Judgment Road

by Christine Feehan

  She was so fuckin' beautiful. He loved the way she looked on her knees, elbows to the bed, head pressed against the sheets, all that long, gorgeous hair everywhere. Her breasts were perfect and . . . He shut down that way of thinking. It could only lead to disaster.

  He lifted his face to the wind, letting it blow over him, trying to stop shaking, trying to see through the shimmering wetness. Anya. She'd given herself to him, done exactly as he'd instructed. That was the key. She needed to do exactly what he said and she'd be safe.

  "Fuck!" He shouted it, hating himself. Hating what he was. He could just ride over the cliff, be done with it. If he did, she'd be safe. She'd be safe and free to be with someone good. Someone decent.

  He looked ahead. The curve was a long one and on the other side was the long expanse of blue. It glittered in the sun like glass. It was time. He'd always known he'd have to do it. He'd stayed alive for Savage. For Czar. Czar had them in a good place now. He wasn't needed so much by the club. By his brothers. And Anya. She needed saving, because there would be no saving her if he were alive. He'd known that from the moment he'd laid eyes on her.

  Just as he entered that sweet, long curve, the one he intended to straighten out, two Harleys came up on either side of him. Ice. Storm. They moved in unison with him, in formation, just as they often did, leaning into the curve, riding the wind. They didn't say anything. They didn't look at him. They just kept his bike on the road. There would be no flying today. No soaring out over the ocean. No disappearing into all that blue.

  He led the way. He knew where he had to go. Marc Centerfield ran the underground fights. They were moved from place to place, but once Savage and Reaper had competed--and won--Centerfield wanted them to compete and texted locations. He went straight to the nearest one, just on the outskirts of San Francisco.

  The long drive should have cleared his head, but it didn't. Nothing could. He'd fucked up so badly, he couldn't even comprehend what had happened. He hadn't even used a condom. Never once had that happened. He'd been so out of control he hadn't even protected her that way.

  It wasn't difficult to get a match immediately, and he was willing to fight one after another until he was defeated. Ice and Storm didn't try to stop him. They held his colors and kept them safe as he stepped into the ring.

  The sweet pain of fists hitting flesh burst through him, clearing his mind, so there was only one thing for him. Survival. His brothers dragged him off each fallen fighter, time and again. He couldn't hear the shouts, the roars. He couldn't hear anything. He couldn't feel anymore, not the fists hitting him. Not the pain bursting through his body. He didn't react. He controlled it. Like he controlled everything. Like he'd been taught.

  Ice dragged him off the fifth man and shoved him back toward Storm. "We're out of here," he informed Centerfield. "Give Storm the winnings."

  "Not done," Reaper protested.

  "Shut the fuck up," Ice snapped. "You're done." He shoved Reaper away from the ring, toward the hall.

  Reaper went because Ice was his brother and Ice rarely got that tone. He didn't answer Centerfield when the man demanded to know when he'd be back. He just let Ice clean him up. His body had taken far more punishment than these fighters could ever inflict on him. It had been easy mopping up the floor with them. The hard part was not killing them, pulling his punches, so he didn't smash their brains, punish them for not smashing his brain the way he needed.

  "You look like hell. I've texted Czar. Told him we'd be meeting him in three hours at his house. To clear the kids out or have them in bed."

  Ice was back to his bossy ways. Reaper just nodded, because what was there to say? Yeah, he wanted his opponents to pound him into the ground? To take away what he was, to kill it, to kill him to keep Anya safe? It all came back to her.

  Another three hours of hard riding did nothing to stop the chaos of his mind. One minute he was determined to never see her again, to send her away, keep her safe, and then the thought of never hearing her laughter, never seeing her face light up, never touching her, never having what he'd had for the first time in his life was too much to bear. That explosion. That pleasure he hadn't known existed. The absolute reality of his body making a choice. Making Anya his choice.

