by Brook Wilder
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, events, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Devil’s Pact copyright @ 2018 by Brook Wilder and Scholae Palatina Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
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DEVIL’S MARTYRS MC SERIES
DEVIL’S DEAL
DEVIL’S SEED
DEVIL’S BARGAIN
DEVIL’S PACT
DEVIL’S VOW
DEVIL’S PASSION
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEVIL’S VOW
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
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
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DEVIL’S VOW
Chapter 1
“What do you think, angel?”
Melody swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise in her throat on hearing the nickname he’d given her. Fear and panic and pain and disgust all swirled together in the pit of her stomach like rotten sludge and she knew that, if she opened her mouth to answer, it would all come flying out. And then he would hit her again for embarrassing him and the fear and pain would start all over again.
So, instead of speaking, she just forced her lips into a tight line that she prayed the smoothly handsome, fiery dark-eyed man sitting next to her would take for a smile and nodded. Enrique Alvarez gave her a long considering look before finally flicking his eyes, so dark they were nearly black, back to the third man sitting at the table with them.
Melody let out a sigh of relief, careful to keep her expression blank, her eyes wide and waiting, ready for anything else Enrique might need. Another beer. One of the cigars that he habitually smoked. Whatever his needs, she would make sure to anticipate them before he even asked. She knew what the consequences would be if she messed up. She couldn’t mess up. Not again.
She risked a sideways glance at the other man sitting across the table from her. He was older than Enrique, and not as handsome. Though Melody had learned that hard way that a pretty face could hide a monster just as easy as an ugly one. More easily, in fact.
The other man’s name was Lucas Peron, and Melody could tell from the patch sewn to the back of his black leather jacket that he was a member of the Grim Riders. They were a local motorcycle gang, one of several that controlled this area of West Texas.
The Grim Riders, along with their rivals the Devil’s Martyrs, were both known for the violence that could erupt between the gangs. Especially over the last few years, tensions had been rising higher and higher, along with the death toll.
Even out in the little-known club in the middle of the Texas desert as they were, Melody could still feel that tension. Lucas constantly fidgeted, casting nervous looks over his shoulder as they hashed out the drug deal.
Enrique just sat there, full of quiet confidence and that charm he radiated like heat from a fire. That same charm that had drawn her like a moth to his flame. She’d flown too close to the pretty fire and had gotten her wings burned.
Melody looked down at her clenched hands, hating the image the thought conjured in her head. Of her, weak and wounded, too afraid to move, unable to escape, drawn back again and again, helpless.
It hadn’t always been like this. When she’d first met Enrique over a year ago, she’d fallen for him at first sight.
Melody had been living in a half-way house at the time. She’d been on the streets before that but had finally started to get her life back together. She was shy, and quiet, and people on the streets always assumed that meant she was weak, until they met her.
She was smart, always had been. Facts, knowledge, history. She loved it. She’d loved school, had craved the opportunity to learn. But when things had gone bad at home, she hadn’t had a choice. She’d had to leave, or she knew she would die in that house.
Melody shied away from the painful memories of her past, nearly as painful as her present. Sometimes, in moments like these, she wondered how she had got there. How she had let her life slip so far out of her own grasp.
She slid a look at Enrique, who had a possessive hand on her thigh and fought back a shudder. Not of desire as she’d once had, but of fear.
He had saved her once. She’d been walking back to the half-way house late at night after work when a group of thugs had jumped out of an alleyway, surrounding her. Melody had known that the area the halfway house was in was controlled by the Grim Riders gang, and she’d been terrified. So afraid she couldn’t move. Couldn’t run. Couldn’t even open her mouth and scream.
They had kept walking closer, stalking her, all the while telling her all the terrible things they were going to do to her. And then, all of a sudden, someone else had been there, standing in front of her. Protecting her.
No one had ever done that before.
No one had ever protected her, had ever looked out for her. She’d learned young that she had to look out for herself because no one else ever would.
But like some darkly handsome angel swooping from the sky, Enrique had saved her that night. For months he had been kind and charming, with his swarthy good looks and beautiful, clear dark eyes, which seemed to see all the way into her soul, Melody had completely fallen for him from the very first.
She’d been worried, learning that he was involved with the local gangs, but he’d explained that he was just a seller. He wasn’t a part of either of the motorcycle crews. He was wealthy, breathtakingly handsome, and he’d treated her like a queen. For a while.
