Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC #5)(26)

I grinned. “Some people can handle these shows. Some, like the burly biker in front of me, get too emotionally invested. I’m saving you now by cutting you off, or else you’ll be here till six a.m. binge-watching and wondering why life could be so cruel to botch Michelle’s nose job, trust me.”

He stared at me. “Michelle gets a nose job? Why?”

I laughed and shook my head. “So can’t handle it.” My gaze flickered to the TV. “Much safer,” I said, nodding to the explosions and car chases of some action flick.

He pouted for a while, and it was hilarious. I realized, after five minutes of being amused by his sulk, that I hadn’t thought about a fix. In five whole minutes. Of course, as soon as I thought of it, that was all I could think about. I scratched my arm absently.

Lucky’s bald head turned to me. “Can I ask you a question, firefly?”

“As long as it’s not pertaining to Michelle and her plastic surgeries,” I deadpanned.

His eyes twinkled but his face was serious. “Why?”

I tilted my head. “Why what?”

“Why the stripping? I know you’re good at it—f*ck, are you good at it—but you’re better than that.”

His words were sobering and I realized the little fantasyland I’d been in, watching TV with him, like normalcy was something I could clutch. I stiffened. “You don’t know me well enough to know what I’m better than.”

He regarded me. “I think I do,” he protested softly. “I’m not judgin’. We do whatever we need to just to stay breathin’, to make it through this f*cked-up thing called life.”

For a split second, I swore I saw something behind his eyes. Something dark, blacker than midnight. Something that rivaled my dark. But then it was gone, leaving me wondering if it was a trick of the light.

I retracted my claws. “I did it because it was the logical choice,” I said, sighing. “I had a shitty childhood. I’m sure people had it worse, somewhere, but I didn’t think so at the time. So I promised myself that I’d be better than what I’d been forced to be.”

I swallowed the ash in my throat and the memories threatening the corner of my mind. I looked into his hazel eyes; they anchored me to the moment, prevented me from getting swept away in those memories. “I’m smart.” I shrugged. “Nothing special, but I read a lot and it sticks, what I read. I went to shitty high schools but got good grades. And good schools like to even out their stats by sponsoring some hood rat to come and lift them from obscurity. It makes for good publicity and helps them push away the belief that fancy colleges are for the elite, white, upper-middle class.” I sucked in a breath. “I had hope at first. I did well, made friends, met Lily. Almost forgot where I came from.” I paused. “And then I remembered. Figured out what I was meant to be. Where I belonged. And it wasn’t on a college campus, and it certainly wasn’t in f*cking medical school. No big, sad, tragic story. Just the truth. Just reality.”

Lucky stared at me, never looking away for a second. “You’re wrong,” he said finally. “That is sad. Fuckin’ tragic. That that’s what you think. Jesus, Shakespeare could’ve written a play about that shit.” He moved forward to cup my cheeks gently. “That the world could not only give you a shit hand, but think you, someone like you, deserves it?” He shook his head. “Fuckin’ tragedy.”

Then he leaned in to place a gentle kiss on my head before yanking me into the crook of his shoulder, circling his arms around me.

I was going to protest, try to escape his arms, but then I didn’t. I was tired of fighting myself, so I decided to surrender to him. At least for the night. The morning would bring the light of day and hopefully I would have found enough strength in my slumber to fight him off.





Chapter Six





“There’s no drug on Earth that can make life meaningful.”

-Sarah Kane



I don’t need a fix. I don’t need a fix.

That was my mantra, my f*cking prayer. Playing on repeat while sweat trickled done the corner of my forehead and I struggled to keep my body from shaking

“Do you take Asher Breslin to be your lawful wedded husband?”

Yeah. I was thinking about shooting up while standing beside my best friend in a beautiful dress her mother bought her before she died. Craving oblivion while my sister finally got her happy ever after.

“I do.”

I don’t need a fix.

I would say I was going to hell, but I was already f*cking there. Trapped in my own body, suffering and mentally flagellating myself for being so f*cking self-deprecating on the best day of Lily’s life. I had my own little Hades inside my skull.

I squeezed my hands around the bouquet of flowers, taunting me with their beauty when all I wanted was filth in my hands to shoot into my veins.

“You may kiss the bride.”

For one second, beautiful clarity, the thing I’d taken for granted before, settled over me. I was freed from the clutches of the monster that had its grip on my soul to watch Asher grasp Lily and lay a hot and heavy one on her that was so not a chaste kiss. I found it in myself to grin. A real one. Happiness shined through the cracks of my damaged soul because if there was one thing I loved more than heroin, it was Lily. My kind and loving best friend.