Lock and Load: A Demented Sons MC Texas Novel

by Kristine Allen

  “Daddy, tuck me in!” Shit. I didn’t know if I’d get back up off the floor, but I couldn’t tell her no. I hadn’t seen her in God knew how many horrific days. I’d lost track. There were so many of those days I never thought I’d see her again.

  So I lowered myself carefully to the floor, snuggled her in with her blanket, and rested my hand on her until she fell asleep. Then I didn’t want to leave her, but I knew I needed rest too.

  Frustrated, I tried to get up on my own several times. Finally, when Raiven tried to help me, I shoved her hand away.

  “Fine. Be a stubborn fucker,” she whispered. Then she left me on my hands and knees next to Presley’s bed as she went into the bathroom.

  In desperation, I ended up crawling over to the bed, where I tried to pull myself up. By the time I got myself upright, I was aching, sweating, and panting. It was fucking ridiculous.

  “Why do you have to be so damn bull-headed?” I looked up from where I was watching my feet shuffle to the bathroom. She stood in the doorway, arms crossed, until I reached her, then she stepped back to allow me to pass.

  “I hate feeling like this. I hate relying on you or anyone else to take a fucking shower. I need to piss and I don’t want you to watch. So do you mind if I have a little privacy?” Resigned, I decided to pick my battles.

  “Okay, but I’ll be right outside the door.” She gave me a sympathetic glance, and I hated it too.

  Who knew taking a fucking piss on your own could be so draining? No fucking pun intended.

  I’d had to hold on to the wall with one hand so I didn’t lose my balance. Washing my hands required locking my knees and leaning against the edge of the sink with both legs so it could hold me up. By the time I got the soap washed off, my arms and shoulders ached. Thanks to Viper, my shoulders were so sore I couldn’t raise my arms to dry my hands.

  Hanging my head, I gave in. “Raiven?” I spoke softly.

  Immediately, she was in the room and handing me the towel. That told me she’d been watching through the crack in the door.

  “Thanks,” I begrudgingly offered.

  “You’re welcome. Come on.” Trying to be helpful, she lifted my arm to put it over her shoulder. She didn’t know, but it hurt like hell thanks to being stretched from my arms and having Viper use me as a punching bag. It caused me to wince, which made her apologize. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Stop. Quit being sorry. I can’t stand the thought of you feeling sorry for me,” I grumped. It took longer than it should’ve, but we made it to the bed, and she helped me work my way up on it. I couldn’t be bothered to pull the covers back first.

  Weary beyond belief, as soon as my head hit the pillow, my eyes began to close. The bed dipped behind me, and her warmth scooted close to me, though she wasn’t touching me.

  “Come here.” I needed her, but I didn’t want to admit it. “I’m cold.”

  “Cold?” She scoffed, but she did as I said and her front pressed to my back. Her arm snuck around my waist, and I lifted mine enough for her to slip hers under. Taking her hand, I tucked it up close to my chest.

  Finally feeling complete, I fell asleep.

  Grabbing Viper by the throat, I threw him back. His nails dug into my wrist, and he whimpered as he gasped for air.

  Blinking when something seemed off, I cleared my vision and realized I had Raiven pinned to the bed and she was clawing at my hand around her throat. Startled, I jolted off her and fell to my back. Chest heaving, heart racing, limbs shaking, I lay there staring at the ceiling until I had myself under control. My head warily rolled her way, and I reached tentatively for her, worry heavy in my heart.

  When she flinched, I died a little inside.

  “Are you okay? God, I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t know what happened.” But I did. That was why I’d never shared a bed with Presley. No matter how scared she’d ever gotten in the night, I never let her climb in my bed. I’d lie on the floor next to hers, but never did anyone sleep with me.

  Letty was the only one, but even that had been hit or miss. I often ended up in the guest room.

  Then there was Raiven that one night.

  Fuck… that one fucking night. That was all I’d had with her before everything tanked.

  I’d thought I’d be okay. It was only going to be a nap. Maybe if the last several weeks hadn’t happened, I might’ve been.

