His Angel: The Wounded Souls Series

by Leah Sharelle

  WOUNDED SOULS MC

  His Angel

  Book 5

  LEAH SHARELLE

  Copyright © 2018 Leah Sharelle

  His Angel (Wounded Souls MC Series – Book 5)

  By Leah Sharelle

  All Rights Reserved.

  Chief Literary Editor: Colleen Snibson of Colleen Snibson Editing

  Co-Literary Editor: Rogena Mitchell-Jones of RMJ Manuscript Service LLC

  Both of Two Red Pens Editing www.tworedpens.com

  Photography: Christy Van Elsen, Chic Professional Photography

  Cover Design: Mayhem Cover Creations

  Models: Katrina Leckie and Louis Armitage

  This book may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. All characters and storylines are the properties of the author, and your support and respect are appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  This author writes in both American English and Australian English and may include Australian diction.

  For all the readers that love Creed, and those who adore Darth. Xo.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  The Past

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Bonus Scenes

  Deck & His Sweetness

  Booth & His Honey

  Steel & His Beauty

  Mannix & His Lady

  Creed & His Angel

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to all the readers who have taken this wonderful journey with me and to the men of the Wounded Souls and their amazing women. I have had the time of my life writing this series and can’t believe it’s over. Well, it might be over or maybe not. I’m not sure…

  Thank you so much to my cover model and daughter Katrina for being with me every step of the way. You became Charlotte, Stella, Mia, Rainn, and Memphis, and you did a fantastic job, baby girl.

  To my other two daughters, Meagan and Tamara, thank you both for supporting me and listening to me plot every single storyline with you.

  To my lovely friend Vegas, known to others as Julie. Well, I did it, my friend.

  And as always, handsome.

  The Past

  CREED

  “Congratulations again, and be sure to make an appointment at the reception on your way out,” the doctor said just before he left the room.

  I nodded, but I never took my eyes off Lila Rose, my beautiful wife, who just smiled at me as she fixed the bodice of her sundress. I wasn’t comfortable with her taking her clothes off for any man other than me, even if it was a doctor. I voiced as much to her, and of course, her answer was just to roll her eyes at me.

  “Seriously, Creed Stephens, you are such an alpha,” she joked. “Baby, we are going to be parents,” she said excitedly.

  “I can’t wait to tell the guys I knocked you up,” I said, taking her hand and leading her out of the small examination area to the front desk where we made an appointment for another visit.

  When the receptionist gave us a date, I admitted it stung that it was going to be while I was deployed again. I hated that I was going to miss out on so much of this pregnancy. My duty in the army never bothered me until that moment.

  “Ha. They are going to give you so much crap, Creed. I can’t wait to hear what Deck has to say,” she said, taking the small card and stashing it in her handbag.

  “I can only imagine, beautiful. Come on. Let’s go home and celebrate.” I wanted inside my wife. I was due to go back in a week, and I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could get.

  “Oh, I want to go for a ride. Come on, baby. Take me for a ride on that big hog of yours. Then you can take me home and lose yourself in me.” Lila Rose pouted at me.

  My weakness was my wife, and if she wanted it, she got it—no questions. I had a hard time saying no to her. We had been together since we were fourteen, and we lost our virginity to each other. There was no one else for me and never ever would be.

  I hesitated for a minute. Yeah, we rode here on the bike, but now that we had confirmation, I was apprehensive to put her on the back for longer than necessary. Lila Rose loved to ride on the back of my bike, so we did it every chance we got. With me away so much in the last few years, she was itching for as much as she could get.

  “Beautiful, it isn’t safe now that we have another passenger. I want to make love to you as much as I can before I have to go back,” I whined. It was a futile attempt on my part because those pretty hazel eyes begging me were another weakness.

  “Please, baby, just around the mountain pass then straight home. I’m not going to be able to do it once you get back after this deployment.” Arms wrapped around my neck and pulled me down to the sweetest lips in the world.

  “Lila Rose.” I moaned as I took her mouth and plundered my tongue inside. Long minutes passed before we both needed air. “Okay, you win. One ride, then you are all mine.” After one last chaste kiss, I led my wife to my big, black hog.

  ———

  “Creed, watch out,” Lila Rose screamed from behind me, grabbing my attention.

  I looked in the mirror on my handlebar and saw an SUV. It was right on my back wheel, far too close for safety, and my first thought was of my wife.

  “Hang on tight, beautiful. Do not let go,” I ordered her as I pushed down on the throttle, going faster than I ever had with a passenger on the back, but I had no other choice. I had to get Lila Rose away from the maniac sitting on my arse.

  I looked up ahead for any place I could pull over, but we were on the mountain road now—a narrow, two-way road. The shoulder wasn’t big enough to stop on and not fall down the cliff. What the hell had I been thinking, taking her on this road? Fucking stupid idiot.

