by Silver James
“EASY! Shut. Up. Someone’s there. I know it.”
I laughed. Couldn’t help it. I could feel her blushin’ through the phone.
“Shut up. Just shut up. And don’t you dare tell me who’s sitting there listening because I will never be able to face them again. You are so not getting any tonight.”
I made kissing noises, and she finally laughed. “Sadly, sweet Sam, I do have to work tonight. Fucker didn’t show up to court today. He works the night shift at some plant up in North Kansas City. It’s payday so he’ll be there to pick up his check. I should be home by midnight. The kids will be asleep, and I can make some sweet, sweet lovin’ to my woman.”
“Oh.”
Shit. “Oh” ranked right up there with “fine” in the lexicon of things women say when they aren’t happy. “Sam?”
“Never mind.”
Crap. From bad to worse. “Ah, darlin’? You need to talk to me. What’s up?”
A huge sigh. Why do women do that? Being a Wolf, I could be patient. I waited.
“It’s just that Sunny’s all alone and stuff, and I thought maybe if you weren’t working, you could watch the kids, and Sunny and I could go catch a movie. There’s a new flick we both want to see and…” Another big sigh.
Radar rolled his eyes and mouthed the name of the latest chick flick. “Why don’t you get a babysitter?” I glanced at Radar, but he was sitting up shaking his head and making pumping motions with his hand. Yeah, he had plans to nail Ginger tonight. “How ’bout Teri?”
“I’ll give her a call. I should beat you home so don’t go getting that handsome face of yours messed up. I might just have plans for it later.” She made kissy noises back at me and ended the call.
By midnight, my ass was numb from sitting in the Hummer. My runner hadn’t shown up. The dickwad lived from paycheck to paycheck so he couldn’t run far without this cash. I was about to call it quits when an old junker pulled up. A frowzy redhead climbed out and headed inside. A quick scan of the file confirmed her identity. She’d lead me straight to her boyfriend, I’d put him in cuffs, drop him off at county jail, and head home to Sam.
My phone buzzed, and I answered without looking, figuring it was Sam. “You better be naked in bed, baby, I’ll be home in an hour.”
“Uhm…Easy?”
Fuck. “Teri?”
“I take it Sam isn’t with you.”
“Not hardly. Isn’t she home?”
“No. Not yet. She was supposed to be home by eleven at the latest. I have an early class tomorrow. She and Sunny promised they wouldn’t be late.”
“Did you call her?” The back of my neck itched, and my gut tightened.
“Well, d’uh. I called them both. Neither answered. I thought maybe the movie ran late, but I called the megaplex. Their movie ended on time, and there wasn’t another showing in that theater. I’m getting worried, Easy. I called Sandy, and he’s coming over to stay with me and the kids.”
My phone indicated another incoming call. Maybe it was Sam. “I’ll call you back, Teri.” I ended and answered with two swipes of my finger. “Sam?”
“Easy, you come to compound. Now.”
The Russian, his accent thick. That only happened when shit hit the fan.
I WATCHED THE VIDEO the Hell Dogs had sent, my face a frozen mask. Thank fuck Repo wasn’t here. One look at Sunny’s face and he would have gone howling off half-cocked. My wolf howled too, but I’d gone stone cold like Russki. I would kill a Hell Dog for every mark they put on Sam. I would castrate every man who touched her, feeding them their own balls as I hammered railroad spikes through their dicks.
They took my mate. There wasn’t enough pain in the world to inflict on them that would ever come close to what they deserved.
We don’t talk about what we are, especially to outsiders. The bitches who hang around the clubhouse want to take a walk on the wild side, but they don’t know how wild we can get. We’re predators. We hunt. We bleed our prey and drink the sweet, hot blood. It’s who and what we are. Some of us are more…domesticated than others, but even those Wolves will gut an enemy without a thought. Don’t fuck with what’s ours. Too bad the Hell Dogs didn’t get the memo. They came into our territory. And they took what was mine. I’d kill every last motherfucking one of them to get Sam back.
The Russian knew what was going on in my head. He’d already ordered the whores out of the building. He sent the human brothers to the armory and put out the call for reinforcements. In the time it took Radar to track our women, the Nightrider nation would be mobilized for war. Scorched earth. There wouldn’t be a Hell Dog left breathing when we finished.