  Czar stood in the yard, waiting. Smoking one of his rare cigarettes. That alone told Reaper he wasn't happy that he'd gone to Centerfield and participated in the fights again. Reaper walked right up to him. Just stood there, not knowing what to say. Ice and Storm had backed off to give him privacy, but Savage was there, looking him over, assessing the damage, just as Czar was. He had a black eye. His jaw hurt like hell and had to be swollen. There weren't many places on his body that had gone untouched. His knuckles had been iced down before they left, but they were a mess.

  "Need you to make certain Anya's all right for me," Reaper said to Savage. "I put two prospects on her. Need you to check she's all right."

  Savage nodded, hesitated, and then touched his shoulder before walking off, leaving him with Czar. It had been Czar since Reaper was that four-year-old, terrified toddler, beaten, starved, used by sick, perverted deviants and thrown into the dark. Czar had been the one to help him. To give him hope in all the madness. To make certain there was a shred of humanity left in him.

  "Tell me."

  Reaper wished he could hit something again. Smash it. Smash his body onto the rocks the way the waves did. "I was so out of control. My brain just shut off. Completely. I didn't think to protect her. Not in any way, Czar. I knew, watching her in that bar, I knew she could turn me inside out, but I didn't think this would ever happen."

  A vision of her rose up. Anya on her knees, elbows to the bed, head pressed against the sheets, all that long, gorgeous hair everywhere. Her breasts, two perfect mounds, twin soft temptations, jolting with every stroke of his body as he hammered into her. So fuckin' beautiful.

  "What happened?"

  Reaper walked away from him. Paced. His mind went there again. "If she's anywhere near me, Czar, I'm not going to be able to stop myself. I thought I had complete discipline. I had none. Zero. God. I could have hurt her. I could have killed her. She could be lying on that bed right now with her throat cut."

  He counted his heartbeats waiting for Czar's condemnation. Waiting for his brother to tell him he was a psychopath and now was the time to put a bullet in his head. When Czar said nothing, when there was no expected conviction, he swung around and glared at him.

  "For God's sake, Czar. You know what I did. You know I killed Helena. Cut her fuckin' throat when she had her mouth on me." He looked around for something to pound. When there was nothing, he crouched low to the ground and drove his fist as deep as he could.

  "Helena was a sick, perverted woman who enjoyed torturing children."

  "That's not the fuckin' point and you know it." Reaper sank all the way onto the grass and dropped his aching head into his hands. "I don't have sex. Never. I tell my body what to do and it does it. I control everything. It isn't safe for anyone if I'm out of control. Even tonight, in those fights, I let Ice and Storm pull me off those pussies. I could have killed them, but I controlled how hard I hit them. I stay in control."

  "Anya's alive."

  Reaper nodded. The moment Ice and Storm joined him on the road, they would have texted Czar his condition. He would know everything.

  "But that isn't any thanks to me. I kissed her. I kissed her and something in me just . . ." He shook his head and pounded his leg with his fist, trying to marshal his thoughts. How did he explain to Czar what he didn't understand himself?

  "I lost it. I lost my mind. I was feeling things I'd never felt before. She opened up something in me, and I was crazy for her. I had to have her. I would have taken her right there, against the wall at your house. I had to have her. There was no controlling my cock from the first time I ever heard that laugh of hers. Saw that smile. I watched her give a blanket to a homeless man, a blanket she needed. I couldn't stop thinking about her after that. When I thought abo
ut her, my fuckin' cock was hard as a rock. When I saw her, it was the same. At night, I'd lie on my bed and jerk off thinkin' about her. Didn't get any relief. In the shower, I'd do the same. No help. I walk around like that all the fuckin' time."

  Czar sat down in the grass facing him. "That sounds about right, Reaper. It happens when you find the right woman."

  "Not to me. It isn't safe. I'm built a certain way now. They shaped me into a killer. I fight it. I control it, but I still am that before anything else."

  "We all are killers. That's what they made us, but we're moving away from that life."

  "No, you're moving away from that life. I'm still in that life and you know it. I'll always be in that life. That's what she'd get in her bed. A fuckin' killer. And that's if she survived the next time I touch her. You have to protect her. Get her out of here and somewhere safe where I can't find her, because I swear, I'd look for her. I'm addicted, and sooner or later, I'd have to go after her. Either that, or put a gun to my head."

