Out of the Ashes
Authors: Anne Malcom
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thriller & Suspense, #Romance, #Women's Adventure, #Women's Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Contemporary Fiction
Anne Malcom
Out of the Ashes
The Sons of Templar MC #3
By Anne Malcom
Copyright 2016 Anne Malcom
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblence to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.
WARNING:
This MC novel contains crude language, sex scenes, and graphic violence. Is not suitable for readers under the age of 18. If any of the above offends you, please do not read any further. This is a complete work of fiction and is not a true representation of a motorcycle club. It is for entertainment purposes only. I hope you enjoy.
Edited by: Mary Yakovets
Book design by
Swish Design & Editing
Cover design by L.J. Anderson at
Mayhem Cover Creations
Cover image Copyright 2016
Living a life in darkness causes the soul to char to ash. Battling demons by turning himself into a monster is the only way he can survive...the only way he can keep a grip on sanity. That grip is precarious at best, every day is a silent battle with demons that threaten to yank him into the truest form of darkness, the abyss he’ll never escape. Then it happens. Light shines through the cracks.
Happiness. Mia Spencer’s life is full of it. She has an amazing new job, friends, family, and the light of her life - her daughter Lexie. Running from the demons of the past, escaping a hell that she vowed Lexie would never know about, she worked through hardship and near poverty to create something she was proud of. Buried deep inside, underneath the swell of love she had for her only daughter, were the fractured pieces of her. Pieces that were smashed and battered when she was young and vulnerable.
Then she meets Bull, who seems to hate her on sight. He screams danger, from his huge physique, to his beautiful ink, to the motorcycle club he belongs to. He is silent, his glares threaten to burn her into flames, yet she finds herself falling for him. Finds this broken man slowly fixing the pieces she thought would stay shattered forever.
To my wonderful readers, I hope you all find your very own Happy Ever After. If Bull can, you can.
I just want to say a huge thank you for reading my book, it’s very surreal to call myself an author and share my characters with you. If you enjoyed
Out of the Ashes
please leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon. Your review will introduce other people to Mia and Bull and all of the people connected to the Sons of Templar.
You can learn more about what I’m working on, or currently reading, check out my website.
“You don’t let me out of here, I’m going to fucking kill you,” Bull uttered quietly. A calm had settled over him. A calm that starkly juxtaposed the unbridled fury he had been unable to control in the last twenty-four hours. The fury that was unleashed when they got word Laurie had been taken. In broad daylight. Twenty-four hours. How long they’d had her. How long the innocent, sweet, fuckin’ ray of sunshine had been poisoned by darkness.
He regarded his best friend with a cool stare. He was never out of control. Never betrayed emotion. Never had bitches apart from club girls, which didn’t count since there was nothing below the surface. Bull hadn’t realized how empty that shit was until he found Laurie. Till he found depth. Something else to live for, despite the club. Something else to die for.
“You’re in here for your own good. Good of the club. For Laurie.” Cade paused as Bull’s entire frame tightened at the mention of her name. “You’re no good to her walking round smashing shit and killing people out of control,” he said quietly.
Bull walked up to him, the steps reverberating in the room they had locked him in. “Look at me, brother,” he said quietly. “I look out of control to you?”
Cade stared at him.
“That’s
my woman
out there. You don’t get it, ‘cause you don’t got that shit. But you keep me in here one second longer I’ll
never
fuckin’ forgive that shit,” he promised.
Cade sighed, stepping aside. Before Bull could move his best friend slapped him on the shoulder. “With you, brother,” he uttered quietly.
Bull nodded slightly, the only response he gave. He was too busy walking out the door into the bright light of day. Too eager to get out of the fuckin’ room and get to finding her. Then, like serendipity, something happened to cast a shadow over that day and every single one after it. A van, screeching to a stop outside the gates. Bull’s heart stopped as he watched a small body be thrown out of it before it sped away, dust flying as it did so. He didn’t register the yelling, the flurry of activity. He sprinted toward that small form, everything in him turning to ice. He had a hope, a desperate hope that the cold forbidding feeling that settled in him at the sight of that prone form was wrong. But as he reached the gate, flung the prospect kneeling on the ground aside, that hope was extinguished. In fact, everything in him was extinguished, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of his fucking chest.
In front of him was his beautiful girl. The only way he could recognize her was the golden locks matted and corrupted with dried blood. Everything else was foreign. The face, beaten beyond recognition. The fresh tattoo covering half her cheek. The ripped clothes barely covering her battered body. The body that he had held in his arms not two days ago. The body that held every inch of him. Kneeling down, gentle as anything, he gathered her into his arms. He pressed her to his chest.
“No, baby,” he choked out, unable to swallow the horror that felt like it was killing him. He pressed his lips to her head. He wished, no, fucking
prayed
for whatever was out there to save her. To somehow repair the broken body. The broken mind that lay underneath it. Wipe away the horrors a gentle mind had endured. And if that wasn’t possible, if she was gone forever, to take him. Wherever it was that you went after. Take him as well so he could escape the pain and the weight of the guilt he felt. So she wouldn’t be alone. That
he
wouldn’t be alone.
But no mercy was granted to him. She faded away the next day, succumbing to the mindless brutality inflicted on a gentle soul.
She faded away; he endured. He didn’t follow her. He was engulfed, strangled, in darkness. Haunted by demons that embedded themselves into his mind and sentenced him to a life without light. Without sunshine.