  Eyes huge, her hands on her throat, she stared at me. If anything could’ve made me feel worse, it was that look.

  Except, instead of jumping out of bed and running for her life, what did she do? She fucked up my world by pulling me close. She rested my head on her unbound breasts and held me. It wasn’t sexual, even though I could’ve pulled her nipple into my mouth through her tank top. They were right there.

  Feeling her compassion as she kissed the top of my head nearly sent me into another fit of tears, and I fought it like a motherfucker. Breaking down in front of her earlier already had me listed as a class A pussy in my book.

  Comfort and wordless support were what she was offering. My arms wrapped around her, and my fingers clenched the back of her tank tightly.

  I clung to it like a fucking lifeline.

  “I’ll be here as long as you need me,” she whispered.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to answer with “forever.”

  “Wolf Moon”—Type O Negative (including Zoanthropic Paranoia)

  Lock had been back for three weeks. Every day of those three weeks, he’d grumbled like a son of a bitch about the strict recuperation regimen that Styx had outlined. The man was a surly, assholish dickwad.

  “Styx, I swear I’m going to punch him in the nuts.” I was pretty sure steam came from my ears.

  “Cut him a break, hon. He’s been going above and beyond to get his butt back in shape. He went through a lot.” Styx probably thought he was helping. He really wasn’t.

  I rolled my eyes.

  My patience was running thin with him. The fan-fucking-tastic icing on my cake of life was I’d been sick and trying to keep his ass on track too. I wasn’t sure if it was because I had yet to process the last few of months of my life, or if I’d intentionally buried all my shit to help him. Either way, it was catching up to me.

  Exhausted, moody, nauseous, I continued to trudge through. On top of working half days at the tattoo shop the club owned, I helped with Presley, kept Mr. Grouch-Ass in line, and did my best not to lose my shit.

  Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I’d made a doctor’s appointment for after I got off work. I was tired of feeling like crap. They’d wanted me to go get labs done the morning after I called. Maybe I needed some vitamin B injections or some shit. Maybe I needed sleeping pills. Fuck, maybe I needed my head read. That was highly likely.

  Whatever it was, three days later, I was chilling in the doctor’s office scrolling through social media on my phone. The “few minutes” the nurse had said it would take the doc to come in had come and gone. Glancing at the time, I rolled my eyes for about the five-thousandth time.

  The door opened, and I heard, “Ms. Knight?”

  I looked up from my phone and dropped it in my purse.

  “Yes, that’s me.” I gave a weak smile.

  “Well, we may have an idea of what’s going on with you.” The doctor scrolled through some shit on her laptop as I waited.

  “Umm, okay?” I really wanted to say, “Spit it out!” but I didn’t.

  “Well, for one you are a little on the anemic side, so I’m going to prescribe some iron supplements along with your prenatal vitamin.” She clacked away at the keyboard.

  “Okay. Whoa. Wait. Excuse me?” I held both hands up with my pointer fingers extended. “Prenatal vitamins because they are good for me, right?”

  She gave a small, understanding smile. “Yes. They are good for you and the baby.”

  I choked. Arms flailing, I struggled to suck a minuscule amount of oxygen into my deprived lungs. She calmly stood up as if I wasn’t dying in her exam
room and rubbed a soothing hand on my back.

  Once my body quit gagging and coughing, I placed a hand on my heart. It was pounding so hard, my hand was jumping. Then I laughed.

  “Sorry about that. I thought you said baby.” My heart rate was starting to slow, and the panic was subsiding. I’d clearly heard her wrong.

  “Yes. You’re definitely pregnant, Ms. Knight. When was the first day of your last period?” Returning to her computer screen, she waited for my answer.

  “Uh.” Panic mode returned because I couldn’t remember. I did remember telling Lock we’d been safe in the hotel that night, so it had been before that. But shit, that didn’t always mean anything, and I cursed myself for being so stupid and getting carried away.

  Then a worse thought process began, and I jumped off the exam table and vomited in the trash can. Dry heaving, I trembled from either the puking or the news the doctor had delivered.

