Judgment Road

by Christine Feehan

  "Bullshit. She was protecting herself. My woman's broken, Czar, so you could know yours was safe. Go home. This isn't the time." Reaper leaned his head against the headboard and closed his eyes, not wanting to look at the man he'd protected for nearly all his life. He was angry, but mostly at himself. At the choices he'd made and never stopped making. The choices he knew he would continue to make.

  "I'll talk to her."

  "You heard her. You heard what she thinks of all of us, especially me. She wore me on her skin, just as I asked, and I repaid her by letting Absinthe rape her mind." He knew Czar wouldn't have a clue what he was talking about, but it didn't matter. He knew. He knew and he was ashamed.

  "Reaper."

  Reaper shook his head. "Go, Czar." He was suddenly weary. "There isn't anything to talk about tonight. Tomorrow, maybe, not tonight. Tonight I'm going to hold her and make sure the demons don't come for her. Nothing's going to hurt her again. You can give me that much, can't you? One fucking night with her before she walks out of my life for good."

  "I'll give you your space now. And I'm sorry, brother. Take some time with her, but we're going to have to talk about those three in the bar tonight. I really am sorry for the way this turned out."

  Reaper was sure they all were sorry. Especially him, but it didn't change what they'd done to Anya. He waited to talk to her again until Czar left the room, closing the door behind him, locking the two of them in the room alone together.

  "You awake?" Because her breathing wasn't even.

  She nodded her head. Her hair slid over his thighs. Tangled around his cock. It felt right to just sit on the bed with her head in his lap. It didn't feel as if she was trying to control him. Or seduce him. It felt comforting. Peaceful. He imagined this was something men and women did at the end of the day, just breathing each other in when they were both hurting like hell.

  "Is the headache any better?"

  "Strong pills." The soft murmur was said against his bare thigh. Her lips whispered over his skin like a caress. He closed his eyes to savor the feeling, letting it comfort him even more.

  The pills were strong. Steele had made certain he'd given her ones that would block the pain as much as possible. It wouldn't take away betrayal or hurt, but hopefully her head would be better.

  "I liked them. Preacher. Lana. I liked them."

  His heart sank. There were tears in her voice. "Baby, they liked you too. No one wanted you hurt, least of all me."

  "I thought they were becoming my friends. Maybe even family."

  "They were. They are. Families fight, Anya. Families get past hard things." He wanted to hope. He wanted a fucking miracle. Was it too much to ask for her? Did the universe hate him so fucking much that it wouldn't even allow him to have one good thing that was all his in his life?

  "I wouldn't know," she whispered. "I never had a family."

  That just about killed him. He brushed her hair back from her face again. She was still, holding her head carefully in case moving it brought back the throbbing pain. He held himself just as still in case just shifting his legs caused her pain.

  "Is he some kind of human lie detector?"

  They never discussed one another's psychic talents with outsiders. Was she an outsider? Not to him, but it was ingrained to protect the others. "Something like that." He was deliberately vague. There was no explaining Absinthe's talent anyway. He'd practiced for hundreds of hours, working to be able to use his voice to reach into others' minds. He'd sat on the floor in the dungeon, bloody and bruised, tears running down his face, practicing, so maybe the next time he could stop what the pedophiles running the school did to him and the others.

  "Is my car fixed?"

  "It's a shit car, baby. I told you that already. The boys are good, but they aren't miracle workers." His heart accelerated. She wanted that car so she could disappear out of his life.

  "Did they get it running?"

  He was glad to tell the truth. "Not yet. They're trying. Roller skates are probably safer." He hoped for a brief smile, even a small one, but he didn't get it. The only sign he had that she wasn't completely pulling away was the hand he was still holding. Either she was too worn out to notice, or, like him, she couldn't quite give up what they'd started.

  "I don't know how to skate."

  "You never learned?"

