Authors: Amber Morgan
"I'm fine—" Mia started
before Rattler cut in.
"I'll take you. Don't argue
with me, Mia. You could have a concussion or broken ribs or any shit. You're
going."
Mia stared up at Rattler, looking
like she was determined to argue. Then a spasm of pain passed through her,
leaving her pale and shaking. "Yeah, okay. Thanks, Rattler."
After Rattler's bad attitude with
her last night, Beth wouldn't have believed the solicitous way he ushered Mia
from the room if she hadn't seen it. He treated her like she was made of glass,
holding the door for her, one hand protectively placed on her shoulder. Mia
paused in the doorway, looking back at Tanner.
"Don't do anything you'll
regret," she said.
Tanner's eyes flashed. "I
never have."
Once Rattler and Mia were gone,
Wolf clapped Tanner on the shoulder. "You know these motherfuckers won't
stop, right?"
"I know." Tanner pulled
Beth so hard against his
side,
she let out an
involuntary squeak. "So like you said, we fight smart.
For
Beth and Mia.
They're not getting away with this shit.
"So what's the plan?" the
blond asked, looking grimly pleased at the prospect of a fight.
"Norse, you take Beth back to
the mill," Tanner said, giving Beth a brief glance full of reluctance.
"Don't tell Nash about this, okay. Just do me a solid on this one and keep
it low key. He doesn't need to know."
Norse frowned. "What, you're
leaving me babysitting while you two go start a fight?"
"Tanner," Beth started.
She wanted to tell him it wasn't worth it, terrified he'd get himself hurt—or
worse. He silenced her with a quick, rough kiss.
"You're not going to spend
your life running away, Beth. I won't let you."
"This is adorable," Wolf
said, "but we're wasting time."
"Right.
Norse?"
The big guy sighed and held his
hand out to Beth. "C'mon, kid.
Looks like we're missing
the fun."
She took his hand reluctantly,
unable to take her eyes off Tanner. He stared past her, face shadowed, body
thrumming with energy. "What are you going to do?" she asked him,
almost scared to hear the answer.
"Nothing I'll regret," he
said.
Chapter Ten
To Beth's surprise, Norse bundled
her into a truck instead of on the back of a bike. "Aren't you an MC member?"
she asked him.
"Yeah, but my ride's back at
the mill. Sometimes you want four wheels instead of two." He shrugged, his
blond mane rippling with the movement.
"Lucky for
you."
He turned the radio on and sped away from the diner as
head-splitting metal music filled the truck's cab.
Beth resisted the urge to cover her
ears and watched the diner disappear in the rearview mirror. Was Tanner going
to go after Abram? She was certain he wasn't going to the police. The idea had
never even occurred to her until Mia said it. Why would the police help? She
remembered them coming to the Church several years ago, asking a lot of
questions and then disappearing again. Abram had only said that God looked
after His children when anyone asked what the police had wanted.
If the police hadn't found anything
bad or wrong in the Church then, why would they believe Beth now? She had no
reason to think they would.
"Norse?" she asked,
fighting to make herself heard over the radio. "Why doesn't Tanner trust
the police? Why was he in prison?"
Norse glanced at her, surprise in
his hazel eyes. "He didn't tell you already? I probably shouldn't
then."
"He was going to. He said he
wasn't ashamed of it. It's something to do with his sister, isn't it?" she
guessed.
Norse grunted.
"Yeah.
His twin sister, Melissa.
Their parents checked out on
them pretty early in life. Tanner's always been looking after Melissa, but
..." He shrugged. "MC life, even if your club is on the straight and
narrow, you get mixed up with shady guys. Melissa fell in with the enforcer
from another local MC, real bad guy. Ran drugs, quick with his fists. She got
pretty hooked—on him and his product." Norse shook his head. "Tanner
tried to break '
em
up, but Melissa's as boneheaded as
he is. She was in love, she needed this guy, Tanner didn't understand, Tanner
was wrecking her life." He whined the words, rolling his eyes and making
Beth thought he might have heard some of the litany in person.
"So one night we're having
this big party at the mill. Everyone's feeling good, the booze is flowing, the
pot's sweet, the girls are ... there," he said, obviously changing his
mind about what he was going to say. "And Melissa comes in. And she's a
fucking mess. Her guy beat her, and I mean he
beat
her. I never saw a
woman in that
kinda
state. He could have killed her.
