by Bella Jewel
Melanie rubs her arms and looks to all of us. “Did he … did he say anything about me?”
Lincoln looks like he feels sorry for her, which no doubt makes it worse. “Sorry no, he didn’t. Brody is … Brody is …”
“He’s broken,” she finishes for him. “I know.”
“Have you heard from him?” Ellie asks her. “Does he speak to you?”
Melanie shakes her head. “No, he just left me. No explanation. He just disappeared. Broke my heart. But I knew he was after revenge. I knew it, I just thought he was past it.”
“What is his revenge for?”
Melanie exhales. “It’s a long, really ugly story. Do you have any idea where he is? Or what he plans on doing?”
Everyone looks at each other again.
She doesn’t know about the death matches.
When she finds out, it’ll crush her.
I glance at the group, nobody is saying anything.
Melanie looks to Erin. “Please? I can’t take much more of the lies. Just give it to me straight.”
Erin exhales. “Brody is going to go into a death match against this person he is seeking revenge against.”
“A what?” Melanie whispers, her face going pale.
“A death match. A fight to the death.”
“We’ve been tryin’ to help him,” Finn tells her, “but he did a runner.”
“He’s going to fight to the death?” Melanie says, her voice so broken it physically burns my heart.
“Yes,” Erin answers her honestly.
“But,” Lincoln says, as a tear rolls down Melanie’s cheek, “we’re goin’ to find him before that happens. Do you hear me? We’ll find him, and we’ll finish this.”
Will we?
Or will Brody end up dead before he can ever mend this poor girl’s broken heart?
The outcome of this one, I’m afraid, doesn’t have many positive points.
Poor Melanie.
She’s in for one hell of a ride.
THE END
Knights Burden
COPYRIGHT BELLA JEWEL 2019
PROLOGUE
NOW – MELANIE
I suppose you want to know everything about Brody.
How we met.
How we fell in love.
How his demons slowly crushed him.
How his life slowly ate away at him with an endless amount of horror that no one person should have to endure.
How he sank.
How he left and broke my heart.
How he’s putting his life on the line to fight for something he believes in.
He believes in it more than us.
More than me.
He’s the love of my life. There is nobody else.
It has always been painful. Always been intense.
But I love him; I love him more than the very air that I breathe.
If I lose him, I don’t know if I’ll survive.
None of this makes any sense to you, I know.
Because you haven’t lived it yet, but you will.
I’ll start from the beginning, shall I?
I’ll start with the exact moment I knew Brody was meant for me.
That I would fall madly in love with him.
That he’d ruin my life, little by little.
Until I was just an empty shell like him.
Yeah, I’ll start there.
1
THEN – MELANIE
I could say I blame Aria for meeting Brody.
My best friend, my confidant, the woman who holds me up when times get rough.
But…back to her being the reason for our meeting.
She’s with Brody’s brother, Blade. The two of them met and then it turned out later they’re actually step siblings. Hilarious, isn’t it? Her mom married his dad, and well, now they’re all one big happy family. Aria and Blade are both studying to become doctors and have this gorgeous relationship that makes me ill every time I’m around them, also envious, because it’s horribly perfect.
I’m close to Aria and her mom, Nancy, especially after they lost their dad in a horrible accident. I was super excited when they found Jack, Brody’s father, because he pieced them back together again. In the end, it was a rather romantic story, if you ask me. That’s where Brody and I met. I could honestly tell you that when I first laid eyes on him, he didn’t like me. Of course he claims he did, but it seemed a whole lot like he didn’t.
He was so closed off.
So broken.
So quiet and withdrawn.
Fascinating, really.
When I look back, it seems almost like he was impossible.
He and Ari became friends and then, slowly, he and I started becoming friends, then lovers, and well, here we are. We’ve been together a few years now, but I can’t get enough of him. Brody has this thing about him, this darkness that draws you closer. It makes you want to be around him, for some strange, twisted reason.
He is so incredibly broken, but he has every right to be.
It took a good while, but he finally confided in me that his ex-girlfriend, Ashley, killed herself. That was a big shock, I won’t lie. The very thought that he lost someone he loved so dearly to such a tragic thing sort of explained why he was so broken when I met him. He blamed himself, after all. She was depressed and after countless attempts to help her, he couldn’t deal with it anymore and he broke it off. She had been doing drugs, drinking, and wouldn’t receive his help. He was so young at the time. He didn’t understand.
He didn’t think she’d do what she did.
He thought she was just trying to get him back. Like any young man would.
He didn’t take her seriously.
She took her own life, and he had to live with that.
The guilt ate away at him for years until, finally, he started opening up about it and managed to recover somewhat.
Each day I feel like he gets better. Every moment we’re together heals something in him—his words, not mine.
Brody will always be dark, and he’ll always be twisted, but he’s my dark and twisted, and I’m totally okay with it.
“Melanie.”
Aria snaps her fingers in front of my face, snapping me out of my daydream. I stare over the table at her, brows already raising at her rather rude interruption. She crosses her arms, throwing her pretty head to the side and snapping, “What did I just say?”
I grin at her. “I have no idea.”