  "No. It wasn't something we had a lot of time for. We would leave the shelter in the morning and hit the street, looking for food." Her head stirred then, rubbing against him like a cat. It was small, that little subtle movement, but he took it as a caress, just like her lips whispering over him. "Well, Mom looked for drugs, and I looked for food," she corrected. "She was only sixteen when she had me. Her parents kicked her out, and she stayed on the streets. I stayed with her."

  "God, baby," he whispered. His fingers tangled in her hair.

  "I didn't have it bad, the way you did. My mom ran interference. I didn't understand that was what she was doing, but to keep them away from me, she went off with them." She whispered the confession to him there in the dark, just as he'd confessed to her. "I wish I'd known what she'd sacrificed for me when she was alive."

  "She didn't want you to know." He hadn't wanted Savage to know the brutal things he'd endured to keep the worst of the offenders off his younger brother. The problem had been Savage had thought he'd been keeping those same offenders off Reaper.

  "I didn't want it to be over," she whispered, and then his thigh was wet with her tears. He wasn't certain if she meant her mother's death, or the two of them.

  "I don't want it to be over either," he answered, and there might have been tears in his eyes. He knew he meant the two of them.

  TEN

  Anya woke to screams, to pounding in her head, and visions of shadowy men and women surrounding little boys, reaching for them, and she couldn't stop them. She tried to fight them. She tried pleading. She did what her mother had done and offered her body in their place. Nothing stopped those monsters from seizing the terrified children.

  "It's all right, beautiful. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. I've got you." That voice, so like velvet, stroking over her skin, soothed the pounding in her head. "That's it, Anya, come back to me. Open your eyes."

  It took a moment to realize there were arms around her and someone was moving a cool cloth over her forehead. She'd had plenty of nightmares in her life. She'd never once remembered waking up in someone's arms with a voice telling her it was all going to be okay. Her mother hadn't been a woman to allow her to cuddle at night. She'd had other things to do.

  She took a breath and breathed Reaper into her lungs. He was still with her, still holding her close. She shivered with awareness, with the last remnants of her nightmare clinging stubbornly, but his body heat surrounded her and his arms felt strong. His heartbeat was close and steady.

  "Baby," he whispered softly, his mouth against her temple, his lips brushing back and forth with kisses. "Wake up for me. You're having another nightmare." His hand pushed back the hair tumbling around her face, his fingers removing the silky strands that felt like cobwebs. "I shouldn't have told you about that school. It's gone now. Closed. The teachers are dead."

  It took effort to lift her lashes and look at the face of her fallen angel. God. He was beautiful. A beautiful, troubled man, forged by the fires of hell, ravaged by monsters. She touched one of the scars on his face. She'd wanted to do that since the first moment she'd seen him, but Reaper wasn't a man one touched. She expected him to stop her, but he didn't. His eyes blazed down into hers and where before, she'd seen remoteness, cold, now she saw something else. Something that terrified her because it was there too late.

  "You can't know that."

  "What can't I know, beautiful?" He turned his head and caught her finger in his mouth.

  Her stomach did a slow, fluttering roll. His mouth was hot. Scorching. His tongue slid along her finger. She was weak to let him do this. Hold her. Whisper to her. Be close when she was so vulnerable. Sti
ll, she didn't pull away because he was everything she needed, and just like the sex, she'd take what she could get before she had to force herself to leave him.

  "You can't know those horrible people are dead. You were just a little boy."

  His eyes changed. Went dark. Flat. He let her finger slide away. "I killed them. One by one. I crawled through the vents of that school or I waited until they beat the hell out of me and let me out of the chains. Then I did it." He rubbed his wrist and up his forearm.

  Her gaze dropped to the scars there, evidence that he was telling the truth. "You were a boy. How could you manage against grown men?"

  "And women," he added. "Some of the women were the worst."

  She felt the shudder that moved through his body. She wanted to hold him. Comfort him. Take away the very real nightmare he'd suffered.

  His hand moved through her hair. "I killed them, Anya, the first one when I was five. He'd tortured Savage. He brought him back to the dungeon, bloody, barely recognizable, and Czar and I decided enough was enough. We had to find a way to fight back or they were going to kill us too. That's who you're with. That's the man I try so hard to get away from so you don't have to be in bed with him, but he's the biggest part of me."

