Dark Fury: A Dark Saints MC Novel

by Blue, Jayne

  The trauma I’d had on this trip had unsettled them, plus when that asshole was in the truck with us, but I hoped it didn’t have any lasting effects. I’d learned that animals could be traumatized, be anxious, even have PTSD, just like humans. But unlike us, dogs forgave. Their capacity to love, even after a lifetime of abuse far outstripped mine. If it wasn’t for being a witness to their open faces and sweet hearts on a daily basis, I was sure I’d be a lot nastier girl.

  I checked all the crates, nuzzled a few muzzles that poked through their doors and reassured myself the all was well with my passengers. That meant really, all was well.

  They’d be perfect for meeting their new families. Despite all the drama we’d encountered, it was nearly mission accomplished.

  I called Rudy to let him know.

  “We’ll be there in about two hours.”

  “Great.”

  “Don’t you want to know if I’ve fucking been attacked again? If I’m safe?” Rudy clearly cared about the animals but it was starting to piss me off that his lack of concern for his employees might be a major problem.

  “Of course. But since you called I knew everything was good. I’m also tracking the phone girl. I know you’re on target.”

  “Fine, whatever. Bottom line, the cargo is good.”

  “Exactly, priorities baby!”

  ‘Baby’ again. He was getting more and more on my nerves. The run-in with the bikers wasn’t his fault, I knew that, but the way he treated me more like an ex-girlfriend, even though we’d never gotten that far and his stoner attitude, which I thought would be awesome when I was hired, were starting to grate on me. Especially after this crazy run.

  I ended the call and closed the truck for the last time before our final stop. I took a deep breath.

  “You okay?” Kade had been helping but also scanning the road, the horizon, the sky. It was like we’d been under a blitzkrieg or something. The exact opposite of Rudy’s loose interpretation of what was safe.

  Kade looked at me like I might be made of glass. I wasn’t.

  He opened my rig door and I climbed in the driver’s seat. He came around and got in the other side.

  I paused for a moment. An overwhelming urge bubbled up in my chest. The stark contrast between my boss who could care less, and this man who was worried about every stray curl on my head, had me doing something I hadn’t thought through. At all.

  “Kade?” My mouth had taken over logical thought.

  “Yes.” He looked at me. He knew my voice was different. I knew it was different.

  “I want you to kiss me again.” The words came out in a whisper. But there they were. We were on the last stretch of a run to get my cargo to their destination but I wanted Kade to kiss me.

  “No.”

  “What?” Embarrassment threatening to swallow me up. Jesus. I’d misread this situation, his flirting. Ugh. Or maybe the kiss we’d shared wasn’t up to sexy biker standards?

  But I hadn’t misread it. Kade’s eyes locked with mine and his voice was different too.

  “You come over here and kiss me.”

  His voice was sexy as hell and there was also no question that it was an order. A command.

  I wasn’t the type to kiss a guy first. I wasn’t the take charge and get a man type. I was the type who was more comfortable with dogs shedding on my worn-out jeans, not sexy at all. And I had no idea what I was going to really do.

  But I did it. I did what he said. My insides quivered at what my lips would find when they reached Kade.

  I crawled across the seat, or maybe leaped across it. However I’d traveled the short distance, it was less than a second and I had my lips on Kade’s. The first kiss was beautiful, but it was, like he said, a beginning. This one blew that first one away.

  His lips were hot, and just the right amount soft and hard. His stubble though, that was undeniably hard and it felt rough, in a good way, against my skin.

  I started the kiss and Kade let me linger, probe my tongue in around his, his circled mine. It was electric, primal, and somehow just right, all at once. There was nothing awkward or strange. It was all heat and curiosity about what more of him felt like, tasted like.

  Kade’s hands were on my back and I felt them slide under my t-shirt. His hands were on my skin and I felt something turn molten at my core. I straddled him and his lips trailed from my lips to my neck. I felt his breath hot on me and I wanted more. I was practically out of my mind from one wild kiss that I’d started. Me!