She exhales, then laughs, which makes her eyes light up. Aria is beautiful, even if she doesn’t believe it. With all that thick black hair that rolls around her shoulders and down her back and the emerald green eyes and killer body. We’re similar, in a sense, except my eyes are brown and I totally do not have a killer body. I maintain that I’m way too skinny and I need more curves, but Aria, and Brody, and everyone else tells me I’m just dramatic.
Probably true.
I do have a flair for the old dramatics.
“I was saying how this practical work is killing me; I swear it feels like I never see Blade at the moment.”
I nod, understanding that fully. With them both studying medicine, they’re exhausted. They never seem to get to stop, I don’t get to see Ari as much as I’d like anymore, which totally sucks. “Yeah,” I tell her, “I can imagine. How are you liking it? I feel like it has been ages since we spoke.”
“I love it, I’m just so tired. We get a break in a few months which will be much needed. How are you and Brody doing?”
“Good.” I smile at her. “He’s enjoying work, which is good.”
Aria nods. “Is he still okay with not enlisting?”
Brody was going to enlist when he met me. His best friend, Mick, enlisted as soon as he turned eighteen and has been out there since, coming back and forth when he has time off. Brody was considering enlisting, but I guess life threw me in his way and he changed his mind. I encouraged him to do it, of course, but he decided against it. I wanted him to be sure about his choice and he was
which, deep down, I won’t lie, I was grateful for. The very idea of him serving and something happening to him made me … well, it made me so scared I couldn’t sleep at night.
“Yeah, he’s okay. Apparently, Mick is due home, so no doubt he’ll be happy to have him back. I’m kind of glad he didn’t go.”
Aria nods. “Hell, I would be too. I don’t think I could handle it.”
“They’re away so much, too, which is hard. The idea of not knowing if they’re okay, though, that’s scary. Plus, Mick has been serving for a while now; he and Brody wouldn’t even be in the same area, the same level, none of it.”
“That’s true. Mick has been away for a while now,” Aria murmurs. “Gosh, I think the last time I saw him was well over a year ago.”
I nod. “Yep, but he loves it, so I’m happy for him.”
Aria smiles. “Yeah, he’s a nice guy. So, Brody is enjoying his work right now?”
“Seemingly so, he likes working with anything that has wheels, so fixing cars and motorcycles is pretty much high up there on the things he enjoys doing. Plus he comes home all dirty and sexy and, man, it’s hard not to jump him.”
Aria laughs. “Don’t act like you don’t jump him, lady. You’re all over him like syrup on a pancake.”
I snort. “Exactly, I’m everywhere. He can’t escape. He just has to absorb me.”
We both burst out laughing, and Aria smiles and says, “I really miss you, honey.”
“Me, too.”
“Well, we’re going to catch up more,” she tells me, “I’ll make sure of it.”
“It sounds like a plan.”
She grins. “It sure does.”
Aria.
Where would I be without her?
~*~*~*~
A hard body presses me against the wall, muscled flesh pushing into every inch of my soft, supple flesh, making me whimper at the feeling of him against me. There’s something so incredibly sexy about him, something so dangerous it puts me on edge, alerts my body, puts me on high alert. It’s as if I know he’s dangerous, and my body craves it.
It can’t live without him, almost as much as I can’t.
“Missed you today,” he growls into my ear as his hands lift my skirt, flicking my panties aside.
I whimper, “I missed you too, baby.”
A low growl, so low my skin prickles with delight. His fingers enter me from behind, stroking deep into my wet pussy, making me arch into him, dropping my head back into his shoulder. He turns his head and bites at my neck, making me whimper as his fingers fuck me from behind, coating themselves in my pleasure. When I tighten and cum around his fingers, he pulls them out, bringing them up and around to my mouth.
“Taste how much you want me.”
I close my lips over his fingers, making him growl with delight as I lick myself from him. He moves quickly after that, a frenzied need coming over him. He frees his cock and presses it against my pussy, pushing up in one swift motion, filling me with his length, causing me to stretch around him. My groans fill the room as I adjust to his size, and then he fucks me, he fucks me so hard I bring the house down with my screams.
It doesn’t matter, though, we’re the only ones here.
The only ones relishing in my pleasure. Our pleasure.
It’s our space to enjoy each other, that’s what I love most about it.
I shiver as I’m coming down from the most incredible high I’ve ever felt in my life, and Brody isn’t far behind me. When he’s finished pulsing inside of me, he carefully pulls out, tucks himself away and then spins me around, pulling me into his arms. I look up at him and wonder for a small second how the hell I got to be so lucky. Every single thing about him is gorgeous, from his deep-brown eyes to the buzzcut he refuses to get rid of.
The muscled body, the tattoos.
Brody is perfect.
“How was your day?” he murmurs, leaning down and brushing his lips against mine.
“It just got a whole lot better thanks to you.” I smile up at him. “How was your day?”
“Good. Mick comes home tomorrow.”
“He does?” I say, stepping back and adjusting my clothes. “I didn’t know he was getting sent back until next week.”
“Yeah, I just heard from his sister he was coming home, she didn’t say why. They don’t talk a great deal. I guess we’ll find out. Lookin’ forward to seein’ him.”
