My own headlight illuminated the empty seats inside it and the wide, open doors made it clear that no one was here.
An all too familiar scream caught my attention as I hit the brakes and the bike came skidding to a halt on the gravel at the side of the road, causing me to drag the heel of my boot along the asphalt to stop the whole thing from spinning out.
I cut the bike's engine, leaping off it and letting it drop to the road with a heavy crash before racing into the trees.
I could hear Tatum screaming somewhere in the dark, and it felt like my entire soul was screaming with her as my grip on the bat in my hand tightened and I raced towards her.
The ground sloped away steeply, the light from the car’s headlights quickly getting left behind as I descended into the forest and chased after my girl. Every step I took felt like a torture of a specific kind, the raw, brutal pounding of my heart calling out to her with a desperate kind of plea for her to hold on just a little longer.
I’m coming baby. Just keep fighting for me.
It took everything in me not to call out to her to let her know I was coming, to keep my presence hidden so that I could sneak up on that motherfucker and end him before he even knew I was here. Because if he really thought he could hunt my girl in the dark and not fall prey to the monster in me, then he was about to find out exactly what I was made of when you cut away the bullshit.
Because once you dug beneath my skin, I was all deep, dark, primal violence and I fed my soul on the taste of blood. I’d been raised with the anger of a cornered wolf and the mercy of a starving viper. Nothing in this world could stop me from destroying him now.
I ran at full speed towards the sounds of her screams, and the closer I drew, the more my skin prickled as I heard something in them that was just as dark and brutal as the fury that lived in me.
I burst between the trees with my bat held high, ready to cave his fucking head in and found her instead. Tatum Rivers, the girl who'd sworn to be mine, who had made me hers through chains of passion and fate, who had never once backed down from a fight or caved to the evil in us, finally revealed to be the creature born of nightmares which I'd always known she was.
She was coated in blood, the bright red colour staining her skin and painting her as a queen of death to be worshipped as she stood over the body of the man she'd killed, her chest heaving and eyes wild as she looked up and found me there. No doubt I was stained in death as heavily as she was, the two of us a pair of bloodied, broken souls who had found each other in the dark.
The body laying at her feet was clearly dead, the lifeless corpse bloodied and battered as she stood over him in victory and I swear I fell for her even more as I remained rooted to the spot, staring at her drenched in the blood of her enemy.
Her gaze met mine and a beat of silence passed between us as she realised I’d come to rescue her and I accepted that she hadn’t needed me to. Not that it would stop me from coming for her again every time she needed me.
I dropped my bat and she dropped the gun in her fist as I took three long strides to close the distance between us and caught her jaw in my grasp.
Tatum sucked in a sharp breath as her bright blue eyes widened a moment before my mouth claimed hers.
A growl of pure, carnal, violent need swept through me as I tasted her, my tongue pushing between her lips and swallowing the gasp of surprise which came from her as I stole our first kiss. But if I was a thief then she was the most precious gemstone known to man and she was putting up no protest at me taking her.
I could taste her soul between the movement of our lips, feel her pain as she gripped my biceps and dug her nails in hard enough to make my own blood join what coated my flesh. She was pure and light and empty and dark, this fucked up little creature who was so close to breaking that I could feel it in every place I touched her. But she wouldn’t break. Not now or ever. She was the fiercest, strongest, most defiant girl I’d ever met and there was nothing in this world or the next that could cast her to ruin.
Her teeth sank into my bottom lip and I wasn't even sure if the blood I could taste was mine or that of the men we'd just killed, and I didn't care. Because this kiss was more than just a kiss. It was an oath and a vow and a promise I intended to keep until death came and ripped me from this world kicking and screaming and cursing for the rest of time. I was her creature now. I was a man on his knees in the rain and a monster hiding in the dark and I was hers to command at will.
She had taken ownership of my twisted, fucked up being and I would willingly dive into hellfire and beyond at her command, just to make her happy.
Her hands slid to the back of my neck until she was fisting my hair and pulling me closer, driving some of her own pain into me and claiming me as hers once and for all. There was no going back for us now and we both knew it. This was the final wall dividing us and we were tearing it down like it had never been constructed at all.
When I'd fought the urge to kiss her like this all of those times before now, it had been purely for her own good. She was better off away from me. Better off hating me and cursing me and aching for my pain. But now that I'd seen her in her darkest moment, I knew that holding out on her hadn't been doing a damn thing to stop her from owning me. And I was done holding back. I was her beast to use, destroy and punish and I'd give my life for hers before I'd ever see her hurt again.
We broke apart and she looked up at me with a feral kind of hunger which had me aching for more and more of her. I wished the world would fade away. I wished we could just put time on hold and forget about my brother bleeding out and needing us and forget about the dead men filling the forest so that I could claim her fully here and now. I wanted to bring our bodies together coated in the blood of our enemies and the pain of our grief. But if I did, it meant I was giving up on Saint. And I'd die before I did that.
"My monster," Tatum breathed as she looked up at me in the moonlight, painted in blood for her.
"Always," I agreed in a rough voice which I hoped conveyed to her the truth of that vow before snatching her hand and pulling her close to me.