  There were so many things he wanted to tell Czar, things he just couldn't face about himself, things he was ashamed of and didn't want the one person in the world that he looked up to knowing. He was too ashamed. He would never be able to live with knowing Anya was somewhere in the world. He'd find her. She'd never be safe as long as he was alive.

  "Slow down, Reaper. You're getting ahead of yourself. Anya is safe. She's alive. The boys are watching over her while you get your head straight. You had sex with her." Czar made it a statement. "And she's still alive."

  Sex? Reaper wasn't certain he would call it that. He'd had sex with targets. With marks. He'd studied them, met them "accidentally," seduced them and killed them. He'd been an agent for Sorbacov and his government. Sometimes the women had been killers they couldn't take care of using normal means. Sometimes they'd been women targeting high-profile scientists or government officials. Always there'd been a good reason they had a target on their backs, but certainly not warranting the way Sorbacov had insisted the hits be carried out. That had been for his own pleasure. That had been because he loved to watch. It got him off. He was a sick, sick man. Czar knew he'd been forced to go after any woman Sorbacov wanted dead, but he didn't know how sick the kills had been.

  What Reaper had given to Anya had been himself. Nothing to do with training. Nothing to do with a depraved man like Sorbacov. That had been all Reaper and Anya. So sex wasn't what he'd had with her. He just didn't know what to call it.

  "It's natural to want the woman you fall for, Reaper. Hell, I still can't think about Blythe without wanting her. Four kids in the house and I'm pulling her around corners, into bathrooms and closets. We sneak outside onto the roof. I can't stop and I don't want to. That's the way it should be. What they did to us, what they taught us, that isn't natural. Wanting your woman, Reaper, that's a good thing."

  Reaper just shook his head, despair gripping his heart. His chest hurt. His stomach was tied up in so many knots he wasn't certain he could have stood even if his legs would have held him up. He couldn't tell Czar the entire truth without losing the man's respect.

  "Wasn't it good?"

  His head jerked up. "Good? Fuck, Czar. Never felt anything like that in my life. Never. That's why she's not safe. I'd find that woman no matter where she hid, that's why you have to protect her. The club needs to protect her. I'm asking for that."

  "Did you even one time have it in your head to kill her? Even once? Before, during or after?"

  "Are you even listening to me?" Reaper hissed it, wanting to smash his brother right in the face, knowing it was really himself he wanted to hit. "I wasn't thinking. I wasn't thinking about anything. Not killing, not protecting. I didn't even use a fuckin' glove. All I could do was get inside her. Wanting to live there. There was no thinking, brother. None. Never in my life have I felt that."

  "You're the one not listening to me, Reaper. You're so certain something terrible is going to happen that you won't take a look at what did happen. You had sex naturally with a woman of your choice. You didn't think about killing her. There was no fake seduction. The two of you lit the place on fire. You didn't pull out a knife and slit her throat. You didn't put a gun to her head. You didn't garrote her. You had a wild ride and both of you survived."

  Reaper took a deep breath. The air was salty. He was beginning to feel the bruises now. His body was stiffening. It hurt, but it was a good hurt, one he was familiar with. The roaring in his ears was beginning to settle enough that he could hear Czar. It helped that he'd been listening to the man since he'd been a toddler.

  Czar was plainspoken. He didn't sugarcoat things. If he thought Reaper was a danger to others, he'd most likely pull the trigger himself. Of course Czar didn't know the entire story, and Reaper couldn't bring himself to tell him. They'd lived through shame together, but some things were too terrible to share, even with Czar.

  He spread his fingers wide and his knuckles protested. The pain grounded him. He could take pain. He could dish it out. That was something he understood. Fire like he'd shared with Anya, wild and out of control, that was something terrifying and new. He thought he understood sex. He was an expert at it. They all were. They'd been taught every type of sex known to man, forced to learn, to be good, forced to be disciplined to resist it if needed. They'd never been taught what it would be like if the body responded naturally.

  "What now?"

  "Now, you explore the relationship with her, Reaper. You figure it out. That's what I had to do. That's what all the brothers will have to do when the time comes."