“I bet you are,” I smile. “I am, too.”
Brody reaches down, gently tucking a strand of hair behind my ear and holding my eyes. When he does that, my heart still skips a beat. Everything about him still makes me giddy. He’s beautiful. So damned beautiful. “I’m goin’ to shower, then I’ll make you some dinner, yeah?”
I grin. “Yeah.”
He presses a kiss to my forehead and disappears up the stairs to shower. I watch him go, smiling huge.
Everything in our lives is so perfect right now.
That’s honestly something I didn’t think would happen.
Not after everything Brody has been through.
Ashley taking her life, battling through that. Things like that are hard to recover from and, for a while, Brody lived in a really dark place, but now he’s so much better, so much happier—together we’re moving forward.
Little do I know that our lives are about to take a drastic turn.
In the worst possible way.
We’ll be forever changed.
Forever broken.
2
NOW – MELANIE
My phone rings. Over and over. A subtle buzz in my jeans.
I don’t answer it. I’m not going to answer it.
That doesn’t stop them from calling. Over and over they call.
Aria, Nancy, Blade, everyone. They’re all worried. All concerned.
All afraid, waiting for me to fall and never get back up again.
Waiting for my broken heart to finally swallow me whole and take the last straggling parts of me that are left, crushing them into nothing.
My emptiness will consume me. At least, that’s what they think.
So, I don’t answer. I don’t bother to pick it up. I don’t bother to explain.
I instead stare at the people in front of me. The people I just met. The people who just told me Brody is going to fight a death match.
He’s going to avenge Mick.
He’s going to probably lose his life doing it.
I’m numb to it all right now. The pain is no longer. I can’t possibly feel anymore.
My perfect life was turned upside down, and it has remained that way since.
I zone in on the girls staring at me, all of them strangers in the scheme of things. The only reason I tracked them down is through Finn. I knew he was a friend of Brody’s, and I thought maybe Brody had gone to him for help.
I was right.
I just didn’t realize the extent of what he was going to ask for help with.
Death match.
Those words don’t even seem real.
“Do you want a drink?” the girl named Lucy asks, walking over to me and handing me a glass of water.
I tip my head back and look up at her—she’s beautiful, truly beautiful. They all are, really.
I don’t know much about these guys, I just know they’re a group of brothers. The Knight brothers. Lincoln, Slater, Finn and Damon. Brody has spoken of them before. They seem like good guys, so far.
“Thanks,” I murmur, taking the glass of water and balancing it in my lap.
“Know you probably don’t want to talk about it,” Finn says, his eyes scanning my face, “but do you want to tell us what you know, so we can help you find Brody?”
I give him a weak smile. “Right now, I don’t even want to think about it. If you don’t mind, I’d just like to find somewhere to get some rest and we can figure out how to find Brody in the morning.”
“Have you got somewhere to stay?” Erin, the other lady, the one with Finn, asks.
“No, but there
are motels everywhere, I’ll go and get one,” I say, standing and placing the untouched glass of water down.
“No,” Lucy says, shaking her head. “No way, you’re not going to stay in a motel. I have a spare room, and I’m at Nicolai’s a lot anyway. You’re more than welcome to stay with me.”
I shake my head. “Oh no, I can’t put you out.”
She shrugs, snorting. “Don’t be silly. It’s not putting me out.”
I study her, then glance around the room again, saying in a soft voice, “Okay sure. Yeah, sure. Thank you.”
Lucy stands and walks over to a very good-looking dark-haired man, giving him a hug, saying something to him, planting a kiss on his lips, and then turning back to me. “We’ll have to get a cab, I’ve had a little too much to drink.”
I nod, looking around at everyone again. The two other ladies in the group, Shania and Ellie, both smile at me. They all seem nice, really kind, and more than willing to help. I’m just glad to be getting away from the pity, the endless pity. Aria, I love her to death, but she just wants to fix everything. What she doesn’t realize is that she can’t fix it. Nobody can. You can’t fix heartbreak like this. You can’t fix the pain that is forever embedded into my soul.
You can’t fix Brody.
Yet for some reason, I’m still here, still standing, still waiting, still hoping.
For what, I don’t know. That he’ll come home? That he’ll be okay? That the demons will just disappear?
I’m not sure they’ll ever disappear.
Hell, I’m fairly certain they’re part of him now. They are who he is.
But I can’t give up on him, no matter what, because I made a promise to him a long time ago; I promised him that I’d always be there, that I’d always have his back, that I’d never abandon him, and I can’t take that promise away now. So even if my attempts at finding and helping him are futile, I’ll still do it, because I made a promise, and I keep my promises.
“Ready?” Lucy asks.
I nod, staring at the group again. The oldest, Lincoln, at least I’m assuming he’s the oldest, is staring at me like he has a million questions to ask. I know how he feels—I have a million to ask, too.
Brody is from a family of brothers like these guys, but that wasn’t enough to pull him from the spiral he dove himself down into. Would these brothers be able to pull each other from such depths? Do they have the same kind of bond? I’m guessing so, just judging by the situation I found them in.