  “Doc. How far along am I?” Nervous and unsteady, my hands rubbed shakily over my face and around to the back of my neck. Feeling on the verge of collapse, I leaned against the counter by the sink after rinsing out my mouth.

  Please God, don’t let this be Stefano’s baby. “We used a condom the last time. Right? Of course we did. We always did. Jesus, I’m talking to myself.”

  Acting like I wasn’t puking in her trash can and talking to myself, the doctor continued, “Is the father still in the picture?”

  Wide-eyed, I didn’t know how to answer that. “I don’t know,” I whispered. On weak legs, I returned to the exam table and dropped to my ass. She bit her lip.

  “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we schedule an ultrasound so we can get some measurements, and that will give us a better idea of where you’re at,” she responded softly. She was trying to sound reassuring and calm, but it wasn’t helping.

  “Uh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. When?” My hands were rapidly tapping the side of the table.

  “I’ll be right back. Let me go look at our schedule.” A sympathetic tip of her lips had me wanting to cry. She closed her laptop and exited the room.

  “She had a laptop, why couldn’t she look that up in here? Shit. Maybe she’s calling in the men with the white coats. I’m losing my fucking mind. Look at me! I’m talking to myself again!” Hands waving in the air, I grasped my hair to steady them.

  The nurse came back instead of the doctor. “Ms. Knight? So we’ve had a couple of cancellations. We can get you in on Thursday of this week or Monday.”

  She’d barely gotten my options out before I blurted out, “Thursday!”

  “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

  Oh my God, why does everyone keep leaving? Don’t they understand this is an emergency situation? Christ on a cracker!

  All could see was a calendar in my mind showing it was only Monday. Three days. Fuck, I’d have to wait three damn days. Three days to find out if my baby’s father was dead and I’d watched his brains blow out or if it was a man who acted like he could barely stand me anymore.

  For fuck’s sake, he’d had a goddamn cot brought into the room after the nap incident that first day. I hated it. I missed the warmth of his body behind me.

  Thinking about the possibilities, I began to dry heave again. Thank God my stomach was already empty.

  Then I prayed I wouldn’t be one of those women who had morning sickness through their whole pregnancy. Slapping my hand to my forehead, I realized that was why I’d been nauseous so much.

  Shit.

  Shit, damn, fuck, fuck, fuck.

  “Okay, here’s an appointment reminder card. If you go to the pharmacy waiting room, they can fill your prescriptions.” When I looked at her like she had a dick on her forehead, she gave me a raised-eyebrow, nervous grin. Like I was crazy.

  “Um, we have an in-house pharmacy for non-narcotic and basic prescriptions. It’s up front and to the left of the doors you came in. Was there anything else I could help you with? Any questions you had?” Expectantly, she stood there with her hands in her pink scrub pockets.

  Brain reeling, coming apart at the seams, I shook my head. “No, I guess I’m good.”

  What a crock of shit. I was so far from good it wasn’t even remotely funny.

  Grabbing my purse, I slung it over my shoulder and held the handle in a death grip with both hands. Unable to think clearly, I had to rely on her for directions back to the lobby.

  In a daze, I waited again, collected my prescriptions, which I absently shoved in my purse, and then I stumbled out into the bright afternoon. The heat radiating off the asphalt rivaled the sun’s warmth, creating a veritable inferno.

  Christ, Texas was hot.

  I didn’t have a car yet, so I walked back to the tattoo shop. I’d found the clinic down the road from the shop because I didn’t want to have the club guys running me all over town. After what I’d found out, I was glad I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone.

  Initially, I’d been escorted anywhere I needed to go because they were worried about Stefano finding me. I’d had armed escorts everywhere I went. Then when Lock got back and Stefano had been taken care of, it didn’t occur to me to drive his truck. It was his, not mine.

  By the time I’d returned the block and a half to the shop, I was soaked in sweat and wanting to die. The cool AC as I pushed open the door was blissful nirvana, and I dropped to the black leather couch in the waiting room.