  Relationship? What the hell was Czar saying? Reaper wasn't thinking beyond getting inside her again without harming her. Not a relationship. What did that even mean? No, sex was where he was keeping it, that was all he could do. He was so damaged there was no fixing him, and a woman didn't stay with the kind of man he was. No woman could, let alone a woman like Anya.

  "What if I . . ." He couldn't bring himself to say "kill her," because the thought of that was so abhorrent he didn't dare let himself say it aloud again. He could have. "I'm not a good man."

  "Neither am I, yet I have Blythe and she's a good woman. I count myself lucky."

  Blythe was a miracle, but Reaper wasn't going to say that aloud. He'd said enough about his sins. "Gotta go soak before I'm too stiff to even ride. Won't be of use to you when Code gives us the information on the Ghosts."

  "Then get to it. I have a warm woman waiting for me." Czar stood up and reached down with a hand to help Reaper to his feet. "Take it slow. See where it goes."

  Reaper nodded. He wasn't promising anything. He had to think.

  SEVEN

  Anya heard the sound of the Harley long before it reached her. She was curled up, wrapped in the sleeping bag to stay warm, hidden in a circle of boulders. Thanks to Leslee, she had a ground blanket, and she'd swept off most of the rocks, but she was still cold. She sat up, listening, her heart accelerating. She'd recognize the sound of Reaper's bike anywhere.

  She had no idea how to interpret her feelings. The moment she heard the bike and knew he was coming for her, her treacherous body went crazy. It didn't matter that he'd treated her like a whore, using her and walking out without a word, she still remembered every single touch of his mouth, his hands and his cock. Best sex ever. More than that, when he'd kissed her, it had felt like he'd been staking his claim. Telling her she meant something to him. Clearly, she hadn't.

  Anya had replayed those kisses in her mind over and over. Replayed him walking out over and over. She told herself she was a big girl. She'd known what she was getting into. She thought she'd come to grips with it and was prepared to face him when she went to work the following night. She would be professional. Behind the bar, she could do anything, even face him picking up another woman. Maybe. Either that or she'd quit and leave like he'd wanted.

  Her hair was braided in a tight weave. She reached for her bra. She was sleeping in his flannel. Damn. He'd see that and probably think she was trying to be cli
ngy. He didn't hesitate, or call out, he rode straight up the narrow trail leading to her little nest, as if he had a tracker on her. That was impossible. The Egg Taking Station was a huge place. Lots of camping sites. How could he possibly know exactly where she was? On top of everything else, it was dark. No lights, just the moon, and that was covered in clouds. Dark clouds. That should have given her a premonition.

  She extracted herself from her bag and pulled on her shoes, sitting on top of the boulder, watching him as he parked the bike. He didn't get off, or turn it completely off, he just sat there waiting. She shoved the rest of her clothes inside the sleeping bag and rolled it tight.

  "How did you know where I was?"

  He didn't answer her; instead, he reached behind him and pulled a jacket out of a compartment. She shoved the bag in and put the jacket on, then the dome he held out to her. She slid behind him, felt him wince when her arms went tight. Immediately she loosened her hold, using her fingers to bunch his jacket so she wouldn't have to put her arms around him.

  Like he always did, he grabbed her hands and brought them around him. She didn't know why she let him or why she got on his bike without a word. She did know he was going to tell her how he knew where to find her--that is, until the pickup truck that had been parked in the campsite just below her nest fell in behind them. He'd had someone watching her.

  Anya pressed her face against his back. She didn't know whether to be happy or upset about that. Upset because it felt icky to know someone had been spying on her. Happy that he cared enough to have someone looking out for her. Did that mean there was a good explanation for him going off without a single word to her? Probably not. It wasn't that difficult to say good-bye, see you later. No, Reaper was being Reaper, looking after someone working for the club, but he really was that jerk that screwed a woman and then just left her.

  They drove straight to the compound, the truck sliding into the parking lot a distance from them, closer to the garage. Two men got out and in the light spilling from inside the truck, she recognized the two prospects who had been in the common room that morning. Had it only been that morning?