After a few months he’d convinced her to move in with him, settling her into his large home full of men with guns and the stores of cocaine that he moved.
At first she had truly felt like she was in a fairy tale. She was the mistreated girl, saved by the daring, handsome prince, and they were living happily ever after.
Melody barely bit back a derisive snort. Yeah. Right. Her fairy tale hadn’t gone at all like she’d imagined. She was no princess. Enrique sure as hell was no prince. And her happy ever after…?
She closed her eyes, not wanting to answer the question. But it was there, on the tip of her tongue, waiting. Her happy ever after wasn’t coming any time soon. And it was all her fault.
She hadn’t realized what was happening at first. Enrique had bought her new clothes, new shoes, all fashionable and high end, though far more revealing o
f her lush curves than she felt comfortable with. Still nicer than anything she’d ever worn before, even if it made her uncomfortable.
When she’d voiced her complaints, he just smiled and kissed her and told her that he loved her body and wanted to show her off, to see how jealous his men would be. She’d actually believed him at first, more fool her.
She hadn’t learned until it was too late that it was just another way for him to claim ownership of her. Little by little, chipping away at her control, at her own ability to make choices and decisions.
She’d been such an easy mark it was almost tragic. No family. No real friends. Living basically alone in a house full of strangers and drug addicts. It was almost pathetic when she thought of how easy it had been for Enrique to control her.
It had taken many more months, too many months, for her to realize it, though. And by then it had been too late.
She’d convinced herself that she really cared about him, that he had strong feelings for her too, that he loved her.
This time it was even harder to hold back the snort. She’d been so naïve. So gullible when she should have seen the signs from the first. The possessiveness, the constant needing to control her.
The jealousy didn’t come until later, but when it did it had been violent, explosive and left her with bruises she’d had to hide for two weeks. She should have left then. But where could she have gone? She had no money, no family, no one she could call.
Melody gave a silent, humorless chuckle. The same situation she was still in. The only thing that had changed was Enrique’s temper. He’d hidden it at first but now it was on a hair trigger. The slightest thing could set him off and she was always there to take the brunt of it.
And then at times he would touch her, smile at her and kiss her just like he had at the beginning, tell her how much he cared about her. And she almost wanted to believe it. Almost.
“Are you still dealing with the Devil’s?” Lucas asked, suddenly drawing Melody out of her own depressing thoughts and back to the men’s conversation.
Enrique sneered at the mention of the Devil’s Martyrs, another local motorcycle gang and rivals of Lucas’ gang, the Grim Riders.
“Naw,” Enrique said, still sneering as he shook his head, “We’ve had a… falling out.”
Melody knew he was referring to the last deal that had gone down between him and the Devil’s. He’d given them only half the shipment they’d paid for. The rest had been fake. The Devil’s had demanded their debt be paid in full, with cash, cocaine, or Enrique’s blood, but there was still a feud brewing between them.
Lucas just nodded. “Good. Can’t be working with nobody who could snitch on us to the Devil’s.”
Enrique’s voice was hard and soft and had a shiver of dread trembling down Melody’s spine.
“Don’t ever call me a snitch,” Enrique growled, and Lucas just shrugged again before sitting back in his seat, arms crossed over his broad chest.
“Alright then. Let’s negotiate.”
Enrique nodded towards her, flicking his head dismissively towards the bar and Melody knew that was her cue to give them a few moments. Enrique always sent her away when he made the actual deal.
At first, she’d thought it was sweet, thought it was him trying to protect her from implication, but now she knew that he just didn’t want her to know anything that she could ever use against him.
Biting her tongue on a sudden feeling of despair, Melody got to her feet and walked up to the bar, careful to take her time as she ordered two beers and a water. One beer for Enrique and one beer for Lucas. The water was for her. Enrique never let her drink. He said alcohol made women into whores. She didn’t mind much, though. She hated the feeling of being drunk, of not even being able to control her own body.
She patiently sipped her water, waiting for Enrique’s signal to come back to the table, and it came a few minutes later with a wave of his hand, the gold ring he always wore glinting in the dim light of the bar.
Melody grabbed the two beer bottles, leaving the water glass behind as she walked back to the bar, all too aware of the way the tight dress hugged her curves and the short hem showed off the tops of her thighs. She wasn’t the only one to notice.
