupting his intentions.

I gasped as his hand tangled in my wet hair and yanked.

“I don’t play nice, sweetheart.”

For the first time in my life, a raw, untainted, pure heat rushed within me. His hand gripped hard on my hair, and he pulled my head to expose the delicate hollow of my neck.

To kiss. To bite. To slit. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care.

His hands were rough, his touch unashamed, and his need completely, absolutely, unequivocally
natural
.

“I don’t want nice,” I whispered.