Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC #5)(72)

Lily looked at Rosie. “I like it too. And it serves as a valuable study tool for my current subject.” She held up the textbook on psychology. “Plus, my husband is busy so he can’t ravish me. I’m exactly where I need to be.”

I looked between them, sighing. There was no convincing them when they were ganging up on me.

I rolled my eyes and sank beside Rosie. “Okay, serial killers it is.”

My tone may have been nonchalant but I was selfishly thankful for each woman’s presence, despite the fact I was disrupting their lives. I didn’t quite trust myself with solitude just yet.



“This is unacceptable,” I said, sitting up from my reclined position on the sofa.

Rosie kept her gaze on the TV. “If you’re talking about that dress with those shoes, I totally agree.”

We’d moved on from serial killers to real housewives. Not much of a change, though there were less severed limbs in this one.

“No, not that.” I glanced to the TV. “Okay, not just that. This.” I gestured down to my body. The oversized and stained tee I was wearing, the blanket I was clutching like a five-year-old held onto a safety blanket. I let it go and it fell to the floor. “Me hiding inside like a… coward,” I declared.

Lily sat up, her face hard. “You’re not a coward, Bex. You’re the strongest person I know,” she argued.

I gazed at her. “Because sitting here binge-watching TV shows and not changing my shirt for two days is brave?”

“Breathing is brave after what you went through, babe,” Rosie put in, her attention no longer on the TV.

“Yeah, well, life’s more than just breathing,” I said to both of them. “Let’s do something.”

Lily looked concerned. “What?”

I rolled my eyes. “Calm down, Lils. I’m not suggesting we go and score some hard drugs.”

She didn’t look amused at my joke, although Rosie grinned because she was insane.

I thought for a second. “I want to get a tattoo.”

“I’m in,” Rosie said immediately. She stood. “I’ll text my guy and put on my tattoo-getting outfit.” Then she left the room, presumably to put on her ‘tattoo-getting outfit.’

Insanity loved company.

Lily looked less keen. She chewed her lip. “Do you think this is the best idea?” she asked softly. “Making such a permanent decision when you’re so….”

“Such a f*cking mess?” I finished for her.

She leaned forward to squeeze my hand. “That’s not what I was going to say. When you’re still recovering.”

I looked at her. “I’m always gonna be recovering, babe. That’s my life now. I can wallow in it, or I can live in it.” I paused. “I need something permanent when everything else feels so temporary. When I feel so temporary.”

Her eyes flickered with understanding. “Okay, we’ll do it.”

I raised a brow. “We?”

She grinned. “You’re my best friend, my sister. You think I’d let you do anything alone?”



“Okay, when your husband kills me, can you tell him to keep away from the face? I want an open casket,” I spoke over the buzzing of the tattoo gun.

Lily scowled at me. “He’s not going to kill you.” Apart from the scowl, she looked relatively relaxed. Who would have thought little Lily wouldn’t even blink as a man injected ink into her skin.

I gazed down at the design. “Um, yes, I think he will. You’re his ‘delicate little flower.’ I’m leading you astray and marking your pretty virgin skin. He’s totally going to kill me.”

Lily regarded me. “If Asher’s going to kill you, then Lucky’s going to kill me.”

I stiffened. Actually froze.

“He’s not going to anything,” I replied, trying to stop my voice from shaking. “Because he’s not going to see this.” I glanced down at the fresh tattoo that was bright pink around the edges.

It was on the inside of my arm, covering my favorite vein. ‘Perfer et obdura, dolor hic tibi proderit olim.’ Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you. Underneath the sloping script was an intricate and beautifully lifelike skull. It had taken hours and four cans of Coke. For me, that is, not Lex, the artist. Winding, growing from the skull were dark roses. Not red but black, torn and frayed and almost dead.

Almost.

I looked up from the ink. “He’s not going to see it because he’s not going to see me.”

She frowned at me. “You can’t hide from him forever.”

“I can try.”





Chapter Seventeen





“The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls.”

-Edgar Allan Poe



Time is poison. Toxic. It doesn’t stop for anyone, unyielding, unchanging. Time was my enemy. It didn’t change the desperate need for a fix, didn’t lessen my cravings; if anything, it made them worse. It didn’t chase away the demons that no one could see, the ones that promised to be conquered with one little needle. It didn’t wash off the dirt on every part of me. Amongst all of this, time didn’t make me forget him either. My traitorous mind would not even give me that. Wouldn’t let me kid myself into thinking I wanted to see him, that I needed to see him.