Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC 5)

He made a guttural sound at the bottom of his throat and fought off the thief of his vengeance, kneeling once more to batter the thing that had been doing that.

“Brother.” A voice was urgent in his ear as hands clutched his shoulders, yanking him to his feet.

He breathed heavily, eyes not moving, vision still scarlet. Mind still only on one thing.

“Brother,” the voice repeated, a large hand twisting his neck to move his face away from the crumpled red form on the floor.

He took in Bull’s face like a lion might glare at a competitor for his prey. At that moment, Bull wasn’t his brother, one of his best friends. He was the man stopping Lucky from punishing the thing who had been hurting her.

“Lock it down,” Bull commanded.

“Fuck off,” he snarled, struggling to wrench himself from the iron grip.

Bull’s hands didn’t move, and neither did his blank gaze. “You need to lock this shit down, or we’ll lock it down for you. You don’t want that,” he said, demons dancing behind his flat gaze. “She needs you.” He nodded to the side.

Lucky slowly followed his gaze. The red subsided just enough so he could register the small form in Gage’s arms. The horrifyingly empty look in those eyes. The way her inky head was bowed and a shaky hand traced his brother’s arms. She did not take in anything else around them.

He looked at the legs draped over Gage’s elbows. Little more but skin and bones. Filthy. Naked. Covered in bruises. Handprints.

A slice of agony so intense rippled through his entire body he was surprised he stayed standing. He did. And he swallowed that pain. Embraced it. A white-hot calm settled over him and the red left his gaze.

He met Bull’s eyes once more, nodding once. “I’m good.”

Bull regarded him for a long second, searching for the truth in that statement. He must have found it because he nodded and the hands on his shoulders left, Bull stepping back.

Lucky very calmly reached into his cut, took out his gun, and emptied the clip into the body on the floor. The echoing silence that followed the rapid shots seemed to yawn on forever. He could feel the pulse of energy rippling off his brothers.

Then the silence was gone. “We’ve got to go,” Cade declared, his face hard.

The prez’s voice seemed to jolt everyone out of the terrible clutches the actions in that room had over them.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Cade continued. His hard gaze turned to Gage, the bundle in his arms. Lucky watched as a glimpse of what he was feeling inside flickered on his prez’s face before he moved his attention to Gage. “You got all your shit in place?” he asked.

Lucky knew what he meant—the various explosives he had scattered around the warehouse before they had stormed the place.

Gage nodded. For once he didn’t grin at the prospect of blowing something sky-high, eliminating people who had hurt the club. Looking at his brothers now, they had crippled the club. Opened up old wounds that barely healed, no matter the fact that years had passed.

“Yeah, we get Wire to make the call… boom,” he said softly, the last word echoing through the room.

Cade nodded briskly. “Good.”

Lucky finally jerked out of the state that had frozen him in place, a spectator to his nightmare come alive, rushing forward. “Give her to me,” he ordered Gage tightly.

Gage didn’t do as asked. Instead he looked at him, at the blood that Lucky barely registered which covered him almost to his elbows. He was regarding Lucky like a mother to a child requesting to hold a newborn baby, like he was measuring whether he would drop or harm the precious bundle.

“Give me my fuckin’ woman,” he gritted out, wanting to snatch her. The only thing stopping him was the fact that he worried such a movement might harm her more, if that were even possible.

She didn’t seem to register their presence, the fact that they were talking about her. She merely continued tracing patterns on Gage’s scarred arms with a look of vivid concentration.

“Let’s get out of here, get her to a hospital,” Gage answered, still not giving him his woman.

Lucky clenched his fists and swallowed a bellow of frustration.

The moment he was considering forcibly removing her from his brother was the moment her matted head snapped up and he visibly flinched at her face.

“No hospitals,” she hissed, her eyes focused on Lucky. What haunted him was the fact she was looking right into his eyes but wasn’t seeing him. Her pupils seemed to take up every inch of those beautiful irises. She wasn’t seeing any of them, but something else. She was face-to-face with demons.

“No hospitals,” she repeated, her voice rising. “No hospitals.” Hysteria mounted on her croaky, almost foreign voice.