  He told her looking her straight in the eye. She saw that he was expecting condemnation. No wonder her angel had fallen from the skies. She couldn't imagine that little boy, what he'd gone through and what he'd had to do to get out of such a hellhole. He really had been forged in the fires of hell. What of the others? She didn't want to have sympathy for them, but what had been done to them? What had a prison, pretending to be a school, filled with pedophiles pretending to be instructors, done to all of them? It was obvious: they had survived by working together.

  "The first time I saw you, Reaper, I thought you were the most beautiful man in the world. A fallen angel. I still think that. I think you're the most amazing man to do the things in your life you've had to do. To overcome being in hell enough just to function."

  For the first time his entire face softened, all those tough, hard features, all those lines and scars. "I'm always going to be in hell, baby," he said. "There's no other place for me."

  Tears burned behind her eyes because that angel hadn't seen her. He hadn't looked into her to see the woman who would have walked through hell with him. "I know." Why hadn't he talked to her like this before? She might have had the courage to stay and try to fight for a relationship with him. Why hadn't he held her after having sex with her? That might have made her strong enough to outweigh the betrayal.

  "My head hurts. It really hurts and I can't think."

  "You're thinking. Too much. It's just us right now, Anya. The world can keep moving all around us, but just for now, in here, in the dark, it's just the two of us."

  "Are you trying to persuade me to stay?"

  "Yes."

  His answer was stark and raw. So was the look on his face. She shook her head, and the action punctuated the pain. "I can't. I need a man whose first loyalty is to me. I want him fierce with his protection of me and our children. With you, the club will always come first, and I understand. I do. I just can't live with that. I want a family, Reaper. You have one. You have brothers and sisters who love you and are loyal to you in a way they could never be loyal to me. I'm glad you have that, I really am, but I need it too."

  "They would accept you and be just as loyal to you. Baby, you have to understand what we're like. Czar is the glue that held us together. He was the brains that got us out of there. He was the driving force to make us work harder, to practice our skills so we could each contribute in our fight to stay alive. We have absolute loyalty to one another, that's true, but they'll have that same loyalty to you once you're with us. They will."

  He hadn't. Reaper had chosen the club over her. "I'm sure they'd be very loyal to me until they considered me a threat." She might be able to find a way to forgive him, but not them, not the others. She would never believe they would accept her, and after what they'd done, she wouldn't accept them. She needed to bide her time, stay sweet and keep her temper under control until she wasn't so vulnerable.

  "Baby, I know we're hard to understand. All we've ever known is protecting one another. The way this was handled wasn't right, but it was the way we were trained. The way we survived."

  "My head hurts. Really, Reaper. It's getting worse." She didn't want to hear that his family would accept her and be loyal to her. She knew better even if he didn't. They had a bond that was unbreakable and she understood it. She did. They'd grown up together, suffered together, knew one another's worst secrets, of course they would be loyal to one another. It was an exclusive club and no one else would ever be truly welcomed.

  "I know your head aches, baby. I've texted Steele. He'll be here shortly with the pain pills. You can go back to sleep after you eat something. You can't take that shit on an empty stomach."

  "What time is it?"

  "Around ten in the morning. Alena texted she was making breakfast for us. Do you need to go to the bathroom?"

  "Desperately." She wasn't certain she could face the light that would be outside in the hall. Her head felt as if someone had taken a baseball bat to her, but to her insides. Or sliced her up so there were pieces missing, protective covering that had been stripped away by a sharp blade.

  Reaper shifted her immediately and slid out from under the sheet, reaching for her. She loved being in his arms. He was extremely strong and gave her the illusion of protection. She knew that was what it was--pure illusion.

  "Do you remember Lana coming by last night? Or were you too sleepy?"

  He pulled open the door and the light hit her. It pierced her skull like a missile. She cried out, turned her head to bury it against his chest, her eyes squeezed shut as tightly as possible.

