Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC #5)(60)

Then he realized some things. He didn’t ‘do’ benders. Not anymore. Not since her.

Since he’d found his beautiful, wild, and f*cking damaged girl. One who had so many demons behind those green eyes he’d be fighting them the rest of his life.

She’d tried to fight one set of demons with a whole other monster. One who’d almost taken her off the face of the earth.

So he didn’t tie one on anymore. Didn’t abuse any substances apart from the f*cking intoxicating * she had him addicted to.

It was out of respect for her and because he didn’t f*ckin’ want to. He mostly partied and f*cked different women to escape his own shit, the darkness he spent every second of every day hiding.

He didn’t have to hide with her, and he didn’t want to escape with her. It was because of his own darkness that she was herself with him.

That’s where he recognized the second thing. She wasn’t there. Not because he couldn’t touch her but because he couldn’t smell her. And from his experience of sleeping with her, despite her insistence of giving them ‘boundaries,’ she’d clung to him in unconsciousness when her waking hours were spent pushing him away.

So he almost always woke up with his little spitfire attached to him and her scent imprinted on him.

The only thing he smelled was a harsh chemical. Something he recognized. He also recognized he couldn’t move his hand, and there was a f*ck of a lot of cotton in his mouth.

He fought against the heaviness of his limbs and managed to open his eyelids. The first thing he saw was a tube attached to his arm, and that’s when the memories came back.

Fucking Carlos in the club. He and his goons had Lily. Shot him. He’d remembered that. It hurt. A lot. He was sure he was a goner. You didn’t survive a bullet wound to the chest.

And when he’d lain there, the life seeping out of him, he’d been scared. Terrified. Not at meeting the reaper; that was something he’d expected ever since he’d patched into the Sons.

Everyone was living on borrowed time. Putting a patch on and a gun every morning just made it stolen time.

Someone was stealing it back.

That also didn’t scare him.

It was the f*ck’s words that echoed in his brain before the pain had exploded into his chest. It was the gloating smugness that had been behind those words that haunted him before Carlos tried to turn him into a ghost.

He’d been ordered to go to the strip club to get accounts or some shit. A prospect job, surely, but he’d go. Because he knew, and Cade knew, he’d take any f*ckin’ excuse to go there. Or to find some reason to burn the place to the f*ckin’ ground in order to stop Becky from taking her clothes off for money.

Yeah, she was good at it. Had a f*ckin’ talent for it, like she was born to it.

But she wasn’t. She was born for more. So much f*cking more. To conquer the goddamn world with her fire and beauty, and to bring him along for the ride.

She was born to be his. He knew that. He’d known it since he’d f*ckin’ met her. He just had to wait for her to realize it.

He’d been brainstorming ways to speed up that particular process—whipped cream featured heavily—when he ran into Lily. Then he ran into trouble. Big f*cking trouble. Trouble being Carlos and his f*ckin’ goons ambushing them in the deserted strip club in the middle of the f*ckin’ day.

Biggest of trouble being the last words Carlos had said before someone plugged him with a bullet.

“I’m afraid Rebecca won’t be coming to the phone right now.”

Then there was nothing but white-hot pain.

The memory was like an electric shock to his limbs. He tried to move but it was beyond a struggle, like someone had attached cement blocks to his arms and legs.

“Easy, brother,” a voice warned.

Lucky glared at his best friend and struggled against his hold, but he was weak. Apparently getting shot took it out of you. It was laughably easy for Asher to push him back to horizontal.

“Lily?” Lucky asked with concern, memories of the club coming back in a flash. Not just Becky in danger, but Lily.

Asher’s jaw hardened and Lucky’s form tightened. If anything happened to his best friend’s wife, it would haunt them both for the rest of their f*cking lives. Lucky would blame himself for the rest of his f*cking life.

“She’s good,” Asher reassured him.

He allowed himself to sink back into the lumpy bed.

“You get to her in time?” Lucky asked.

Something worked behind his brother’s eyes. “Not exactly,” he said, his voice thick.

Lucky sensed the heaviness in the air. It made him more than a little uneasy. “What happened? Obviously the big guy upstairs, or downstairs, has bigger and better things planned for me, hence me being awake and still stronger than you,” he teased. “What did I do? Drag my bloodied body to Carlos and snap his neck?” he asked hopefully.

Asher shook his head but didn’t smile.

Lucky was unnerved even more.

“Brother?” he probed.

Asher sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “After they shot you, they tied Lily up, set the place on fire,” he explained, his voice flat.

“Fuckers,” Lucky hissed.

Asher nodded. “Lily managed to get free. Dragged your lazy ass out of there before you could get barbequed.”