Warlord (Anathema Book 1) (19 page)

“Rose.” Keep’s
eyes dilated. He blinked hard, but the veil of whatever pleasure he pricked at
the end of a needle separated me from whatever comfort he offered. “We’re just worried
about you.”

“Bullshit.” I
pushed past both of them, though each step drove a shard of glass deeper into
my heel. “Where the hell were you, Tristan?  You were
worried
about me? 
Why weren’t you at my show?  Why didn’t you come support me?  Why couldn’t you
spend two freaking hours cheering on your sister without having to shoot up
first?”

Keep bristled. The
drugs tempted his rage, and I was grateful I slipped toward the stairs before
provoking him.

“I made a
mistake,” he said. “That okay with you?  You pawned a guitar. I had a bad night.”

“Every night is a
bad
night
anymore. At least I only pawned the guitar once!”

“Careful, Rose,”
Brew warned.

“Or what?” My
voice charred the word like I still carried the fire with me. Even Gold lost
his telltale smirk and busied himself behind the bar. “What?  You’ll put me
back in the burning building?  You’ll hand me back to Exorcist?  You certainly
won’t let me go back on stage.”

Brew’s profanity
echoed through Pixie. “That’s it, Rose. It’s all about the
music
.”

“Maybe it is.”

Keep punched the
bar. I doubted he felt the sting. “I’ll tell you where to shove that guitar.”

Brew took his
side. “You ever want to sing again, you change your goddamned attitude quick.”

“Because you two
are the perfect managers for my act.” I pointed to Keep. “You didn’t even come
to my show. And you!” I held Brew’s stare. “Keep can’t fight his own addiction,
but I knew you wouldn’t help me. You’ve never protected me before. Why start
now?”

 The brutal
honesty hit him better than any slap, but he didn’t understand anything I said.
And I wasn’t about to explain it. Not now.

I escaped the
tears until I slammed the door of the only damned room that offered me any
peace.

But Thorne’s
bedroom wasn’t a good place for me to hide.

And a terrible place
for me to feel safe.

I ripped off the
ruined dress. The stench of the night clung to my skin. Smoke. Fuel. Fear. I
hobbled to the bathroom. My foot bled over Thorne’s floor. It wasn’t the worst to
ever stain his room. Blood. Mud. Thorne wasn’t a gentle man. A little bruising
and dirt probably made him feel alive. I caught sight of his bed in the mirror
before I shut the bathroom door.

A man like Thorne
probably knew just how to recover after a night like this.

My stomach
fluttered, but it wasn’t injuries. I pulsed far lower, and that wasn’t
something I ever, ever thought I’d feel. Especially not now.

Especially not
for him.

I ducked into
the shower. The water instantly steamed, and I stood under the blistering
stream if only to ensure the heat settled all over my body didn’t linger in the
confusion between my legs.

I closed my eyes
and let the water wash everything from me. Usually I would sing in the shower. Hum.
Plan a set or drum a beat. The quiet padding of the shower scared me more than
the crackling fire. I forced the song from my burning throat.

I was no opera
singer, but nothing else felt hard enough to distract me from what happened. Mozart
wasn’t Joan Jett. My voice cracked before I sang even a full line. I didn’t
care.

The water turned
to slurry, but I preferred rinsing away the dirt to the never-ending pinkish
stain as I washed the matted blood from my hair and pulled slivers of glass
from my cuts. I worried about the gash in my thigh. The water only stung it. I
couldn’t clean the wound without my stomach swirling as badly as my head.

I clamored out
of the water as the bleeding didn’t slow. It needed stitches, but it wasn’t
like a Darnell to voluntarily head to the hospital. Cuts were stitched at home,
Mom had more than enough pain medications to treat most bumps, sprains, and
gashes, and, unless one of my brothers stopped breathing, Dad usually kicked
them in the ass and told them to be a man.

Of course, he
told me something different. Doctors asked too many questions. He didn’t want
me talking to anyone but him.

Especially if
somewhere hurt.

I shoved the towel
too hard against the cut, but the sting cleared the darkness from my thoughts. I
changed into a clean shirt and hopped onto the sink for a better view of the
injury. It was red and ugly, but the sink’s cool tile helped center my stomach
to the task. My hands shook as I removed the towel. A few bits of cotton fuzz
stuck to the cut’s ragged edges. My stomach wimped out.

The bathroom
door rattled with a hard knock. The nausea fled in fear of my anger.

“Go
away
!”
I didn’t care which brother attempted contact. They deserved nothing but
silence.

Thorne didn’t
acknowledge my tone. “How bad are you hurt?”

“Oh, sorry, I
thought...” My voice faded as I doubted he cared one way or another about the
display downstairs. “I’ll be fine.”

“There’s blood
on my floor.”

I winced. “Sorry,
I’ll...I’ll clean it up when I’m done.”

The doorknob
jerked. I yelped.

“I’m not
dressed!”

Thorne grunted. “You
think I haven’t seen a girl naked before?”

“You haven’t
seen
me
naked before.”

“Do you want my help
or not?”

I tucked the
shirt lower, but the pink of my cotton panties peeked between my legs. I
shifted the towel before the door lurched open and Thorne invaded the tiny
bathroom.

He didn’t wear a
shirt, and his chest glistened with rivulets of water still dripping from the dark
hair licking at his broad shoulders. I didn’t know what was more impressive—the
strength tensed beneath the aching muscles of his chest and abs, or the streaks
of raging ink wrapping his arms, shoulders, and sides.

Black. Fierce. The
same demon patched onto his cut bled through onto his back. The men in MC
weren’t subtle. Anathema possessed each and every inch of them. Their minds. Their
hearts. Their families. Their tempers. Even their flesh.

