Burned (Devil's Blaze MC, #2)(62)

“Let it go,” I say at once, “and please don’t ever mention his name again.”

“You’ll wish you could get off that easy,” she grumbles. “I’ll be back in a minute. Throw me your keys.”

“I’d love to, but I can’t, don’t have them. Had to hot-wire the vehicle to get away. It’s unlocked, though.”

“Katie …”

“Don’t start, Bethie. It’s been a rough couple of days,” I tell her, then lay back on the bed.

Gabby, the smart cookie that she is, must recognize that Bethie has left, because she wakes up just a few minutes later. I pick her up, loving how she fills my arms with her precious weight. She smells like baby lotion and powders.

I place a kiss on the top of her head. “Hey there, beautiful. Mommy just went to load up the car. We’ll be on the road in no time and Aunt Katie will buy you some nuggies and french fries, and we’ll listen to mommy tell us how that’s not a nutritious meal and we’ll laugh at mean ol’ mommy.”

“Kayyyyyyyytie!” she cries merrily, all smiles and rainbows this morning. Gabby’s always been a happy baby. She starts wiggling, wanting down. I look at the floor of the room. She got some memory blocks in front of the kitchenette, which is really a mini-fridge, a hot plate, and a sad-looking coffee maker. I sit her down and start playing with her. Bethie knocks on the door a couple of minutes later.

“I’m gonna go let your momma in, short-stuff. Be right back.” I groan at the added pressure it puts on my leg to get up from the floor. “You should have just left it unlocked, Bethie,” I call out. “It was just a minute.”

I open the door and look one last time over my shoulder at Gabby because she cries out. It’s just because her tower of blocks fell over, but my nerves are shot.

“Hello, sweetness.”

My body freezes into place right where I’m standing when Torch’s voice hits me. I turn to him and the look on his face sends a shiver of fear through my system. His hair is tousled, his clothes wrinkled. His eyes are shining with anger. I’m scared, I can admit it, but there’s a part deep inside of me that’s glad to see him. He has on faded jeans that are so worn they’re more white than blue. He has on a blue t-shirt that has a silhouette of a cat on it and a man with a whip. Underneath, it reads “* Tamer”. Maybe the most alarming thing is that he has his club clothes on again. His Devil’s Blaze MC cut is staring at me and it makes my stomach turn.

I’d find something to say about that, if my brain wasn’t racing. Did Bethie see? Is she…

That unasked question is answered when I see her in the arms of a big tall biker with blonde hair and all muscles. He holds Beth close, making it unable for her to get to me. She looks terrified and there’s tears in her eyes.

Anger fires through me. I don’t have time to think about it though, because I’m roughly pushed out of the way as another biker moves into the hotel. He’s tall, his body covered in ink from his fingers and up his neck, the majority of them being skulls. He’s big—bigger than Torch, though roughly the same height. His jeans have frayed holes in the knees and around the hips are smaller ones. He’s wearing a Devil’s Blaze cut, too, with a black shirt under that. He’s got a piercing in his lip and a gage in his ear, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or the fact that his leather cut says Skull on it, to know this is the man Bethie is in love with. Jesus. When my sister, who is about as wholesome and good as they come, decides to taste a bit of the wild stuff, she doesn’t mess around.

He doesn’t spare me a word.

“Wait, what are you doing? You can’t—”

“I’m taking my daughter,” he growls, and I can hear Bethie crying in the background.

My heart is hammering in my chest and fear churns in my stomach. In all our time under lock and key at my grandfather’s and then on the run, I’ve never known such fear.

I’m scared to death.





She’s beautiful. Even when I stand here, worried about the confrontation coming up, mad as Hell at her and Skull, I still can’t deny that my woman is beautiful.

She’s also in pain. She’s limping more than she ever did in front of me. Right away, I realize it’s because she doesn’t bother hiding things from Beth. Even when I thought her guard was down with me, I was wrong. When she goes to chase after Skull, I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her back into me. Right away, she starts kicking against me, her hands going behind to my head to wrap her fingers in my hair, pulling. She’s wrestling like a wet mountain lion hanging on for dear life. Too f*cking bad my patience is gone.

“Cut that shit out, Katie. We got company coming and I need you, Beth, and Gabby out of here before they get here.”

“Like I believe you!” she cries out. “Let me go, you bastard! You used me! You lied to me!”

She’s screaming, and one of her backward kicks manages to graze my f*cking balls. I wince at the pain. I pull her around to face me, holding my hand around her neck and keeping her head still, even if the rest of her is fighting against me.

“You and I got shit to talk about, and we will, but right now Colin’s men are headed this way. That means my job is to get you, your sister, and niece somewhere safe. So stop acting like a f*cking baby and help me do that!”