  Kade was devouring my skin. I felt his hands rove from my back to lower down, He pushed my body closer to his and I felt his hardness. I wanted to free him, to free me.

  A honking noise from the road nearby interrupted the intensity that was building between our two bodies.

  “Shit,” I said, the noise from the outside world jolted me out of the moment. It made me realize we could be caught and reminded me I was on a schedule. And that I was crazy to think I could handle this, or somehow control what Kade was making me feel. I was seconds away from ripping his clothes off and mine too. In the parking lot.

  “Listen to me, Harlow.” His voice was deep and had lost none of the commanding tone I’d caught earlier. But it was quiet and his words were delivered from his breath into mine.

  “Yeah.” We were still kissing, between each of our words, and his hands stroked my skin. We were wrapped up in each other, in this heat, on the passenger seat of this truck. It was an unlikely place to give in to the way he made me feel.

  “We’re going to get this delivery made. Then we’re going to finish this.” My body was pulsing to his, even as my mind struggled to gain control.

  “I – I don’t normally.” I didn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t normally want to rip the clothes off someone in the front seat of my truck. But who gave a damn? Normal didn’t apply to this man.

  “Shh. I’m going to feel every inch of you. We’re not going to be interrupted, you understand?”

  “I – ” I wasn’t sure why I was so tongue-tied and dizzy.

  Kade leaned in and kissed me again. It was softer, it was tender, and it was a promise.

  “Now let’s get these puppies to, what was it again?”

  “Their furever families.”

  “Oh, shit, yeah, that’s right.” Kade smiled at the phrase. Furry and family didn’t exactly go with his biker demeanor.

  I climbed off him, reluctantly, and was trying not to be embarrassed at how forward I’d just been.

  “You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about.” It was like he read my mind, or at least my face.

  “I think I do.”

  “No, that was the best fucking kiss I’ve ever had.”

  “You say that to all the trucker animal rescue red-heads, don’t you?”

  “No, just this one.”

  I started the engine and tried not to smile. I was past the point of playing any kind of hard to get with this man.

  But I was also afraid. I didn’t lose control. I spent most of my waking hours keeping things locked down. The dogs. The rig. My emotions.

  And here I was spinning on the dizzy edge of something more wild, erotic, and intense than I knew how to handle.

  “You handle this big rig. I’ll handle any bad company and we’ll get this furry mission accomplished.”

  “Yep.” I didn’t trust myself to say more. Kade seemed recovered from our electric make out session and I was a rolling mess of hormones and doubt.

  But he was right, the rig, the animals, the road. That’s what I needed to put in my brain. I pulled out onto the highway and scanned my gauges, and then looked at the lanes of traffic through my mirrors. I needed the routine and responsibility of driving to anchor me back to reality. My mission was the animals in my care, not to get laid by the sexy man who’d shown up out of nowhere in my life.

  Still, he was there, next to me, smelling so good, and looking like nine kinds of sin. The next two hours were going to be awkward as hell if I didn’t shake this
off.

  I willed my racing brain to be still.

  The rig, the animals, the road, and Kade. He was there in my mind and my skin still tingled where he’d touched me.

  This was so far off plan I didn’t have a name for it or a way forward in my head.

  So I drove, and Kade watched, and the miles melted between San Nonnus and us.

  7

  Kade

  I was about as uncomfortable as I could be after having my hands and lips on Harlow. I was not used to wanting a woman this much. Not only did I want to fucking rip every stitch of clothing off her, but I also wanted just as much to help her fulfill this job of hers.

  I was usually on a single track with women. They were a release, a little fun, comfort even, and then they were out the door. Thank you very much.

  But Harlow had me hooked on everything from her curls to what was happening behind her eyes. What made her so focused on the animals? What had turned her into this fierce little warrior for the orphaned mutts in this truck?

  I had a lot of questions that I wanted to be answered, not the least of which was how she was going to feel lying next to me. I fucking couldn’t believe my own train of thought.

