Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC 5)

He kept his promise.

It was when his hands circled my neck after beating me that I realized his glare could also have promised murder.

A cold fear settled in my body, followed by a grim sort of resignation. Did I really imagine any other end with my life? It was a miracle I’d made it that far. As much as I wasn’t surprised, there was no way I wanted a lowlife to be the one who ended it.

I wanted to live.

But like always, fate didn’t like to give me a choice in what shitstorm descended on my life.

Then Lily burst in. Lily, of all people. And she saved me. Fought for me.

“Get off her,” she hissed, blood trickling down her forehead. This was after she shot the gun I had been scrambling for what felt like hours ago. Dylan must have hit her too, vague images of a struggle between them entering my mind.

I didn’t take much of it in, too groggy from all the hits to properly watch it unfold. My head felt heavy, black spots dancing across my vision as I sucked air back in that had been stolen from me.

Then Lily was in front of me, her eyes wet with tears. Tears and fear. Tears and demons. That was me. Me. I put those there.

“Are you okay?” she whispered, her hand still firmly clutching my gun.

I wasn’t. It wasn’t the physical pain; I could take that, had worse. It was that my friend, my gentle and delicate friend, was clutching a gun as tightly as her hand could. That her forehead was dripping with blood.

Because of me.

I managed to tear my gaze away from that blood because I had to. That’s when I saw that Dylan was on the ground and Asher and Lucky were standing by the door, guns pointed at him, their faces hard with fury. Lucky no longer looked like the easygoing man who’d been lighting up the dingy place where I took my clothes off for money. No, this man was dangerous. A killer. His hazel eyes fastened on me, dancing with something I couldn’t understand. It was concern, I think, although I couldn’t be sure because no man had ever looked at me like that before. I’d had a multitude of looks from the opposite sex, but not one mirrored his right then.

I pushed myself up, ignoring the pain that came with the movement. “I’m fine. Fucker hits like a girl,” I said, hiding behind the bravado that had done me well so far.

Her worried eyes were not convinced.

“That bitch a whore for the Sons now?” Dylan grunted, as if he weren’t standing in front of two very angry bikers who happened to be pointing guns at him.

His arrogance was breathtaking.

“You’ve got no power here. This one’s mine. You’re both as likely to shoot me as that little mouse over there.” He jerked his head at Lily.

The gunshot that echoed through our tiny living room made my entire body twitch. I registered Lily covering my body with hers. Little Lily shielding me. As if I was worth protecting.

Our heads both turned to where Dylan had crumpled to the floor.

I registered the blood seeping from him and then glanced at Lucky.

“My finger slipped.” He shrugged as he addressed the room. He was going for nonchalance, but there was no hiding the fury flickering underneath his gaze.

“You’ll pay for that, you don’t fuckin’ shoot me without—”

Dylan was cut off by a swift blow to the head.

I felt a grim sort of satisfaction at the fact Dylan was bleeding. I also felt the shame of not being able to do it myself. My blood boiled and I was overcome by an unbearable urge to crawl over and reclaim my gun in order to put a bullet in his skull. But I couldn’t move. Pain that had been distant before was now becoming more urgent. I was sobering and it sucked.

“You need a hospital, sweet thing?” Lucky murmured as he knelt down in front of me. His hand lightly, imperceptibly, trailed across my throbbing jaw. Asher had snatched Lily from my side, or Lucky had pushed her away, I wasn’t sure which.

I flinched back and pushed myself off the ground so my back rested against the wall. Lucky’s gentle touch was almost as bad as Dylan’s angry and ruthless punch. No, it was worse. I had experience with anger, knew what to do with it. This I didn’t. I didn’t deserve it.

The anger on his face, the fury, that was familiar. Was okay. What wasn’t okay was the tender concern mingled with that.

“No, I’m fine. A couple of bruises,” I declared, trying to let strength leak into my raspy voice.

He raised a brow and didn’t say a word. Instead he gathered me, as gently as anything, into his arms and took me to the sofa.