  “I thought you left for the day?” Justin, one of the other tattoo artists, was showing his latest client out. He stopped by where I was sitting and tipped his head to the side in question.

  “I… uh… I needed to… I mean, I met a friend for a coffee down on the corner.” Stammering, I sounded like a moron. It was a hundred and ninety-five in the shade.

  “Coffee?” He looked at me like I was a fucking weirdo.

  “Um, iced coffee. Yeah.” A big smile spread across my face until my cheeks hurt.

  “Okay.” He drew out the word and pursed his lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  I was sure he didn’t mean for me to see, but as he walked away, he glanced over his shoulder at me and shook his head. I was acting like a weirdo and I knew it.

  My head fell back on the cool leather as I texted Smoke that I was done so he could send one of the guys to get me. Now that I’d found this shit out, I was going to have to look at getting a car. My life was about to change drastically, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  “I’m gonna be a mom,” I whispered as I placed a hand lightly on my belly. As I waited for my ride, my mind rambled and rolled aimlessly from thought to thought.

  The bell over the door rang, and I looked up to see Slice walking in. A newly patched member, he seemed to get the short end of the stick, along with one of the prospects, Truth. They were my designated drivers.

  “Hey, gorgeous. You ready to head out? Presley was mad because I wouldn’t let her come with me, but I’m on my bike today.” Broody, he stared at me with his unnerving green eyes.

  He was big, but not ’roided-out big. Most of the guys seemed to come by their muscles honestly between the gym at the clubhouse and their jobs. Also like the most of the guys I’d met from both chapters, he was gorgeous. There were a couple, like my uncle, that were what someone might call a “typical” biker, with big beer bellies and bushy beards. Most of them were like… well, like Lock or the handsome devil in front of me.

  Nodding, I gathered up my purse and waved bye to Nikki as she sat at the reception counter. At first, I’d thought she was going to be a bitch and we were going to be walking around on eggshells with each other. It didn’t take long to figure out that the piercer was pretty introverted despite her mermaid hair, tats, and piercings that screamed wild child. She was sweet, and we got along great.

  “See you tomorrow, Raiven.”

  Stepping out into the blazing oven, I grimaced when he handed me the extra helmet. God, it was hot enough as it was without wearing a helmet, but it was a club rule or some shit.

  After I shoved
my purse in his saddle bag, I put the helmet on. It was a struggle to get it fastened because I was shaking again, thinking about facing Lock.

  The ride to the clubhouse took about twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of feeling like I had a hairdryer blowing in my face.

  By the time we parked in front of the clubhouse, I was roasting, sweating like a stuck pig, and beginning to feel nauseous again. Seeing Lock standing in the shade with Styx, Smoke, and Check didn’t help.

  Dammit.

  With narrowed eyes, he watched me get off Slice’s bike. Between him watching me and thinking about what I’d found out, my hands began to tremble, and I fumbled with the strap of the helmet.

  “Here, let me help.” Slice gently pushed my hands away and crouched to see what he was doing, because my hair had become tangled in it.

  The relief of getting the damn thing off was incredible. He laughed as I sighed.

  Approaching the trio, Slice gave them each a handshake and their little bro-hug before I caught up. Of course, I may have been dragging my feet.

  Lock had made great strides and he’d been going above and beyond with his recuperation despite his bitching. He was working out more than Styx approved of, but there was no reasoning with him. In the few short weeks he’d been back, he’d shown significant improvement.

  He was still much leaner than when I’d first met him, but he was filling out and his muscles were slowly coming back. Unfortunately, he was still as sinfully hot as he always had been. My eyes rolled.

  Oh and be still my heart, he was growing the top of his hair out again to make Presley happy. I hid a grin, because it sure made me happy too. Then I remembered my afternoon, and my grin wilted in the blazing summer sun.

  “Hey, Raiven. What do you think of Lock’s new scoot?” When Check stepped back, I realized they were standing around a black bike very similar to the one I’d ridden on with Slice. It was gorgeous.

  “Wow. It’s beautiful, but are you sure you’re okay to ride?” I worried that a heavy bike like that might be too much for him so soon.