SAM
THE HELL DOGS SNATCHED us in the parking lot of the movie complex. Sunny and I never had a chance. Tied up, gagged, and blindfolded, I had no idea where they took us. It wasn’t a long trip nor did they make many turns. I didn’t care. As soon as we got free, I’d get us home. Somehow.
They dragged us into what I discovered was a warehouse once they took off the blindfold. Two Hell Dogs held me by the arms, my hands bound in front of me. A third Dog slipped a collar and leash on Sunny. Another biker strolled in, one who reminded me of the Russian only colder. The Dogs called him Angel and all but turned belly up in submission. Approaching Sunny, he leaned close, and sniffed her. He whispered something I couldn’t hear and a look of stark terror crossed her face. He took the leash, jerked hard enough Sunny almost fell, then led her away.
“No!” I screamed it over and over. “Leave her alone, you son of a bitch! Don’t touch her!” No matter how much I fought—screaming, biting, and kicking—I couldn’t get free to help her. They disappeared through a door into what looked like an office.
My captors knocked me off my feet and kicked me a couple of times. Somebody grabbed me by the hair and yanked me across the floor. I must have blacked out for awhile because the next thing I knew, I was all but swinging by a hook. The ropes around my wrists had been looped over it, and I could just keep my toes on the concrete floor.
I wore an old pair of fatigues, and my phone was still in one of the side cargo pockets. I’d turned the ringer off when the movie started, but I hadn’t powered off the phone. That phone was my salvation. There was a reason Radar got his name. He was the best skip tracer in the business, and he had the computer savvy to locate and track my cell signal. As soon as Sunny and I didn’t show at home, they’d start looking. All I had to do was hold on. Easy would come. He had to.
I shut down at some point. My brain couldn’t handle what those bastards did to me. I remembered watching them beat Sunny. Sweet, dear Sunny who wasn’t always nice, but who was trying to be my friend again. The Hell Dogs punched her in the face, blackening both her eyes, breaking her nose, and splitting her lip. Oddly, they never once landed a body blow. Oh, they felt her up, twisting her breasts until she cried out. They chained her in the corner of this horrible room that smelled of piss and shit and vomit. Ripping off her shirt and bra, they didn’t rape her. For that I was grateful. They would break me open, but Sunny? Sunny would die if they touched her like that. She was Repo’s mate. For life. What she’d told me was a true mate—something deeper and far more mystical that just mating with a Wolf.
I remembered searing heat and pain beyond any I’d ever experience. I remembered screaming until no sound came from my throat. Then all I could remember was blessed darkness.
When I opened my eyes, the Bastard was there. I’d been tied to a table, naked. Leering at me, he squeezed my breasts and jammed his fingers inside me. He had his dick out in his hands, ready to ram into me, but that uber-scary biker walked in and stopped him by shoving the Bastard away. Angel bent over and sniffed me, and his eyes lit up with possessive sparks.
“No man will fuck her, not with his dick.”
“Fuck you,” the Bastard argued. “I’ve been waiting months to fuck this bitch.” He shut up fast when the guy growled, fisted one hand in the Bastard’s cut and lifted him off the floor.
“I’ll fuck you if your dick touches this cunt. Stick whatever the hell gets you off up her cunt so long as it isn’t a human cock. Choke her with your cum, but I will butt fuck any man who’s dick gets between her legs. Do you understand?”
The Bastard whimpered something that sounded like, “Yes, sir,” right before the guy tossed him like a bag of garbage against the wall. Angel stood between my legs and stared at me. He was so big, he blocked everything else in the room. “You are mated, but I don’t give a flying shit. You’re close to being fertile and when you are, I’m going to fuck your cunt until you’re pregnant.”
Something dark and predatory flickered in his eyes, and I knew. He wasn’t human. He was a Wolf. He smiled, and I felt like I’d been flash frozen. I was still shivering when the torture started again. I didn’t scream. Sunny was still curled up in the corner, and I refused to make it worse for her. Not that I was any big hero or anything. I just figured she might still be alive when the Nightriders came for us. They’d come. I never had any doubt. I also refused to give these bastards any satisfaction by screaming, even if my screams were silent because I had no voice left.
