Dark Limits: Alpha Brotherhood MC

by Evelyn Glass

  “I… I…”

  “Slut’s trying to say something,” Norman said, as he tore her head away from her breasts and made her meet his eyes.

  “Thinking of your so-called boy?” he asked.

  It was all she could do to get through it. Think of Cade. Hope that he would save her.

  “Wonder if he’ll still like you with scars,” Norman said. “Took him a long while to come after the redhead.”

  She started; she wanted to tell him that he had it wrong. Cade would always come after any girl in distress. One way or another, he’d get them out the other side.

  “You—”

  “You better get ready for round two.”

  Norman mashed his lips to hers and started to lift her away from the perfect point of pain. She reeled in the relief even as he untied her hands, and she was nearly ready to fall into his arms, anything to feel better, when he drove her back to the post and lit another match.

  “No one’s coming for you,” Norman said. He burned her sides, and Dawn released a weak scream as she started to shake her head.

  “You’re…you’re wrong,” she said. “He…he will come for me.”

  “Don’t see him here now,” Norman said. “Alphas always hope that it’ll work out alright. Never take action.”

  Norman slammed her down and turned her into the metal. It was pain like nothing she had ever known or even imagined. She tried to scream when her jaw went slack. Nothing but a wordless moan left her lips, and Dawn feared that her body would be ruined for all time when Norman’s hands left her shoulders. She struggled to catch her breath when the Panther grabbed her chin and gave her no choice but to look into her eyes.

  “Even if it’s him, he can’t save you.”

  “Can’t he?”

  Norman’s voice rang out, and Dawn blinked to see Atticus hovering over her enslaved body. His eyes flashed with rage, and the lone Panther battled his brothers back. Threatening to make good with his gun, Dawn heaved a small sigh of relief, and she wanted him to smite all of them where they stood. The boy barely looked up to the task, but he still kept his aim true.

  “Kid, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Norman asked.

  “It’s too much,” he said. “We need to stop messing these girls.”

  “And why is that?” Norman asked, as he struck a fresh match and brought the flame to Atticus’ eyes. “You sweet on this one?”

  Atticus snarled as he shook his head, and Dawn smiled as he blew the match out.

  “What’s that about?” Norman asked. “Someone else switching sides?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But you need to leave her be.”

  He fired into his chest, and Norman’s blood poured through his shirt as he fell to the floor. Good. Let this be the way out. She thought of nothing but moving back to bike and hurrying back to Cade, and she fell away from the post when her legs gave out from under her.

  “Not so fast, cunt!”

  Sadly, somehow, Brian was still there. Dawn wanted anyone else but him to touch her. She begged him to be kind. Brian laughed as he slammed her into a dark patch of crumbling wall. Dawn shot forward to keep her head from shattering the surface. The impact still came, and she blinked fast when he drew her face to his.

  “You are just one more piece of tail,” Brian said. “Supposed to send them in the other direction.”

  Dawn could just picture the Alphas running scared. To see, to know Nicole and how she had lived with them and fought to get back might have been enough. And the move was supposed to be Nicole’s when she wanted nothing more than to go after them. But Dawn was left alone in a darkened space and even as one thigh cradled another and she tried to erase the feel of the pain, she still saw Brian crawling closer. He grabbed her face and nearly forced her to his lips. He shoved her freed body into a shadowy corner. Dawn still tried to break free when Brian pressed her to the ground and started to tug at her thighs.

  “Like you’re not ready, able, and willing,” he said.

  She tried to avoid his eyes when Brian scraped his nails across her skin. He stopped short of drawing blood, and even as Dawn was grateful for that, she still didn’t trust Brian’s arms curling around her body. He forced her bare body to his lips and started to kiss his way down her sides. What was worse? The pain or the cold? She settled on the latter as Norman’s spilled blood mingled in her hair. Turning away from the crimson, her soul started to sink at the reality of him losing his only chance to be a good guy. Another shot rang out, and Dawn sobbed into her shoulder. That was it. Her last chance going and gone. The Panthers that were left might make her want the post back, and Dawn curled her knees to her chest. She wasn’t cut out for this, and she tried to drown out the noise flooding the room. More bullets. More blood. She hoped for one of the bullets to enter her brain. Let it be quick. Let her leave this life free of the supreme violation.

  “No! No! Don’t make me—!”

  “Dawn!”

  She blinked fast to find Cade’s eyes peering down at her. His face was wracked with rage. She started to tell him that she was sorry when he gathered her close to his chest and tenderly kissed her neck.

  “You’re alright now,” he said. “Just please don’t go away from me again.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  They didn’t do me like that.