  And there was no question that we’d opened the floodgates on that department. I’d kept my hands off her, let her lead, let her show me how far she wanted to go. I knew what I wanted but something about Harlow and the shit that happened over the last day made it very clear I needed her to feel okay with the moves I made. She seemed like a woman who needed a safe harbor. I wasn’t safe, by any stretch, but for her, I was doing my damnedest.

  And then she did it. She fucking crawled over and kissed me. I wasn’t going to forget that kiss, maybe ever.

  I watched her drive. She was intense in everything she did and driving was no exception.

  “So, can I ask you a question?” she said, keeping her eyes on the road.

  “Ask away.”

  “I was a half a second from ripping your clothes off a minute ago.”

  “Yeah, I remember it well.” I tried not to smile, she was so fucking cute.

  “So, I don’t know anything about you! That’s probably not too bright on my part.”

  “Gonna do a background check?”

  “No, just – are you from Port Az? Do you like hash browns? Do you have a middle name? Minor stuff.”

  “Ah, okay, yes, yes, and yes.”

  “Great. Now I know everything a responsible chick should.”

  “Not only am I from Port Az, I’m from Port Az going way back. My people founded the town on both sides, Texas Rangers on one, and Comanche on the other.”

  “You know all that, about your ancestors, I mean?”

  “Yeah, it’s in the local library. So I’m not just passing through there if that means anything. And my middle name, Iron Jacket.”

  “Apt and Comanche I’m guessing. So how did a Texas Ranger wind up with a Comanche?”

  “You want a little family history lesson, eh?”

  “Well, you said it’s in the history books. We have an hour of open road.”

  “True, if you really want to hear it.”

  “I want to know about you. Whatever you want to tell me” she said it in a sweet way. Harlow wasn’t nosy, she was just curious about who I was. I wanted her to trust me and if this was how, so be it. I realized that a lot of people in Port Az knew my pedigree, but she was a stranger. If I gave her this, maybe she’d trust me, maybe she’d let me in and I’d learn what made Harlow tick as well.

  “Well, my many times great grandma was named Tahalina Rogers. She was the daughter of the Comanche Chief in the Port Az area. The Comanche and the early Texas settlers had bad blood and war. But eventually they figured out how to live side by side, if not together, in a lot of Texas towns.”

  “There’s a reason Texans think you’re still a country unto yourselves, I think.”

  “You think right. So the Texas Rangers were the main law, ‘cause we were so big, the US government couldn’t police all this territory, so Rangers did. My, like, five times grandfather was sent to Port Az to do just that.”

  “That’s badass, a Texas Ranger. Did he ride a horse?”

  “Shit yeah, some of them still do. Digby Davis sure did. It was bad times for The Rangers though back then. A bunch of them were fired and the ones left were ordered to move the Comanche and the Cherokee out of Texas and onto a reservation in Oklahoma.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Yeah, there was no love between Comanche and Texans back then.”

  “Yeah? I haven’t met many Texans who have a ton of love for the government though.”

  “Smart girl. Yep. My ancestor, Ranger Davis, decided he wasn’t going to do that government bullshit, so you’re right on. Legend, and the history books say he helped a lot of the Comanche stay in Port Az.”

  “Is that how you’re part Comanche?”

  “Yeah, it was nearly two-hundred years ago but the old dog Digby Davis couldn’t say no to Talahina. The family stories and one picture proves what they say. She had raven hair and sparkling eyes.”

  “Sounds like you, Kade. So she stayed in Port Az with Ranger Davis, happily ever after?”

  “I guess so. Not much written about them after Digby Davis defied the Feds. He went underground with my Comanche side. That’s what the family stories say. The official records just end.”

  “I have no idea what my great great great anything did.”

  “I’d say they were Irish woodland ferries.”

  She laughed at that. It was true though. If I pictured Tinkerbell but with cinnamon spice thrown in, that would be Harlow.