I passed out again, tasting blood from biting the insides of my cheeks, my tongue, my lips. I was beyond pain, beyond anything. White noise filled my brain. I drifted along, occasionally aware of men doing things to me, but the white noise always came back, always took me far away where I couldn’t feel.
Time had no meaning, but the white noise lessened and another sound intruded. Loud. Rumbling. Like rolling thunder. Motorcycles. Hundreds of them. At least to my ears. Had Easy come? He’d promised. There under the stars, he promised he would always find me, even if he had to ride through the fires of hell to get to me. He said he’d never leave me, that I was his and he was mine. I’d believed him. My sanity danced on a tightrope, an umbrella in one hand, and no net down below. If I fell, there would be no coming back from the madness.
The noise filled my head, but echoing it came music, and with the notes, words. I knew this song. The Moody Blues sang it. Nights in White Satin. The words became clearer, and I sang them—or thought I did—finding their truth. And I realized my own truth. If I broke because I fell off the tightrope, knowing my parasol would not float me to earth so that I would break upon the jagged rocks of this reality, I knew that Easy would die. Mates. For life.
No. He would not die. Could not die. I refused to let him. He was mine. And I loved him. I whispered the words to him in my mind, hoping they found their way through the white satin cocooning me. Even as I dreamed of motorcycles roaring through flames, I whispered the words.
Always, Easy, I will love you. My life. My heart.
Chapter 22
RUSSKI
WE SWEPT OVER THE HILL, a tide of avenging Cossacks on iron horses. Two hundred Nightriders had come immediately to rescue the mates of their brothers. Thousands more answered my declaration of war against the Hell Dogs. Highways would turn to rivers of blood as we hunted down our enemies.
As soon he received word of his mate’s predicament, Repo came out of hiding. He would face prison with a grim face if the police discovered him, but he would not stay behind when his mate and his pup were threatened. He and Sunny had told no one of her pregnancy before now. The Nightriders were prepared to mourn a life cut short in the womb, and then avenge the innocent with fire and blood.
Easy wore the death’s head mask with the ease of a man born to its burdens. His mate had changed him, sharpening some edges, softening others. He was no longer carefree. These past months haunted his soul, and I knew I would have to put him down if we found his mate dead. Easy would turn rogue and, as much as I understood the emotions feeding his rage, it was bad business.
Of the fifty Hell Dogs left behind to guard the warehouse, all but a handful died swiftly. Four were tortured to find where the coward known as Fallen Angel had rabbited. The fifth was mine. The Bastard, the nightmare stalking a little girl’s dreams.
EASY
BLOOD. SO DAMN MUCH BLOOD. I wanted to kill the fucking Hell Dog again. I wanted to shift and let my wolf savage the sumbitch. Right after I threw up. We fought our way to the room where they were holding the girls. Repo spotted Sunny crouched in the corner, an iron shackle around her neck.
I just stood there staring at Sam. She was lashed to a table, her hips at the edge, her ankles tied to the legs. There wasn’t an inch of her that wasn’t black, blue or bloody. My wolf howled, rage bleeding over into anguish. I wanted to rip out the heart of every gawddamned Hell Dog and feast on their guts.
My knife was in my hand. I didn’t remember drawing it from its sheath. I cut Sam free, but I was scared to touch her. I didn’t want to hurt her any more than she already was. “Ah, baby, I’m so fucking sorry.” They’d tortured her because of me. Because of the Nightriders.
She got one eye open and focused on me. Her voice was a raspy whisper. “Easy?”
Her poor lips, so swollen and cut. How could she even talk?
“It’s me, baby. You’re safe now. I’m gonna take care of you.”
A sound ripped from her throat. I didn’t know if it was a moan, a cry…or maybe it was a laugh. “Here you are, larger than life. My hero.”
My heart shredded. I was no hero. I’d failed her. “C’mon, sweetheart. We’ll get out of here. Hardy will fix you.” I hoped to hell the Nightrider medic could. She was so fucking broken. “If he can’t, Doc Carson will.”
I picked her up, cradled her, her wince of pain arrowing through my heart.
