Warlord (Anathema Book 1)

by Grayson, Lana

  Keep swore. Brew didn’t make a move.

  I didn’t know what was worse. That someone would betray their club, their brothers, the very ink in their blood and the patch on their back, or that they’d trade their sister’s safety while they reaped the benefits.

  But what benefits?

  Drugs?

  Money?

  What the hell did Exorcist offer a traitor that I couldn’t give my crew? It didn’t make sense for either to turn. Then again, a strung-out ex-junkie rolling in heroine, meth, and whatever else he used to dirty his body wasn’t a logical man.

  But his habit endangered Rose.

  I let the door to Pixie slam behind me. My boots rattled the stairs under my steps. She’d know I was coming for her. I wondered if she’d hide. If she’d run into the bathroom and cower locked away like she did last night when her memory terrified her.

  I wondered why my cock liked the image of her running scared.

  And why my mind tore itself apart at the thought of the kid shaking in fear.

  She didn’t lock the door. Wouldn’t matter. I’d have kicked it down. The door swung open.

  The slap to my cheek was her last fucking mistake.

  I grabbed her hand and twisted. She crumpled to her knees. Wasn’t like I was about to break her wrist, but she stared up at me like I would. The baby-bunny eyes widened.

  The black and bitter poison of my self-loathing sludged through me. I let her go. Her expression crumpled as she stumbled away. Her skirt covered nothing. She either asked to be taught some respect or she begged to be thrown back on the bed. She needed both.

  Deserved none of it.

  “What’s the matter, little girl?” I asked. “Rough ride?”

  “Why?” Rose hesitantly crawled to her feet. Either she planned on running away or hitting me. Didn’t matter which one she chose. “I trusted you.”

  “Were you scared?

  “What do you think?”

  She missed her chance to run. I closed in on her, breathing wild. I stared down at the girl quaking in a leather jacket three sizes too big for her. She was too goddamned beautiful for any of this.

  “Were. You. Scared.”

  “Yes! I was scared!”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Why does it even matter to you?”

  Good fucking question. It was one an HMO of therapists, a confessional full of priests, and a dose of LSD would have a hell of a time answering. She stared at me, chest heaving, every bit of her panicking. She would have screamed if anyone was fool enough to help her.

  But who would help her? Rescue her? No one would listen to the little diva this time.

  I hated myself for it.

  I hated her every caught breath. The way her princess pink lips paled. How she backed away from me, toward the bed, and not because she was ready to let me rip off that ridiculous skirt. It pissed me off, and I strode forward to catch her before any other stupid ideas flittered through her head.

  “You don’t get to be scared anymore.”

  Rose laughed, too breathy and pitchy for someone as practiced as her. “I don’t get to be?”

  “No.”

  “Well, too bad. I’m pretty scared right now.”

  I loomed over her. Rose stared up. She smelled of the road, the outdoors, of leather, and of perfect crisp apple that watered my mouth to taste her. My shadow fell over her. I’d darken more of her before I was done.

  “I can’t guarantee you aren’t in danger.” I regretted even speaking the word so near to her. “But I will never, ever hurt you.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because I fucked up. You were right about me. I failed you, and it’s eating me alive.” The words stung. I wanted nothing more than to flay the demon off my flesh for that mistake. “It won’t happen again. You will be safe. You have my word.”

  Rose’s eyes watered. I braced for her to run.

  She leapt at me instead. Tossed her arms over my neck.

  Fucking kissed me like a woman belonging in Sorceress and as desperately as a girl finding her prince charming.

  I wasn’t a prince.

  I didn’t know the meaning of the word charming.

  If she expected me to slay a dragon and jam a glass slipper on her foot, Rose was fucked in more ways than one.

  I wasn’t the hero she needed. Or the stately protector. I was the sword. The edge of chaos and the siphon of blood. I crushed. I maimed. I raided.

  I took.

  If she wanted a knight-in-shining armor, Rose was already lost. What help could I offer? I’d only terrify her.

  I wasn’t Prince Charming.

  I was the Warlord. The Cursed. The Anathema.