  Lucky you. She has to be hurting.

  Cade took off like a bat out of hell.

  Suppose that means he cares.

  So where is he now?

  Dawn blinked into the light, and she took some comfort in the night turning into day. So she had lived through it. Grateful for that, wanting the rest of it to just be a bad dream, she reached into the air and found Nicole’s hand.

  “Hey there,” the redhead said. “Through the ringer and back again. I feel like I know you so much better now.”

  Dawn tried to smile, but the feel of something cold pressing between her legs shot her away from the pillows.

  “Easy,” Gloria crooned, as she pushed Dawn’s hair behind her ears. “It’s just for the swelling.”

  “I’m… I’m sorry,” she started. “But you don’t know what they had in store for you. You… you never could have—”

  “Don’t sell me short, Dawn,” she said. “They burned me pretty good. Of course they… they didn’t do this.”

  Dawn felt her fingers pressing into the gauze now lining her cheek. So the blood had stopped flowing, but the scars would remain. Dawn felt ruined. Ugly. She tried to hide her head under the sheets when Gloria brought her back to her eyes and shook her head.

  “Keep as much air on the wound as possible,” Gloria said. “Helps the healing along.”

  “Healing?” Dawn asked. “And you would know, right?”

  Gloria lightly lifted the bandage, and Dawn whimpered as something that had to be iodine flowed into against her flesh.

  “Bound to be a mark,” Gloria said. “But we can always hide it with a little concealer.”

  So Gloria counted her among those that had no choice but to hide, and for a second Dawn wanted nothing more than her makeup tips when she gripped her forearm.

  “He…they killed them all,” she croaked out.

  “So many,” Gloria concurred.

  “Atticus?”

  Gloria and Nicole exchanged a quick glance, and Dawn started to sink deeper under the sheets as the ladies raised as one to their feet.

  “You sweet on him now?” Gloria asked. “Thought you were Cade’s girl?”

  “I…I am,” she said. “But he was…he was the only one that tried to help me. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “Maybe more than you know,” Nicole said. “Gloria?”

  The redhead took hold of the ice pack, and she worked to soothe Dawn’s aching thighs as she pointed towards the door.

  “Check it out,” she said. “See if it checks out.”

  “On it, Lady Boss.”

  Gloria left the room, and Dawn found Nicole averting her gaze as
she tried to alleviate her pain.

  “You know,” Nicole started. “You didn’t have to step into it. I was more than ready to—”

  “To what, Nicole?”

  She was up and grabbing Nicole’s arms as she peered into her eyes.

  “To ride some metal until you wanted to die?” she asked. “They burned me. They…marked me.”

  Dawn pulled the gauze away, and she winced as the tape tore at her flesh. More than enough air for her wound now, and she started to hide her face in her hands when Nicole trapped her wrists in her lap.

  “I…maybe I wasn’t,” she confessed. “So you took the hit for me.”

  “I…didn’t want you to have to go through that again,” Dawn said, as she sobbed into her chest. Every inch of her hurt. Even as she pulled away and tried to find some comfort in the pillows.

  “Dawn, listen to me.”

  Clinging to the sound of Nicole’s voice, she pulled up and blanched when she saw traces of her blood dotting the linens.

  “Why should I?” Dawn asked. “You’re probably just glad that it isn’t—”

  “Now hold up!”

  Nicole made her look into her eyes, and the redhead blinked back her tears with a heavy sigh.

  “I did my dance with them,” she said. “And I had no one but Mona to help me through it.”

  “You selling her short now?” Dawn asked.

  “No. But there’s someone that can make you really feel better.”

  Right on cue, she heard a scuffle from the other room, and she started to charge away from the sheets.

  “No,” she moaned. “Don’t let them hurt him. Nicole…”

  “I got this.”

  Nicole left the bed, and she flung the door open as she screamed into the first light of day.

  “Cool it!” she cried. “We’re following my lead now.”

  The unseen men fell silent, and Dawn saw Nicole’s shoulders shift into conquest as she made like Norman and snapped her fingers.

  No. No not again. I’m not strong enough to…

  “Front and center, Everett. Your girl needs you now.”

  Dawn leaned towards the edge of the bed, and she heard the footsteps bounding closer as Nicole shifted to the far side of the room. She saw Cade there, fuming and sweating. Knowing that she was now ugly, Dawn still wanted him. However, the pain and the scars hit the front of her mind, and she turned away.

  “Dawn?”

  “I can’t see him,” she muttered. “Please make him go away.”

  Without looking, she heard Nicole sigh, and the redhead had to move closer to her side as her voice filled the room. “You know that she doesn’t mean it,” Nicole said. “But take my word. Be gentle.”