  “Creed.” Her scream penetrated my mind just in time to feel the sharp impact from behind. No bike was built to survive a shunt from a large vehicle. My body was thrown off the bike, and the sound of screaming and metal twisting echoed in my ears. Pain like I had never felt burned across my chest. I hit the ground with a sickening thump, my whole body crying out in agonising pain. I rolled God knew how many times before I hit something that stopped me from rolling any further.

  I lay there, still not computing what the fuck had just happened. My chest felt like it had been shredded, and I didn’t have to look to know I was bleeding badly. Being a soldier, I had seen plenty of horrific injuries to know that I had just sustained one.

  As I rolled experimentally to my left, pain laced up my arm. Jesus fucking Christ, what happened? Tentatively, I unbuckled my helmet, which took a few goes before my fingers got the job done. Tossing it to the side, I lifted my head and
looked around to see where my bike was. Bits of twisted metal littered the gravel all around me.

  Suddenly, my eyes caught sight of a rumpled pile of pink rags. Oh, no, please fuck no.

  “Lila Rose!” The scream tore from my mouth. Ignoring the pain, I half dragged myself over to where my wife was, her beautiful long, brown hair a mess. Somehow, her helmet had come off. She never fucking did it up tight enough. How many times had I told her off for that?

  “Baby, oh, please, baby. No, no, no,” I cried over and over again, but her lifeless body never moved. I gathered her up in my arms as best as I could with the injuries I had. Her body was mangled, and nothing looked right. Her arms were broken, and her face was bloodied and unrecognisable.

  “Don’t leave me, baby. Please, someone fucking help me,” I screamed, my dead wife’s body in my arms. “Lila Rose, baby, come back to me. Don’t you die, baby. Don’t you die,” I begged through my tears. I placed my lips to hers and pressed against them as if willing life back into her, but it was too late. My wife and unborn child were dead. A pained guttural roar left my throat.

  Nothing was ever going to be the same.

  Prologue

  CREED

  As I quickly swung my leg over my bike and started her up, I looked down at the tank and performed my usual ritual, pressing two fingers to my lips and then to the painted picture of my wife’s face. I did this every time I got on my bike or walked past it—always. Even with all the shit going on, and it didn’t matter what kind of a hurry I was in, I still did it. Lila Rose was never far from my thoughts. Her name was never far from my mind. I never shortened it, ever. To me, it was the most beautiful name in the world.

  I watched as Lucky and Ford sprinted back to the compound to do my bidding. I knew Booth would lock the club down like a fortress, but I wasn’t too worried about leaving. I was a lot like Deck in the way he and I could compartmentalise. The problems at the club’s front door worried me, sure, but I had to focus one problem at a time, and this needed to be done first, then I would head back for Vegas’s funeral. No way would I miss that. Darth needed every one of us at his back when he laid his woman to rest. I knew from personal experience what was going through his mind right about then. As well as the pain and hurt from such a horrible loss, the helplessness, there would also be guilt. So much guilt. I felt weighed down by it every single fucking day. It ate at me. It was my constant companion, my best and worst friend.

  I revved the engine of my bike and hauled out of the parking lot, my destination west. I took the highway this time. No time for shortcuts or bogus routes. I had to get there quick. No way was another woman going to lose her life because of me. Too much blood was already on my hands, and I couldn’t handle anymore. I pushed Mia away for the same reason—well, there was another one, a big one, one that had me hauling arse to get to it.

  I liked Mia, kind of loved her in a small way, but she was destined for my brother Steel. That was fine with me, really. She and I would never have worked, not like her and Steel, and I would have eventually hurt her too badly. She was a great person and fucking beautiful, but she would have ended up hating me for not being able to love her like she deserved, not like Steel did. He never loved Callie, and I knew that, knew he would eventually see what was in front of him. I could have had Mia, and I nearly did, but I was too broken on the inside.

  My heart was a shattered mess, completely and irrevocably, and I never wanted to love again. The pain of loss was too much to carry, and any more, I would be crippled under the weight of it.

  I shook my head and throttled down. Memories of my wife and her death would always be there, but for now, I had to focus on getting to Memphis. Today was already going to be a big day, a hard one, too, and then there was the fact she was in danger, and she wouldn’t see it coming. Nothing was going to touch her. Fucking Rogue could go fuck himself. He wasn’t taking her, too. Not on your life.

  Chapter 1

  CREED

  My bike roared down the quiet main street of my hometown. The population hadn’t grown much in the years since I’d left for good. It was one of those towns a teenager couldn’t wait to get away from. There was one pub, one petrol station, one vet, one doctor… You get the point. For heaven’s sakes, it didn’t even have proper traffic lights—just a few intersections and a roundabout. But for a long time, it was home, and I had been happy there. Until that day when everything fell apart, and I lost it all.