  And she was the trophy of my endless conquests.

  Rose had no idea what to expect from me. She couldn’t handle my strength. My ferocity. She might have twisted on my lap like a little ballerina, but nothing prepared her for the hell I’d unleash upon her body. I promised Heaven, but what I needed was straight torment. Hot. Fierce. Unyielding. I’d break her, right her, and shatter her again if only to prove exactly what I needed.

  Exorcist might have kidnapped her. He might have beaten her. Threatened her.

  But she was mine.

  Mine to destroy under the weight of my body, and mine to rebuild through the promise of my pleasure. She was mine to frighten. Mine to comfort. Mine to use to root out the rat in Anathema, and mine to shield from the dangers, the hatred, the corruption of a club straddling the edge of domination and destruction.

  I fisted the leather of the jacket. Someone else’s clothing covered her. Protected her. Comforted her.

  Never again.

  I unzipped the jacket. I might have torn it. I didn’t fucking care. I pitched it across the room, far from the flushed skin and delicate curves of a woman too tempting, too forbidden to be real.

  Daughter of one of Anathema’s original, un-fractured officers.

  Sister of two of my ranking members.

  Bait to lure out a traitor.

  And I needed to strip her of what remained of her clothes. Her dignity. Her self-doubt. I’d taste her and praise her and desecrate her all in one thrust, and she’d scream my name in utter gratitude for the opportunity to serve.

  She didn’t dance for me now. Didn’t have to. Her body ached and trembled without any music. Dark curls gathered over her smoothed shoulders. Her arms remained at her sides. She didn’t try to cover herself. I tempted the wrath of the scarred demon tattooed into my flesh, and I prayed for the binding tribal straps covering my arms and chest to contain the wild part of me that wanted nothing more than to ravish the woman. To sink my teeth in her neck. To bite and claw, thrust and claim.

  Her breasts dusted with freckles.

  Fucking freckles.

  Christ, I was a monster, but at least I’d feast well tonight.

  I pushed her. She fell on the bed with only the slightest little chirp. A melodic little surrender that I would earn from her lips once more. Her hair crested behind her head, wild and feminine. In thirty-three years, I never saw anything as beautiful as her surrender. As goddamned right. Everything, from her pale skin to the swell of her breasts to the tiny little waist that hid my ultimate conquest behind a plaid skirt, belonged to me. She didn’t need the school girl getup to look innocent.

  She was innocent.

  Every part of her. Her heavy eyes. The parting of her lips. The shallow breaths she stole now that I pulled from her kiss and let her imagine where else my lips would claim. I grabbed the skirt in my fists and tensed. The material ripped.

  “I—” Rose’s fists dug into my bed. “I got that from Lyn.”

  “She’ll get over it.”

  White panties. Just perfect little bikini panties that covered my prize and revealed just how much I’d win from conquering her. She trembled, and the little goose bumps along her smoothed legs danced as her thighs pushed together. It didn’t protect her. Wouldn’t protect her
. She pulled the panties tight over the mound they struggled to hide. The neatly trimmed curls that the little virgin would never admit she actually touched. It’d mean she had anticipated this. That she wanted this.

  That she wanted me.

  I didn’t need to spy the damp cotton between her legs to know what she wanted. Rose needed to be fucked. Every inch of her body surrendered to my touch, and her resistance submitted to my demands. She blushed like a schoolgirl at Sorceress, and she fought to escape Anathema, but she wasn’t a wilting flower or enlightened prophet. Rose was a woman. And she was mine.

  I gripped the elastic on her panties before she decided to shield herself with another bullshit layer of self-doubt or regret or whatever the hell freaked her out while giving me the best goddamned head I ever experienced. She tensed as the material rolled over her legs. I debated on ripping the cotton. Ruining it. Preventing her from ever protecting her body from my intentions ever again.

  But it wasn’t like I could think when she laid naked before me.

  Presented to me.

  Offered.

