Pan's Salvation (Dueling Devils 5)

Pan dropped the rag in the bucket and rushed to his faithful friend. It took him a few

attempts to open the bottle with his hand shaking so badly. He drank the amber liquid straight from the container, chugging like a frat boy on Spring Break. The numbing hit and he relished the relief…From reality.

Hours later, a cry in the night woke him from his slumber on the couch. “Lark.” He got up and staggered down the hall to the bedroom. He clicked on the light.

She sat up in bed breathing heavily.

Pan sat beside her on the bed. “Hey. You’re okay, you’re here with me.”

“God, I was hoping it was all a nightmare.”

“I wish it was,” he whispered.

She narrowed her eyes and sniffed at him.

The disappointment in her brown eyes made him look down. Step two: disgust her.

“Oh, Hartley, what did you do?”

“You deal with things your way and I’ll deal with them mine. If you need anything you

know I’m here.”

“I need you.”

“And you have me.”

She shook her head. “No, as long as you continue on like this, I don’t.”

“It’s the only way I know how to be,” he admitted.

Lark

laid back on the bed. “I’m okay now. I’m going to try to go back to sleep.” She rolled over, giving him her back.

Pan knew then, he’d begun the destruction process. She’ll be better off for this.

Chapter Eleven

Outside looking in, things seemed perfect. But on the inside, the cracks in the wall were growing. Pan made sure she took her medicine, held her when she cried and reassured her the miscarriage hadn’t been her fault. It should’ve been bringing them closer together as they both healed.

It wasn’t.

With every day that passed, he drifted further away on a tide of alcohol and self-loathing. He didn’t heal because he refused to deal with it. Every night, he drank himself into a stupor and passed out on the couch. She’d let it go for the first couple of months, because she couldn’t afford to help anyone else. It was all she could not to drown under the weight of everything thrown her way.

The day she couldn’t get out of bed to do more than use the bedroom between crying jags, she opted to get help. A month of three days of therapy had her on the road to recovery and firmly back in the land of the living. She’d spent her entire life in the shadows, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Lark coped with their mother’s failings by trying to take her place. No matter what she told herself, deep down she’d always thought, if she loved Robin hard enough, long enough, she’d change. It was ridiculous. But the mind had a funny way of compensating for things. She understood that now. The same way she recognized, Pan couldn’t help himself. She would not be an enabler again, nor would she sacrifice her happiness for another. So, she was pulling out the big guns. She walked into the clubhouse to gasps and stares. She’d never made a trip here before, but she was on the approved list. Some brothers made sure their old ladies couldn’t get past the gates. Given what she knew, she couldn’t blame them.

Her gaze scanned the smoky room for Pan. He’d been on a bender all weekend. That shit

stopped now.

Monster trailed behind her, ready to be her back up.

Lark found her man, slumped at the end of the bar with an empty whiskey bottle in front of him. Fury engulfed her, setting fire to her insides. She grabbed the bottle and threw it onto the ground.

Pan jumped.