And Tanner ..."
Beth shuddered, full of pity for
Melissa. "Tanner went after her boyfriend?"
Norse nodded. "None of us knew
about it until he got busted. Then it hit the papers and he was everywhere.
This guy ... Tanner fucked him up. I mean, we all knew Tanner was good with his
fists, you never bet against Tanner in a fight, but this was something
else."
"He didn't ... He didn't kill
him, though?" Beth asked.
"No. He gave it a damn good
try, though. The guy's probably still pissing blood and eating his meals through
a straw. Tanner was lucky—when the judge heard what went down with his sister,
the other guy got put away for assault right alongside Tanner, and the judge
went lenient on Tanner.
Called it a 'misguided but understandable
reaction.'"
Norse snorted. "He got two years.
Been out six months.
The other guy's still locked up, thank
fuck."
Beth digested that silently. She
thought of the man who'd been protecting her from the second they met, the man
who'd taken her to such wild pleasure not an hour earlier. She tried to imagine
that man engaged in such brutal violence. It wasn't that hard, she found.
Tanner had knocked out Nathaniel yesterday without hesitation when he didn't
know Beth at all. What would he do for someone he loved?
It should bother her. It should
scare her. It was the kind of eye-for-an-eye justice Abram always preached, and
she hated that. But when she searched herself for traces of fear, there was
none, not where Tanner was concerned. He'd told her he was no white knight, and
she believed that, having heard Norse's story. And it didn't matter, she
realized. Everything she'd been taught was good and noble in her life had
turned out to be rotten. At least what Tanner had done, he'd done out of love
and loyalty. And he'd paid the price. Abram had never had to atone for any sin
he'd committed. He made other people suffer instead.
Anger coiled in her like one of
Abram's snakes.
Mia, poor Mia.
She'd been nothing but
kind to Beth and she'd been punished for it. Would Abram turn on Beth's own
family? How could she not have thought of that before? Her mother, her sisters
... They were all at his mercy. Icy terror chilled her anger.
"You okay? You
gonna
puke?" Norse asked her.
She jumped and shook her head.
"I'm fine." Her voice came out in a whisper. She couldn't tell Norse
what was running through her head. She couldn't endanger anyone else. She sank
down in her seat, letting the awful roar of music drown out her dark thoughts.
****
The mill felt deserted when they
got back. No bikes out front, no sign of life inside. Beth's skin prickled.
"Where is everyone?" she asked Norse.
He shrugged. "We don't live
here. Well, Judge and Roxy do, but the rest of us come and go." He hopped
out of the truck, light on his feet for such a big man. "You
gonna
be okay here alone?"
He was just going to leave her?
Beth bit her lip and nodded, trying to mask her anxiety. "Sure."
He shot her a dubious look.
"I'll stay if you want me to," he said. "I'm not an
asshole."
"I didn't think you were. But
you don't need to babysit me." She smiled sweetly and falsely.
"Please don't let me interfere with your plans."
Norse didn’t even pretend not to be
relieved. “I’ll let you in,” he said, fishing a clanking set of keys from his
jeans. “Just make yourself at home. Roxy or some of the girls will probably be
around.”
He was fumbling with the keys at
the door, swearing under his breath, when the mill door flew open, slamming
into him. Norse staggered back a few steps. Beth shouted a warning, but not before
the man behind the door darted out and slammed a heavy wrench straight into
Norse’s head. He didn’t stagger this time. He crashed like a felled tree, out
cold in the muddy gravel.
Beth spared a second to stare at
his attacker, Peter, another of Abram’s sons. Peter hefted the wrench in his
hands and fixed his eyes on Beth. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
She didn’t believe him. She turned
and ran. He yelled her name and she heard his boots crunching on the gravel as
he came after her. Adrenaline and panic flooded her, pushing her faster. She
had no idea where she’d run to. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was moving,
staying ahead of Peter. But she could already tell he was closing the gap, with
his ragged shouts getting louder and closer. She glanced back to see him close
enough to grab at her. She veered to the right, away from his clawing hand, and
lost her footing.
She skidded in the mud, flailing
her arms to keep herself upright. Peter snatched at her shirt sleeve, yanking
her over, and she landed hard on her knees. Bolts of pain shot through her. He
seized her by the hair. “I really don’t want to hurt you, Bethany,” he said,
sounding almost apologetic. “But you have to come home.”