  She trembled like a fucking lamb on an altar, except she had no idea what I would do with that sacrifice. How greatly it would please me. How terrible the desecration would be. No matter how pure she was, how perfectly innocent that sweet crest between her legs remained, the darkness that existed within me would coil inside her. My wrath. My aggression. My lust. Every demon she avoided and every monster she denied.

  It’d be a sweet debauchery, even if I’d be damned for corrupting someone so delicate and naive.

  She kept her legs closed. Mistake. She didn’t want to tempt my anger. She had right to hide what was mine, and she couldn’t deny the pleasure I’d deliver. I grunted and spread her legs. Rose pinched her eyes shut. I slapped her thigh. Right below where she still wore a bandage to cover a gash earned from Exorcist. I gritted my teeth.

  “No.” I settled between her legs, edging her thighs apart. Her delicate little slit peeked at me. Damp. Tempting. Delicious. “You’re going to watch this, sweetheart. No pretending. No fighting. Just me tasting every fucking inch of you.”

  Rose flushed so hard even the damn folds between her legs radiated heat. She stared at me, wide-eyed, hands gripping the bed. Her eyes widened as I lowered my head. They watered when I dove within her slit.

  Her body was a fucking religious conversion, and I baptized myself the only way I understood. Velvet softness. Sweet cream. A shallow gasp. Then, nothing I expected. Her hand in my hair, tugging, pulling, pushing, and falling limp.

  “You...you don’t have to...” Rose arched as I shut her up with a curl of my tongue. “I don’t...I don’t...”

  “You don’t want this?”

  Another flick. She flexed hard enough to bounce her tits nearly to her chin.

  “I don’t know.”

  I ignored her. “Little fucking liar.”

  I preferred a liar over a tease, and I wasn’t about to let her take away the sweetest damn pussy I tasted in a fit of embarrassed chastity. Rose didn’t understand her own body. I licked, she muffled a groan. I swirled, her legs tensed. I nibbled, and whatever choke she held on her engine burned away. She arched to the ceiling, and I pressed a hand against her belly to pin her to the bed. Not that I wouldn’t have chased.

  Fuck, did I want to chase.

  Over the bed. Onto the floor. I’d push her against the wall, take her on her knees, and rut her from now until fucking eternity just to hear that her whimper as I seized her pleasure. Bound her within my power over her crumbling body. She wasn’t getting away. I wasn’t letting go. And my prize wriggled against my mouth beyond what acrobatics my tongue offered.

  “I...” Rose’s hand dug into my hair once more. “God. Never knew.”

  She gripped me and flexed her hips. I never allowed anyone to use me before, but the little diva wanted to sing her own song. She bucked against me. Once. Twice. I bit down hard against that teasing little nub as it passed over my lips.

  She cried out in a note more beautiful than anything she sang at her gig.

  Her body spasmed against me. Hard. Quick. Again and again as she rode me like a stolen motorcycle and delivered herself to her own damn salvation. My cock screamed at me. Pinned within my jeans. Trapped far from the clenching heat that earned a quick release from my kindness.

  But that’s the kind of charitable man I was.

  The first one would always be free.

  The ones that followed would be rammed from her willing body without the gentle pretense. I didn’t demean myself between a woman’s legs out of the goodness of my heart. Seemed the gentlemanly thing to do to get the women hot, bothered, and receptive to the fucking of their lives.

  I hesitated between Rose’s thighs.

  I had what I needed. The girl ready. Begging. Gasping in hard-wrought relief and shaking from what must have been the first orgasm she earned beyond the wiggling of her own fingers.

  So why the fuck did I lose myself in the touch of her velvet again?

  “Th—Thorne...”

  Rose shifted her hips. She offered as much as she longed to hide. I wondered why the hell I let her use my goddamned name. Wasn’t often I fucked anyone who knew it. Was less often I’d even respond to it. Calling my name earned a slap across the ass, a fistful of yanked hair, and a knife-threatened order to forget the word and replace it with a Sir if the bitch couldn’t go fifteen minutes without talking.

  She whispered my name. She shivered and begged and I nearly came with her.

  Dangerous fucking woman.