  "Do you?" he persisted.

  She didn't want to remember Lana or her voice. That sadness. The regret. She knew it was genuine. Lana saying she liked her. That she should have stood up for her more. She'd said Reaper had and she should have backed him. Anya knew she needed to hold on to the fact that those she'd thought were her friends had turned on her. Reaper hadn't helped her. He hadn't stood in front of her and protected her. He'd chosen Czar and Blythe, not her.

  Light bounced off the pale-colored walls in the bathroom, putting spots before her eyes. He set her on her feet, and she clutched at the sink to keep from falling. "I have to be alone in here, Reaper. I can't do the things I have to do if you're in here with me."

  "I'll be in here if you fall, Anya," he warned. "Don't lock the door."

  She knew it was a waste of time, so why would she bother? He reluctantly went out and she was able to breathe deeply. She hadn't realized she'd been breathing shallowly trying to keep him out of her lungs, out of her bloodstream.

  After taking caring of business, she stared at herself in the mirror. She looked worse than she'd first suspected. Far worse. There were dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was wild. She had thick hair and it tended to get bigger as the day progressed, which meant, going through the night, it had increased to gargantuan proportions. Her brush sat on the counter, but she couldn't find the necessary energy to use it.

  She stood at the sink staring at herself in the mirror, wondering how she had fallen so hard so fast. How she was going to live through leaving her dream behind. She'd fought all her life to pull herself out of the gutters, but life kept knocking her down, trying to tell her she couldn't leave the streets, she belonged there. She was the trash others threw away.

  "Anya?" Reaper pushed the door open. "What the hell?" He was across the room, sweeping her into his arms. "Baby. You're crying."

  Was she? She hadn't known, only that her image looked blurry in the mirror, but she really couldn't see herself anymore. The reality of her had blurred and she thought that was the reason. She didn't answer him. She just turned her face against the heavy muscles of his chest and let herself cry.

  "Reaper, get her in bed."
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  Steele's voice penetrated the echo of her sobs. She clutched Reaper's neck tighter. The way these people were about nudity drove her nuts. Reaper didn't break stride, but took her back into the darkness of her bedroom. Dropping one knee to the bed, he put her in it. She caught the sheet and drew it up quickly.

  "Sit up, baby. Just for a minute. You need to take these pills. They'll help the pain in your head. Remember last night? They took the pain away."

  She took them without protest, her eyes downcast, but she could still see Steele standing in the doorway and knew he was watching her. She wanted to put the covers over her head. She remembered looking at him the night before. Looking at each of them, hoping to find some sympathy. Their faces had been as blank as Reaper's, with maybe the exception of Lana's.

  "Reaper. We've got a meeting in an hour."

  "Meet without me. I'm staying with Anya."

  That made her heart beat faster. Hope moved through her, and she squashed it ruthlessly down. Why did women accept men back when the men that hurt them tossed a bone to them? Men broke hearts, betrayed women, did horrible things, but one nice gesture and women were ready to forgive. To hope that one little statement meant Reaper cared for her--that she meant something to him after all. Maybe she did, but it hadn't been enough. There was no fighting his club for him.

  "This is important."

  "I'm aware we have to plan getting Hammer's woman back. You and Czar do the planning. When I have to go, I will, but right now, my priority is Anya."

  "So is ours, Reaper," Steele said. "We have a situation."

  Anya's heart jumped in her chest. Steele was talking about her. She was the situation. The meeting was about her. Her fingers found the hem of the sheet and she pulled it inch by inch into her palm to make a tight fist. Terror swept through her. She couldn't go through that interrogation again. Now she wanted Reaper gone so she could make her escape.

  "Am I a prisoner?" She had to know.

  Reaper spun around. "Of course not." He looked genuinely shocked.

  "Then I want to go. Right now. Where are my clothes?"

  Reaper exchanged a look with Steele. "Baby, settle down. You're in no condition to leave and you have nowhere to go. Lana and Blythe are working over at the house so I can take you there as soon as your headache is gone."