She raked her nails across his
hand, desperate to hurt him even if he wouldn’t let go. “No!”
“Bethany, think of your family.
Your honor, your duty.”
Peter pulled her to her feet,
leveling the wrench at her face. The threat of the weapon was a sharp contrast
to his gentle, almost pleading tone. “Father doesn’t want to punish you.”
Beth trembled, fighting back tears.
“But I’m sure God has told him I must be punished anyway, right?”
Peter didn’t answer. He clasped her
wrist, squeezing hard enough that she flinched. “Think of your family,” he said
again. It sounded like a threat this time.
Beth wilted. “Has he hurt them?”
“Not yet.”
His words were a sting in her
heart. “Damn you.”
“The Church isn’t your enemy,
Bethany. My father isn’t your enemy.” He began to march her toward a battered
brown pick-up truck parked at the side of the road. “This world, the people out
here, they’re the ones you should be running from.”
Beth spared a glance back at Norse.
He hadn’t moved and she realized with horror that Peter could well have killed
him. “Nobody here has hurt me. Nobody’s even tried.”
“Then be grateful I found you
before someone could,” Peter replied, implacable.
Hatred made Beth want to fight, but
fear for her family kept her docile. She let him shove her into the truck and
sat silently as he drove away from the mill, her heart in tatters. Without even
laying a finger on her, Abram had broken her.
Chapter Eleven
Rage pounded through Tanner. Mia’s
swollen, bloody face swam in his head, blurring with his sister’s. All he could
think about was Beth and making sure that never happened to her. When he found
these motherfuckers …
Out in the diner’s parking lot, he
watched Rattler speed off with Mia clinging to him for dear life. His blood
burned with the need for retribution and he wanted nothing more than to hunt
down the bastards who hurt Mia and threatened Beth and kill them. Tear them
apart. Wolf’s words—that they needed to be smart—rang in his head, but he
didn’t want to be smart. He wanted to be savage and brutal and he wanted to
crush anyone who thought they could take Beth from him.
The anger crashed out of him as he
slammed his fist into the wall with a roar. The bricks sliced his knuckles
open, spilling blood. He barely noticed. The sting of pain energized him.
He straddled his Harley and was
about to fire it up when Wolf stepped in front of him, gripping the handlebars
and leaning in to glower at him. “Do you even know where you’re going, man?”
“Roughly.”
He’d start out past Heatherton Farm. The
Church’s commune shouldn’t be that hard to find. And then he’d wipe it off the
fucking map with his bare hands.
“Then I’m coming with you.” Wolf
went for his own bike, a light, fast Ducati that bore the scars and scuffs of
countless falls and crashes. Wolf was a reckless rider.
“I don’t need holding back, Wolf,”
Tanner warned him.
Wolf flashed his cocky, easy grin.
“Hell, brother. I’m
gonna
help you fuck these crazy
bastards up.” His face darkened. “You think you’re the only one mad here? Mia’s
practically
family
to this MC.”
Tanner nodded, revving his engine
and channeling his rage down to a single focus. Find Abram. Cut off the head of
the serpent.
****
Norse came round feeling groggy,
pissed off, and embarrassed. It took him a second to remember why though. By
then he realized someone was bending over him, and his first instinct was to
swing his fist.
Nash caught it, blocking his clumsy
blow with bored ease. “What the fuck are you doing down there, man?”
Norse growled and sat up, rubbing
his head. A tender lump swelled under his hair and he suppressed the urge to
wince as he prodded it. “Some asshole jumped me.”
Nash’s face darkened. “What
happened?” he asked as he pulled Norse to his feet.
“I was bringing Tanner’s chick back
here and this guy just came out swinging. I don’t know, I mean …” Norse tried
to gather his thoughts, still scattered from the blow to the head. He avoided
Nash’s glare. The
Prez
didn’t think Norse was the
sharpest tool in the box as it was. “He knocked me out.” Norse shrugged. “I
guess he snatched the chick.”
“Why the hell are you ferrying
Tanner’s girl around? Where’s he gone?”
“
Him
and
Wolf took off …” Norse remembered too late he’d promised not to say anything to
Nash. “Shit.”
Nash still had hold of Norse’s
hand. He squeezed hard now, crushing Norse’s fingers. Norse wasn’t a small man.
Nash made him feel small—small and weak. “What have they done?”