  The goddamned virgin still had my hair. She jerked my head away from that perfect softness. My temper raged as hard as my cock. I grabbed her wrist, but she threw herself at me. Her arms wove over my shoulders, and she pressed those freckled curves against my chest. Her breathing panted. My name. Gratitude. Confusion.

  Confession.

  I had no fucking idea what the hell was happening.

  Within minutes I had gone from hunter to prey. Rose quivered under me as a delicate princess and shifted into a starving minx within one quick lick and the jerk of my cock. She kissed me. Gripped me. Stared at me with gentle, wide eyes.

  Jesus, I was lost.

  “I want you.” Her whisper wasn’t a plea. She spoke it like she didn’t believe it. Like she couldn’t believe it. Like she wasn’t allowed to believe it. “Thorne, I want this.”

  I groaned against her, my fist in her hair. Even my grip didn’t deter her. Didn’t slow her down. The kid burned so fucking hot I thought she’d exhaust herself before she even spread her fucking legs. I tossed her onto the bed. She grabbed at me before I unzipped my jeans.

  “Christ, Rose.”

  “Please, Thorne.”

  God, the tremor in her voice. Like she thought I’d stop. Like anything in this world short of the devil himself rising from the depths of Hell would stop me from taking what she offered willingly. Desperately.

  She needed me.

  And she had no idea what the fuck I needed her for.

  Stealing the innocence of an overwhelmed girl was hardly a stain on the grimy blackness coating my soul.

  Rose offered more than a slick slit for me to rut. She wanted passion. Excitement. A night to remember. A reason for her to scream beyond the constant threat of a gun to her temple.

  And I needed her to rat out her brothers so I could protect my club.

  Rose fell back. She bit her lip, but her legs parted for me.

  Smiled.

  Jesus Christ, that smile.

  An innocent, come-and-get-me, am-I-doing-this-right, please-don’t-let-anyone-hurt-me smile.

  Anathema could protect itself for the night.

  The girl under me deserved it more. Deserved just one fucking night where she didn’t need to worry or cry. Where she’d tangle in my arms instead of curling lost against the very edge of the mattress. Where the worst thing that would happen to her would be the limit of my dark lust.

  And Rose desired
that lust.

  That darkness.

  “I want this,” she whispered again. She arched, and her tits ached for a slap, a bite, or a gentle kiss to the tight little buds. Too many options and too hard a cock to decide. “Thorne, please. Take me?”

  Like she had to ask. I jerked my jeans down and gripped her hips. The denim didn’t restrict me, but she stared at the vest. My name. The insignia which seared through the cut and onto my chest.

  Her hands curled over my arms. Her eyes found mine.

  And she offered her hips.

  I expected to hurt her. She tensed, preparing for it too.

  I sliced through her, but Rose’s arch wasn’t a fight against my intruding cock. She stretched for me. Ached, but I forced within her with no resistance or agony. Only tightness. Wetness. Deliberate and uncompromising pressure.

  Rose stared at me. Speechless. No sound passed her lips.

  Unacceptable.

  The diva wanted fucked? She wanted me bad enough to jump me. Grip my hair and ride my face. Steal her own pleasure while seducing me with her innocence?

  Then she was going to whimper.

  Then sing.

  Then scream.

  And the melody on her goddamned lips would forever belong to me.

  I moved within her. Rose’s nails dug into my skin. She gasped.

  “It feels...” Her words were lost in breathless whisper. “Good?”

  If I had to explain the point of fucking, Rose wasn’t ready for what else I planned to do to her. Then again, I hadn’t met a woman who didn’t learn her place in the world real quick with a cock shoved eight inches deep. Rose was no exception. She lost herself within three complete thrusts. I had her.

  Her body flushed a captive pink. Her eyes fluttered closed. Her fists gripped the bed, the sheets, my arms, the cut. Anything and everything that ground her to the world.

  I batted them away from me. She didn’t need to be grounded. Hell possessed her, stole her mind and ignited the vixen within. She accepted the pleasure I offered and spread her legs for the most dangerous man in her life. It wasn’t a surrender of her virginity. She needed to be fucked, and her broken whispers yielded to more than simple revelation.