I hooked the baseball bat from the ground and grabbed the cell phone which was laying amongst the dead leaves beside the corpse before switching it off and shoving it in my pocket. I gave the area another slow glance to make sure there was nothing else worth taking then grabbed her hand and set off back up the hill towards the road.
We were seriously fucked. There was no way that we could cover this up ourselves, let alone get Saint the help he needed as quickly as he needed it...assuming the worst hadn't already happened.
But I refused to believe that, because I was sure I would have felt it if he'd died. The Night Keeper oaths we'd made might have seemed like bullshit sometimes, but one thing was for sure in my mind. They'd bound our souls together. And if his had moved on from this place then I just knew that I'd know it. I’d feel it in my gut like a piece of my twisted heart had been ripped from my flesh and burned to nothing.
"Saint?" Tatum asked as I pulled her into a fast pace and I could hear the fear in her voice.
"Alive," I snarled, daring her or the universe or whoever the fuck else who might want to get involved to try and question me on that.
Her fingers tightened on mine and a choked sob of relief escaped her lips at my words.
I could feel her cracking, the adrenaline from the fight fading from her body and reality coming down on her hard and fast as she was forced to face everything that had happened tonight. And I got the feeling I didn’t even know the half of it.
I turned to her and lifted her into my arms without a word, cradling her against my chest as I could feel her shocked gaze on my face, but I just kept moving back towards the road.
"Tatum!" Monroe bellowed as we approached the edge of the trees and I stepped out onto the road just as he sprinted up to the car.
"She's here, she's okay," I called back as his gaze fell on us and the frantic look in his eyes made me pause.
He was
drenched in sweat from running this whole way and he didn't slow as he ran straight up to us and I let Tatum slide from my grip.
Monroe caught her face between his hands, tipping her chin back as he inspected her, his thumbs smearing the blood on her cheeks as he reassured himself it wasn't hers. Then he ran his hands down her sides, checking her arms, hands, waist, dropping to his knees before her as he inspected her legs, making absolutely certain that she wasn't injured before releasing a groan of relief and pressing his head to her stomach.
"I'm alright," Tatum reassured him, her hands stroking his blonde hair in a soothing motion that stained it with the blood of the man she'd killed.
He stood suddenly, his lips capturing hers as he wrapped her tight in his arms like he never wanted to let go again and my brows shot up as she melted into him.
I hadn't had a moment to consider why the fuck he'd been out in that cabin with her without his damn shirt on until this very second, but looking at them now made it undeniably clear. Apparently all of the Night Keepers were just as obsessed with our girl as each other and all of the protests he’d made before now to the contrary had just been bullshit designed to hide what was now painfully obvious.
Nash pulled back suddenly like he'd just remembered I was here. That he was a teacher and she was his student and that was the biggest secret we would all have to keep after tonight.
I wanted to be angry about it. I wanted to roar and snarl and stake my claim and tell him to back the fuck off of my girl.
But she wasn't my girl, was she? She'd sworn herself to all of us and just because I was giving myself to her alone, didn't mean she'd be doing the same. I'd already known about what she had with Blake and I'd seen what lived between her and Saint. And if I really did want to buy into the story of who we all were and who we claimed to be then maybe I was going to have to accept that this was the way it was. The way it was always meant to be.
"That's how it is then?" I asked to confirm it, pinning Nash in my glare as I dared him to make this mean any less than it had to if he expected me to share my girl with him.
Monroe swallowed thickly, his gaze slipping from me to Tatum as he held her hand tightly, clearly waiting for me to lose my mind over this truth. But I could see it now, burning so bright that I must have been blind to miss it before. He was as captured by our queen as the rest of us.
"Yeah," Monroe said, raising his chin defiantly as he faced off against me. "This is how it is."
"What are you going to do?" Tatum asked and I blew out a breath as I pulled my cell phone from my pocket.
"Something I wish I didn't have to," I replied as I moved to make the call I'd sworn I'd never make. But all of the vows and oaths and declarations meant shit if they put my girl at risk and if they might equal the death of my brother.
"You can't tell anyone about us," Monroe snarled, catching my wrist in an iron grip like he was planning to tear my cell phone from my grasp.
"I’m not going to," I said, tearing my arm back out of his hold. "I'll keep your little secret, you can trust me on that. What I need to do now is sort this shit out. We’ve got a massacre and a dying man on our hands and I’m guessing you don’t have any way to help us deal with that. So you can drive us back to the others while I make this call."
I stalked away from him and his suspicious looks and climbed into the back of his Mustang as I stared down at my phone like it was a ticking bomb about to go off in my face.
Monroe rolled the bike I’d ridden here out of the road and shoved it into the trees as I hesitated with my thumb over the call button. Why did doing this one simple thing feel like signing my own death sentence?
Tatum moved around the car and climbed into the passenger seat, turning to look over her shoulder at me with fear in her eyes.
"What are you doing?" she asked me as my gaze roamed over the blood on her skin.
"Fixing this," I said in a rough voice as I held back on the entire truth. Selling my soul to the devil for you, baby.