  I pulled up at Memphis’s bookstore on Talbot Street and instantly did a visual scan of the street, looking for anything out of place or a strange car, but there were no cars parked out the front, there never was. Why she opened it in the first place was beyond me. She probably had no more than five customers a week if she was lucky. I let out a humourless laugh, more like a grunt, and headed inside, the jingle of the bell over the door signalling I had entered.

  “Hey, Creed. I won’t be a second. I’m just putting away some books I got today,” a sweet voice called out to me.

  “How did you know it was me?” I called back, already knowing what her answer would be. The same one she always gave me when I visited her.

  “Who else rides a growly bike other than Creed Stephens?”

  Yep. Same answer every time. I half smiled, though my brothers and their women called it a grimace. Shiloh called it my broody face, and I tended to agree with her because I was a broody fucker, but life made me that way.

  “Come on, Memphis. We’re going to be late,” I called back, looking at my watch and huffing out a breath. Seriously, was this woman ever on time for anything?

  “Keep your pants on. I’m here.”

  The vision in front of me took my breath away. Memphis wore a floaty white dress with soft pink flowers printed all over. The neckline was low, not porn low or like Rainn would wear but just enough to see a hint of cleavage. Her creamy skin had a natural blush to it, but what was hard for me to look at was her face—a face that looked so fucking much like her sister’s with the same sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of her nose, the same bow-shaped lips, which had a natural red tint to them, though Memphis’s lips were much poutier. Even her hair was the same colour; only Memphis kept hers long, really long, almost down to her arse long. Normally, she had it twisted up in a messy bun at the back of her head, held there by a grey lead pencil, the kind with an eraser on the end of it. Why I did not know. Maybe, one day, I would ask her. Today, it was mostly down like a golden waterfall with it pulled back at the sides and held together in an intricate twist, but this time, not with a pencil but a single red rose.

  Fuck! Why did she have to do that? Today of all days—a day that was going to be hard as fuck to get through. Today was not a day I needed to be reminded of my wife.

  “Creed, can you see my boots anywhere?” Memphis asked. “I would ask Apollo to find them, but as you know, he is pretty useless when it comes to finding things.” As she laughed, I blocked out the thought that it was the same laugh her sister had.

  Nope—not going there. Not today, tomorrow, or the next day, either.

  I looked around and found the boots under the dog in question. Apollo was a huge Newfoundland, midnight black in colour and Memphis’s constant companion. He was not the smartest dog out there. Seventy kilograms of dumb in my opinion, but one I kept to myself. Memphis was a bit crazy when it came to her dog, and they idolised one another. She thought she was clever when she gave him the same name as my special missions’ name. I did not. The day she told me what she had named him, I spent more than three hours trying to talk her out of it. I had wasted my breath, of course. Memphis had a stubborn streak a mile long, which drove me nuts most of the time, and I told her that regularly. It also endeared her to me more, but I kept that to myself, too. Some things didn’t need to be said. Lots of things didn’t need to be said. It worried me that my feelings for Memphis were starting to change, I found myself thinking about her more when I wasn’t with her. Those thoughts weren’t ones I should have about my sister
-in-law.

  “Your dog is sleeping on them,” I said dryly, walking over to Apollo and pulling the boots from under his huge body. He was like a dead weight. The mongrel didn’t even budge when I extracted the footwear from under him, he just grunted and then closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

  “Here you go. Now let’s get moving. It is supposed to start in a few minutes, and I have to get back to the club,” I told her as I placed the only shoes she ever wore at her feet. When I tapped her right foot, she lifted it, and I helped her slip her foot in, and I then did the same process with her left.

  “What’s wrong, Creed? You seem tense. I can feel it.” Her hand reached out and found my face, her soft fingers roaming over my features until they stopped on my brows. “You’re frowning. Why?” Her light blue eyes staring at me were the most interesting colour I had ever seen. Over the years, they got lighter with a small tint of green in them, just a touch, making them almost like the lightest ocean blue.

  I groaned—from the situation or her touch, I wasn’t going to say.

  “Memphis, we don’t have time for this. Move, woman.” When I growled at her, the stubborn look the Van Elsen sisters had perfected over the years faced me.

  God fucking damn it. I needed to get this done and get Memphis back to the safety of the compound. Not hang around here where a madman may or may not burn down her bookstore. Plus, we were late!

  Memphis dropped to the floor and crossed her legs, the skirt of her dress riding up, which gave me a great look at her sexy thighs.

  My cock twitched behind my zipper, but thankfully, she hadn’t noticed. Disgust filled me. I was disgusting, lower than low, a perverted arsehole.

  “Then we will be late. If you tell me what is wrong, then we can go, and then we won’t be late,” Memphis stated, thinking her logic would win, and she was right. The little shit.