  Harlow kept driving and I told some of my old Comanche stories. They were pretty cool and passed the time. I hoped it helped her trust me. She asked a question or two, and I answered.

  “I read what I could about my ancestors. I also listened to the stories of my mother’s people, over and over again. They’re the bedtime stories I fell asleep to… I better stop. You’ve got to be alert on the road!”

  “No, I’m amazed. Fascinated, actually.”

  Harlow wanted to know about me, and the old Port Az stories were a part of me. But it wasn’t The Dark Saints story. She hadn’t asked that. And I wasn’t offering it. I sensed that part of my actual recent past might be too much for this open-hearted saver of furry creatures. The violence in my heart, the temper I’d paid for behind bars. That was my past too. I hid that part of me from her.

  “My family has been in the same town for decades, not that fascinating. We just got our first sports bar, how exciting can we be? You’re new to Port Az, I’m assuming. I am pretty sure I would have noticed you before this.”

  I downplayed The Dark Saints connection to Port Az and what part I really played.

  “Yeah, Rudy’s mission lured me in. I have been here less than six months, and most of that has been on the road, away from Port Az and into other towns.”

  “Port Az is growing. I’m kicking myself I didn’t notice you the day you rolled in.”

  “You probably were very busy with your Comanche Ranger Biker business. I won’t take it personally.”

  “Well, I’ve noticed you now.”

  She blushed at that and it made me smile. I wanted Harlow to know exactly my intentions with her. I was going to get these fucking guns over the border and out of this truck. I was going to be sure she was out of the line of fire that this little smuggling operation had put her in. I was going to have to lie.

  I was glad she didn’t push too far. The stories of my Comanche roots fascinated me and most who heard of it. But they also provided a distraction. Guns, money, and bad blood weren’t ancient history; we were rolling on that territory right now. And Harlow had no idea. She’d asked questions, just not the ones that would reveal why she was in the crosshairs of the Hawks and the Saints.

  We’d talked for most of the last leg of this trip. And it had gone so fast, the lights of San Nonnus were ahead. And so was our e
xit.

  I looked behind us: there was no sign of Hawks, or cops, or any type of trouble. If we could get this truck empty of dogs, there’d be no reason for Harlow to go back and look to see what she was really hauling.

  8

  Harlow

  I wanted to know more. I wanted to listen to Kade tell the stories of his life. But we’d arrived. My focus shifted from the attraction I felt for Kade, the growing fascination I was feeling, to my job, my mission.

  My phone buzzed, it was Rudy. He had the adoptive families waiting for my special delivery.

  “We’re on track, can you believe it, after all that.”

  “That your boss on the phone?”

  “Yeah, he pings it, so he knows when to get the families there. One less call I have to make.”

  Rudy said that it was for my safety, the tracking, though this time around it didn’t do a thing to keep that asshole Devil’s Hawk guy away from me.

  I wondered if he’d come to yet? I wondered if I’d seen the last of them. The thought that I hadn’t put a little pit of fear in my chest, but I swallowed it down.

  It was time to do the part of the job that I lived for: getting these beauties together with their families.

  We rolled into the parking lot of the Humane Shelter of San Nonnus. It was early in the morning, so most likely the cars in the lot were our families. A few people had their phone cameras out. It was a beautiful thing, finding the right owners.

  I pulled in slowly.

  “It’s magic time!” I said, and I truly believed it. This was my deposit in the Karma bank, this was my salvation. Or I hoped it was; it was all I could think of to do. It was how I made what happened in my childhood better. I couldn’t change my past, but I could change the future for these animals.

  I parked the truck and walked around to the back. Kade followed.

  “Hi, everyone, thanks for being here. I’m Harlow. You might recognize my voice on some of the videos of your puppies! I know them all and love them. Don’t be surprised if they’re a little timid staring out. This is a long road trip and it’s to be expected. They are all great dogs and they’ll warm up to you fast. I promise. If you could all stay outside of the truck, I’ll bring you your dog one at a time so they don’t get confused by a ton of people in the back with them.”