“S’okay, Easy. You came.”
“Always, Sam. I’ll always come for you. You’re mine.”
“Yes, yours. Always.”
My life. My love.
Her voice echoed in my head. Not the broken, rusty sound rasping out of her throat. Her voice. The one that touched me when I slept, the one that turned me hard when her words stroked me as I woke.
I will always find you. No matter where you are. I love you, Sam. With everything I am.
She smiled, as much as her tattered lips could. She’d heard me. My heart and soul shredded…exploded, and then they merged, becoming something new. Something more. The truth of a true mating was so much…more than I’d ever imagined.
Repo carried Sunny out. The Hummer had been pulled inside the warehouse. Repo gently placed her in the backseat while Hardy asked questions—the same questions he’d be asking Sam. The same questions that would shred my self-control. I was hanging on by sheer stubbornness.
When I tried to put her on the seat next to Sunny, Sam refused to let go. She whimpered when Hardy touched her and buried her face against my chest. Deadhead, the Topeka chapter president, appeared. Keeping his eyes averted, he passed over two silver solar blankets.
“Marie always makes me pack an emergency kit in the saddlebags,” he explained.
Hardy took the blankets and squeezed Deadhead’s shoulder. “The girls appreciate it. And Marie’s foresight. Thanks, man.”
After Repo and I got our mates covered, Deadhead looked up. Expression fierce, eyes burning, he made a promise. “These motherfuckers are dead. I’ll personally hand you the balls, dicks, and heads of every damned Hell Dog Topeka hunts down. A man doesn’t do this shit to a woman.” Deadhead turned on his heel and stomped away.
Hardy repacked his emergency first aid kit and stowed it in the back. “I’ve already called Doc Carson. He’ll meet us at the clinic.”
Twenty brothers escorted us to doc’s place, forming a phalanx of motorcycles that kept the public at bay. The scanner we ran in the Hummer already told us what we needed to know. Local LEOs were running scared. A Nightrider war was something they wanted nothing to do with. Orders went out from the governor’s office to every law enforcement officer in the state—as long as civilians were left alone, the cops were not to engage. That was good. They’d all live to go home to their families.
RUSSKI
WITH INFINITE CARE, I crushed the Bastard’s nuts in my hand. He occupied the table where
Easy had found Sam. Gravedigger first insisted on washing it down with bleach before we tied the man in Samantha’s place.
“I don’t want her blood fouled by this fucker’s stench.”
That Digger then poured bleach into the Bastard’s open wounds was just a bonus. I would extract the information we needed and reward the Bastard with exquisite pain delivered by my hand. Submissives lined up to beg for my not-so-tender care at Nightshades. My skills were crafted by a master in the art of pain. He prepared me to embrace it in order to learn to bestow pain in the perfect way. He taught me to read my subjects. To understand every nuance of their souls. I transported them to the ultimate edge before rescuing them from themselves, anchoring their psyches on the threshold of excruciating insanity. I was four when his lessons began.
My mentor named me his crowning achievement—a Dom existing only to bring punishment and pain to those who required such for release. A Dom who achieved no sexual gratification—no emotional fulfillment—from the acts inflicted. And by doing so, he created in me the perfect instrument. Enforcer. Assassin. Torturer. Simply a tool for my Russkaya Mafiya masters to exploit. Until I escaped.
I returned my attentions to the Bastard. “You will tell me why the child of Sarah Prescott is of such importance to you.”
“Fuck you.”
I altered my touch slightly. The man at my mercy screamed. “Again.” Another squeeze. I continued until he wept, his ankles and wrists bloody from his struggles against the barbed wire Digger had used to bind him.
“Why does the one you call Fallen Angel wish to own this child?”
A knife appeared in Digger’s hand. He flashed it before the Bastard’s eyes. “I think he wants a little edge play.”
I accepted the stiletto, spread the Bastard’s butt cheeks, and flicked my wrist, the tip of the knife nicking the perineum ridge between scrotum and rectum. “Da? This is something you enjoy, my friend? No? Then perhaps you will share the answers to my questions.” I teased the knife across his groin, leaving a red trail. The next line of blood touched the base of his dick.