Norse yanked his aching hand free
of Nash’s iron grip. “Don’t fucking pull that shit with me, Nash,” he warned,
temper flaring. Nobody belittled him. Nash could think whatever he liked about
Norse—and Norse knew most of it wasn’t good—but he wasn’t going to put up with
bullshit displays of power. He’d taken enough of that in his life.
“Don’t cover for them, Finn,” Nash
said. Quiet, remorseless anger built in the
Prez
.
Norse could almost smell it. Nash using your real name was always a bad sign.
“If Tanner’s doing something stupid, I want to know.”
“Some guys attacked Mia. I guess
the guy who jumped me was with them. They were after Tanner’s chick.” Norse
folded his big arms across his chest, meeting Nash’s gaze evenly. “Tanner and
Wolf went after them and Rattler’s taking care of Mia. That’s it.”
“Motherfucker.”
Nash pounded his fist into his palm. “I knew
he was
gonna
lose his head over her.” He stormed into
the mill, yelling for Judge. Wanting to shake off the scolded child feeling
Nash had given him, Norse followed.
“You should have seen Mia,” Norse
told Nash as they entered the bar. “They fucked her up—nobody was
gonna
let that go.”
Nash ignored him. He headed for the
bar, where Roxy sat polishing glasses. Judge propped up the bar, watching his
old lady like polishing glasses was the sexiest fucking thing a woman could do.
“We’ve got a problem,” Nash told his vice president.
Judge glanced from Nash to Norse
and back again. “Tanner?”
Nash grabbed Norse by the collar of
his leather vest and almost threw him toward Judge. “Tell us everything,” he
ordered. “When, where, how, every last fucking
detail
.”
“You
wanna
stop ordering me about like some fucking dog?” Norse flattened his palms
against the bar, staring down at the grain of the smooth wood. If he looked at
Nash, he had a bad feeling his temper would snap and he’d go for him.
“If Tanner wants to start a fight over some pussy, so what?
He won’t be the first guy and he sure as hell won’t be the last. Let him bang
some heads together. Kid needs to let off some steam.”
Nash grabbed a handful of Norse’s
long hair and yanked, forcing Norse to bow backwards. His spine screamed in
pain, and then Nash released him and Norse found himself on his ass again.
Before he could get back to his feet, Nash leaned over him, his tall frame
pinning Norse down without ever even touching him. The
Prez’s
face was stone cold, but his eyes burned with rage.
“You don’t like how I run this MC,
Norse, you can leave. Take off your patch and walk the fuck away. But if you
want to stay, don’t you ever forget that I
do
run it and I don’t take orders from anyone else. I’ve got reasons for every
single decision I make, and when it comes to Tanner and this girl, my decision
is that you are going to tell me everything that happened.
Now.
Or I’ll take your patch myself. Got it?”
All Norse’s life, he’d carried the
rep of being brawn, not brains. Family, teachers, friends, and the MC … they
all thought he was just muscle, good with his fists, good for a drink and a
little coke, but not much else. Not Norse. Not Finn
Olvirsson
.
And he could take that shit from his folks—their opinions had mattered to him
for years.
But from his brothers at the MC?
It hurt.
It needled that Nash could throw him around like trash, talk to him like a
child, and just expect Norse to do as he was told.
He hauled himself to his feet and
shrugged off his vest, slinging it at Nash. “I told you what happened. You
don’t like it, that’s your problem, not mine. Take the patch. I joined an MC,
not a daycare center.”
“Norse,” Judge said, loading the
single word with warning.
“Don’t,” Norse said, spinning to
face him. Judge looked annoying calm, unaffected by either Norse or Nash’s
bursts of temper. But that was Judge, wasn’t it? Cool, calm, and motherfucking
collected. Like some fucking saint. “You both think you’re such big fucking
dogs, don’t you? Laying down the law,
saying don’t
do
this, don’t fuck that girl, don’t start that fight. Well I’m done. Tanner and
Wolf broke your rules, Nash. They’re going after the assholes
who
hurt Mia, they’re going to start a really big fucking
fight and I say good luck to them.”
Nash looked ready to explode. Judge
clapped a restraining arm on his shoulder. “Let him go, Nash,” he said. “We’ll
deal with it later.” Judge nodded sharply at Norse. “Go walk it off. Think
about this.”