  Nicole took off, closing the door behind her. As soon as she sensed that they were alone, Dawn started to turn her head over her shoulder. Cade was there. Close. He stepped closer to the bed, and she let him fall to the edge of the mattress. He tried to touch her wounded face, but Dawn drew back.

  “I know,” she said. “You don’t have to humor me.”

  “Humor—?”

  “He…said that you wouldn’t like me with the scars,” Dawn said. “How could you?”

  “How could I not?”

  Cade’s voice turned her back around. His eyes were warm as his fingers met her slashed skin.

  “Dawn, I—”

  “It hurts, Cade,” she whispered. “Think it had more than enough air by now.”

  She started to push the bandages back to her skin when her fingers sputtered, fumbled.

  “You don’t have to hide it from me,” he said. “Even if it hurts.”

  Cade gently kissed the blood away from her cheek, and when she cringed, he ran his hands down her arms and pushed up to her hair.

  “It hurts?” he asked. Dawn nodded her head, and Cade found fresh gauze as he reapplied the bandage and taped the wound back into hiding. As soon as he was done, he folded his arm around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “I…”

  “I should have come quicker,” he said. “I should have known as soon as I felt you leave me.”

  “And did you feel that?” she asked.

  “Dawn…”

  Their eyes locked, and he started to kiss the tip of her nose when he drew back and hung his head.

  “I told myself that it was bad dream,” he said. “I thought that there was no way that I wouldn’t wake up and see you right there.”

  And Dawn had wanted nothing more than to be back in that space. She choked back a sob and waved her arms in the air when he tried to hold her close.

  “I let you down,” she said.

  “Dawn, don’t—”

  “Don’t try to tell me that I didn’t pay the price.”

  Her thighs burned, and the memory of the metal came back in full force. Even more than the marks on her face, she was ruined for all time, and Dawn huddled into the pillows as she felt his anxious hands running over her back. Cade settled at her side, and he spooned her from behind.

  “I can’t.”

  “You don’t have to do anything,” he tried to assure her. “You walked through the fire never meant for—“

  Dawn shot up and pulled at his hair. Cade winced, but he stayed in her gaze as he pressed his teeth together.

  “But I did,” she said. “And they…they burned me. They…they made me undress. And that…that thing that hurt so much…”

  She softly touched the space between her thighs and winced at the feel of her own fingers on her skin. No way she could know him there again without quaking, and she wanted him to leave when he lay next to her and gently stroked her hair.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “But you…you can be with me again.”

  “No,” Dawn said. “Not like—”

  “How about like this?”

  Cade collected her arms. He made no move to lose his clothes or strip the sheets from her body. The Alpha just cuddled close and kissed her hair as he caressed her back. Dawn sank into the sweetness of his touch, and she felt her breath calming in her chest as his whisper hit her ear.

  “Is that better?” he asked.

  It was better. Dawn felt the pain flying away as he pulled her closer, and soon, there was nothing but his heart pounding in her ears as he kissed her neck.

  “Cade?”

  Somehow she turned her head to his eyes, and Cade brushed his fingers over her eyes as he nodded his head.

  “What do you need, Dawn?” he asked.

  “They’re…Norman is not coming back?” she asked.

  “Not on my watch,” he assured her. “Or ever.”

  Taking some comfort in his words, she started to snuggle closer when he touched her legs.

  And without wanting to, Dawn winced.

  “Dawn?”

  “See?” she said. “Damaged. You should have left me with them.”

  “Don’t even think like that.”

  Cade turned her to her back, and his hold was light as he pushed her to the pillows. It felt like another trap, but Dawn’s first thought was not to kick and flee when he moved his fingers over her lips and drew back before she could kiss any part of him.

  “Dawn?”

  She tried to speak when he left the bed. Watching him pace the room pulled at her heart, and she forgot every other pain as he pressed his fingers to the window.

  “Can I tell you something that no one else knows?” he asked.

  “I…I like thinking that you can.”

  He smiled as he fell back to her side, and Dawn let him take her into his arms. His strong and tender hold put her at ease.

  “I still don’t look half as good,” he said as he adjusted her gauze. “And I’m not nearly half as brave.”

  “It didn’t feel like that,” Dawn admitted. “I felt weak. And it…it hurt.”

  Cade’s eyes grew dark, and he looked like he was ready to kill when she shuddered into his chest. He held her closer an
d kissed the sides of her face as he smoothed his fingers down the length of her body.

  “Tell me this doesn’t,” he said. “Tell me you feel okay right now.”