She could feel Lucas’s eyes follow her as she set the bottles down on the table in front of him and could practically feel the heat from his lascivious gaze.
Melody didn’t look over at him, she didn’t make eye contact. She knew better. She knew how easy it was to set off Enrique, and she knew that she was the one who would be punished for the other man’s stare.
She retook her seat next to Enrique as the men finished their conversation and she felt a sigh of relief that it was almost done, that she could crawl back into the bed waiting for her back at Enrique’s house.
It wasn’t her bed. It wasn’t her home. She was only living there because Enrique wanted her there. He’d told her that enough times that she had no doubts about it. She owned nothing. Not even herself.
Suddenly, Lucas leaned over, far too close to her. So close that Melody could smell the stale beer on his breath and the sweat soaking through his leather jacket in the Texas heat.
“You know, you could sweeten the deal a little,” Lucas added under his breath, jerking his hungry gaze at her for a second before turning back to Enrique. “Throw the bird in for a night and I guarantee you double what I already ordered.”
Melody’s breath stuttered in her chest until her lungs ached. Her pulse pounded in her ear, faster and faster, as Enrique sat there unmoving, un-answering. For one terrible, nightmarish second, she was sure he was going to agree. To give her over to those men for a night, to do whatever they pleased with her.
Time froze for that second, as fear like she had never felt before washed through her like an undertow, too strong to swim away from. She was drowning in it. Choking on it. And then Enrique pulled a gun out of the back of his waistband and time speeded up so fast that Melody could hardly keep up with it.
She still hadn’t drawn a breath since Lucas had uttered his horrible offer and her lungs were burning like they were on fire as she stared wide-eyed at the gun pointed straight at Lucas’ temple.
No one moved for a long, drawn-out moment as Enrique’s dark eyes went black with a jealous rage Melody was all too familiar with. She wanted to cower. She wanted to hide. To crawl under the table and disappear. But she couldn’t move. Her entire body was locked up tight, unable to do anything, not even to whisper a warning. For herself or for the unfortunate man held under Enrique’s violent anger, she wasn’t sure.
“If you ever look at my girl again, you’re dead.” Enrique’s voice once more had that too-quiet tone as he bit each word off. It was the sound of a steel blade being sharpened against stone, soft but so, so deadly.
“If you ever talk about my girl, you’re dead. If you ever even think about my girl, you’re fucking dead. Do you understand me, asshole?”
Lucas didn’t utter a single word. He didn’t make a sound at all as his eyes widened on the barrel pointed straight at his head. Everyone else in the club looked studiously away. This place was used to drug deals, and worse. They all knew to stay out of other people’s business. Especially when that business went south.
“Well? Answer me, mother fucker!” Enrique shouted the words, the sudden change in volume enough to make Lucas jump and hasten to nod his head furiously.
“I understand, man. Hey, I understand. It was my bad. I didn’t know she was yours, alright? I thought she was just a groupie.”
Lucas spit out the plaintive words in such a rush that Melody had a hard time making them out, but when she finally did, she had to fight the urge to flinch.
She hated the way they talked about her. As if she wasn’t even sitting there. As if she was just a possession. A thing to be owned. As if Enrique already owned her. Doesn’t he? She shied away from the thought. She couldn’t face the answer. Not now. Not yet. Not with Enrique still glaring at the other man and the
barrel of the gun still pointed at him.
“Please, Enrique,” Melody said softly, almost too afraid to speak. But she knew she had to at least try and calm him. She reached out and laid a tentative hand on his upper arm. The same arm that was still holding the weapon. Sometimes she could soften his temper, just a bit. She hoped it would be enough for them all to walk out of there alive. “Please, it was just a misunderstanding.”
Enrique turned, staring at her hand on his arm for a long moment, before finally moving his finger from the trigger, letting the gun drop back, and tucking it away once more. Only then did Melody release the shuddering breath she’d been holding inside.
Enrique stood, still not looking at her, but she immediately rose to her feet as well.
“You’ll get your order by next Friday. Next time, make sure the Grim Riders send someone else. I won’t deal with your piece of shit ass again,” he said coldly, leaving the other man staring at them as they took a step towards the door.
Melody risked a glance back and could see Lucas let out a relieved breath of his own before slumping into the seat. He didn’t know how lucky he was. Not many who had looked down the wrong end of Enrique’s gun lived to talk about it.