“I’m done thinking.” Norse gave his
cut one last glance. The Wild Blood patch, a wolf howling at the full moon,
stood out starkly against the black leather. He sighed explosively, shook his
head and walked out of the bar. This wasn’t the only MC in the world and he was
damn sure he could have more fucking fun at another.
****
“Oh my God.”
Roxy set down the glass she’d been clutching,
staring at the door Norse had stormed out of. “Did he just quit?” She couldn’t
quite believe it. Norse had a temper, sure, but that was … a tantrum.
“Let him go,” Nash said, dismissing
Norse with a wave of his hand. “We need to find Tanner and Wolf first. Norse
said some punk snatched Beth—it’s
gotta
be a member
of her cult.”
“So they’ve gone to rescue her?”
Roxy asked. Her heart stung for the poor girl and despite her shock at Norse’s
outburst, she couldn’t help feel he was right on this one—Nash shouldn’t get
between Tanner and his target.
Nash shook his head. “Sounds like
she was taken from here, after Tanner and Wolf set off.” He looked to his vice
president. “This is a
clusterfuck
waiting to happen.
You ready to go clean up?”
Roxy chewed her lip, watching her
old man. Judge stroked his beard and grinned. “You know me, boss. Always ready
for action.”
“You guys
be
careful,” Roxy said, knowing it was pointless.
Judge kissed her, a rough, fast
kiss that made her knees knock even after all their years together. “You know
me, honey.
Always careful.”
“Yeah, I do know you, both of you,”
she said. “That’s the problem.”
****
Out past the abandoned ruins of
Heatherton Farm, the road got rougher and narrower, and the fields full of
golden corn turned to empty beds of mud and grit. Storm clouds bloomed like
bruises overhead and billboards plastered with doom-filled Bible verses popped
up along the roadside.
Doom has come upon
you, upon you who dwell in the land. And they will be tormented day and night
forever and ever. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Tanner had never been one for
religion, but the billboards were creepy as fuck. There was no doubt they were
in Church territory now. Up ahead, he could see clusters of low buildings
appearing.
He killed his speed as they got
closer to the village, taking in the run-down buildings and almost visible
sense of gloom hanging over the place. The only signs of life were the
vegetable patches in every garden, which looked fresh, green, and thriving.
When he cut his bike’s engine, he heard chickens clucking softly and the
distant lowing of cows. He guessed a place like this had to be as
self-sufficient as possible—the better to keep outsiders away. What he couldn’t
see or hear was people, and that was just plain creepy. The silence and
emptiness of the village was oppressive.
He left his bike leaning against a
rotting wooden fence and waited for Wolf to join him. The mindless rage that
drove him here still burned away in his blood, but the ride had cleared his
head a little. It was tempting as hell to just rip through the town on his
bike, stir up some trouble, rattle some cages and tear off again. But that
wouldn’t help Beth or avenge Mia. If anything, it could make things much worse.
He needed Abram and the whole fucking cult to know that his woman was
off-limits. That any woman Wild Blood cared for was off-limits. And that
justice for hurting them would come fast and hard. He needed to send a message.
“What’s the plan?” Wolf asked,
coming to his side.
Tanner scanned the streets, looking
for a church or chapel. It seemed the obvious place to start. “Let’s find the
bastard in charge and see if we can change his views on a few things.”
“
Shoulda
brought a baseball bat.”
Wolf mimed swinging one. “Nothing gets a man’s
attention like one of those aiming for his balls.”
Tanner smirked, amused despite
himself. “
You talking
from personal experience?”
“I broke a lot of knees back home.
A lot of knees and a lot of hearts.
Sometimes
one lead to the other.”
Wolf grinned, but a shadow passed over his face,
making him look older for a second.
Tanner didn’t know much about Wolf.
He’d been a prospect while Tanner was in prison, and newly patched in when he
came out. He came from Louisiana, he liked to fuck, he liked to fight, and that
was it. Another time, when Beth was safe, Tanner would ask him what he left
behind to join Wild Blood, what shadows hung over him. But it wasn’t important
right now.
The church stuck out like a nun in
a whorehouse. Smack in the center of the village, it was a gleaming white
wooden building, looking fresh and vibrant among the dust and drear of the
other buildings. Low music swelled inside, hinting at where all the people
might be.
“Think they’ll swarm us?” Wolf
asked, clearly thinking the same thing.
“You worried about taking on a
bunch of church-goers?”
Wolf shrugged. “Let’s hope they
don’t practice human sacrifice, is all.”