It should have
frightened me. The tattoos weren’t beautiful images, and he didn’t sculpt them
around his muscles. He scarred himself. Marked himself as someone more than a
man and every bit the demon of Anathema. His jeans hung low on his hips. The tattoos
disappeared under the denim.

I looked away
before I wondered what else he hid under the jeans.

“You’re
bleeding.”

Thorne stepped
too close to my bare legs. I panicked and countered.

“You’re wet.”

“I jumped into
Keep’s shower.” He reached for the towel. “Let me see.”

“No, really—”

He swore when he
saw the cut, knocking my hands from the wound. I tucked them over my panties. Like
that was any better.

“You’ll live,”
he said. “Did you clean it?”

“I tried. I
think there’s still glass in it though.”

“Shattered over
top of you?”

My voice hollowed.
“No. The scarred man rubbed my leg with a handful of the shards.”

“He try anything
else?”

“There wasn’t
time.”

The thick line
of his jaw tensed. He exhaled before reaching under the sink for a first-aid
kit.

“His name is Bounty,”
Thorne said. “He’ll be the first to die.”

I didn’t answer,
though the appropriate thing would be to refuse vengeance, plead to end the
bloodshed, and be grateful I was finally safe.

Except Anathema
stole my innocence and my excuse for naivety. When danger and safety were
offered from both sides of the gun, life limited one’s choices. For as much as
I begged, wished, and prayed to free myself from the club, I didn’t have a veil
of ignorance to shield me from the violence. My name marked me as Anathema just
like a cut. Just like any ink that might have colored my skin.

I’d never be
safe if I left the club.

I had one option.
One recourse. One desperate attempt to live another day, sing another song, and
forget the past which shadowed my every movement.

I needed someone
stronger, fiercer, more dangerous than the darkness that pursued me.

And that man was
Thorne.

I lived my life
fighting fire with fire but had no idea how to survive the brimstone cloaking Thorne.
Or how to escape it.

Or if I even
wanted to run from it.

“This might
hurt,” Thorne warned.

If he only knew.
I braced for pain for the last twenty-one years. Now I expected the final blow.

Instead, Thorne
spilled some alcohol over a bit of gauze and pressed the cloth against my leg. I
hissed, but his hand gripped just above my knee. Firm. Not unsympathetic though.
He watched as I flinched, nodded when I sucked in a quick breath, and ignored me
when it released in warm confusion.

He held up a
sliver of gleaming glass and laid it against the sink. I pretended I didn’t see
it, but the wound did feel better once the jabbing chunk slipped from my skin. The
gash bled a bit more, but I pressed the gauze into my leg. Thorne ripped off a
clean wrapping for my thigh.

“You don’t need
stitches.” He gestured to the scars pebbling the rest of my leg. “It’ll blend
right in.”

“Thanks.”

“That from
falling off your dad’s bike?”

I nodded.

“He didn’t dress
you in any gear?”

Dad rarely
dressed me at all. My throat tightened like I swallowed the fistful of glass.

“It happens,” I
said. “Live and learn.”

He didn’t answer.
He gripped my hips with determined hands and pulled me closer to the edge of
the sink. I blushed, but he pried apart my legs just enough to thread a bit of
gauze, tape, and an ace bandage over my thigh. His fingers pressed against my
skin as he wrapped. I wished it was just the injury that pulsed in time to his
touch.

“I think you’ll
survive.”

I avoided the
steel in his gaze. “Wasn’t sure I would today.”

“Me either.”

My chest hurt
from stifling the warbling cry I stuffed away. My eyes burned with tears that
hadn’t fallen. My trembling fingers couldn’t hold a brush, and my exhausted
mind pretended The Coup rattled the walls and hid in the shadows. I stared at
the tattoos marking Thorne’s chest. They were beautiful. They were frightening.
I wanted nothing more than to feel their strength under my fingertips.

Thorne towered
over me. He offered strength for the both of us. The blood seeped through my
bandage.

“When did you
know you wouldn’t get out?” I whispered.

“Get out of
what?”

“This life? 
This danger?”

I asked the
warrior if he regretted the war and expected him to understand.

He didn’t.

“This is my
life,” he said.

“But what kind
of life is it?”

“It’s mine.”

“It’s
dangerous.”

He smirked, though
the amusement only hardened his features more. Impenetrable. As permanent as
the ink and as unashamed as the darkness possessing his flesh with the insignia
of his club.

“I like danger.”
His hand brushed along my knee. I shivered. “You do too.”

“That’s not
true.”

His hand moved up.
“What got you hot tonight?  Singing?”

I pretended not
to count the goose bumps he created on my thigh. I hid my disappointment in a
whisper.

“I think you
were the only one who actually listened to the set.”

“Is that a yes?”

My throat
tightened over every last note I sang. Thorne’s palm enveloped my inner thigh. His
touch drifted inward. I flinched as if another layer of glass jammed into my
flesh. It didn’t hurt. I wished it had.

“You escaped a
kidnapping, almost died in a fire, and sped home on a stolen bike.” He took a
searing breath that burned my lungs with a shared heat. “You liked that more
than some gig.”

“It...wasn’t a
good gig.”

“You’re lying if
you say you want out of this life.”

I wished I
hadn’t stared at his lips. Or concentrated on the baritone threat of his words.
Or willed the twisted beat of my heart to slam against my chest.

“I’m not part of
Anathema,” I said.

“No, but it’s part
of you. And all the concerts and college loans and temper tantrums won’t get
you out of the club. So what is it?  Why are you so desperate to leave?”

His fingers
teased along the too-pink lace of my panties. My cheeks flushed with the same
innocence, but I didn’t let him scare me.

“Why are you so
desperate to keep me here?”