Her lips parted but I hit dial before she could ask any more and Monroe leapt into the car, starting the engine and turning us back towards the cabin.
It only rang twice before it connected and my uncle's amused laughter came down the speaker, sending a curl of rage dancing through my limbs.
"I knew you couldn't keep running from ya family, Kyan lad," Niall said, seeming like a jolly fool despite the fact that he was the most dangerous man I knew.
"I've never run from a thing in my damn life," I growled and Monroe met my gaze in the rear-view mirror for a moment like he'd just figured out exactly who I was calling. I'd told him enough about my family during our training sessions for him to have some understanding of how little I wanted to be having this conversation with them. But I’d do it for Saint. For her. This family of five I’d found for myself were worth any sacrifice I had to make. Certainly worth far more than the people who had bought me into this fucked up world.
"Pa will be so pleased to know you're back in the fold," Niall replied, ignoring my words as I felt the leash wrap tight around my throat like I'd always known it would again one day, no matter how much I'd ached to leave it behind.
"Well the price of my return is a doctor and a clean up," I said, swallowing down my hatred for my family with as much disdain as I could manage even though I knew I was losing the only shot I'd ever really had at escaping them.
Niall was the only one amongst them who I had even an ounce of respect for and that was mainly because I knew he only ever killed people he felt truly deserved it. Despite that prerequisite to his violent tendencies he was the most bloodthirsty and arguably the most deranged member of my genetically related family. He certainly had the most blood on his hands and would most definitely be the one sent after me if I ever pushed my grandpa too far and outlived my usefulness. Still, there was something about the psychotic bastard that I liked in my own fucked up way. And if I had to call on any of them for this favour then he was always going to be my uncle of choice.
Tatum was still watching me as we raced back down the road, but I didn't look at her. I didn't want her to see me selling myself out even if it was the only choice we had right now.
"How many bodies?" Niall asked, sounding more amused by the second as he realised I was buying my way back in with death.
"I lost count," I said honestly and he laughed louder, clapping his hands in excitement.
"I knew you had the O’Brien blood running hot in ya veins, lad," he cooed. "Just send me your location and I'll have it dealt with."
"The doctor needs to be fast," I demanded.
"Don't fret, lad. I'll forward the location of the best nearby when I know where you are and make sure he's ready and waiting when you get there. What are we dealing with?"
"He was hit by a car and shot," I ground out, fighting to keep my emotions locked down, though the fact that I was asking for a doctor for Saint would tell my family all about how much he meant to me anyway. But that didn’t matter right now. I just needed to focus on making sure he stayed alive. All that followed would just have to fall on my shoulders when it did and I’d bear the weight of it then. There wasn’t any price I wouldn’t pay for my brother’s life.
"Consider it done," Niall said happily. "And I look forward to seeing you and your girl for Christmas."
The line went dead and I dropped the phone into my lap with a curse of frustration. If there was any other way at all for me to have fixed this then I would have done it. But my family were the only people fucked up enough to deal with this shit for us effectively. And with so much of Saint’s blood staining the ground I knew I couldn’t risk law enforcement finding the scene of this massacre. There would be too much evidence available to link back to us.
"Who was that?" Tatum demanded and I looked into her blue eyes as I fixed an impenetrable mask over my features and shrugged.
"Just some people who can get rid of all this evidence for us," I replied evenly.
"What about my dad?" she ask
ed, her voice hitching. "What will they do with his body?"
I opened my mouth to tell her he'd be disposed of like the rest, hacked up and dissolved in acid most likely. The evidence of everything he'd ever been destroyed and lost forevermore. But the look of raw pain in her eyes made something twist sharply in my gut and I hesitated. I might not have given a shit about my family, but it was clear that she did about hers. And if I was giving myself to her then that meant protecting her against anything that could hurt her, even if the pain wasn't physical.
"I'll make sure they give him a grave," I told her in a low voice, knowing that would only indebt me to my family further but feeling like it was the only real choice I could make. "A proper one you can visit. Somehow."
Her eyes filled with tears but they didn't spill over as she blinked hard and looked back to the road wordlessly.
I shot a quick message to Niall forwarding our coordinates and relaying the message to preserve Donovan Rivers' body. His response was instant.
Niall:
That'll cost ya, lad.
Kyan:
I know.
Monroe finally slammed the brakes on as we made it back to Blake and Saint and I leapt out of the car, my gaze raking over the still form of my brother as he lay dying in the dirt while Blake held pressure on the wound through pure force of will.
"Is he...?" Tatum began as she leapt out of the car, her eyes wild with fear while Blake looked up at her in clear relief. He didn't waste time asking about the motherfucker who had taken her. He knew full well that we wouldn't have left him breathing.
"He's alive," Blake growled. "Just about."
"I have a doctor waiting for us," I said, moving forward to take Saint's keys from his pocket. "Let's get his stubborn ass there before he bleeds out and comes back to haunt us for fucking this up."
No one laughed at my shitty joke and Tatum dropped down beside Blake to help him however she could. Monroe was looking at Saint with a dark intensity to his gaze which had my hackles rising, but as quickly as I thought I'd seen it, it was gone again.
Kings of Anarchy Page 2