Minutes later the girls and I were laughing about Lila’s latest disaster date—this one had flirted with anything that moved including the female and male servers at the restaurant they went to—when the atmosphere in the bar changed.
“Eugene!” a male voice shouted.
It sounded vaguely like Nova.
Eugene, who had been polishing glasses behind the bar, half listening to Lila’s story, moved into action instantly. He moved surprisingly fast for such a big guy. I watched as he quickly unlocked a sawed-off shotgun from under the bar and then disappeared down the back hall.
The other brothers were already mobilizing, the few civilians in the bar staring wide-eyed around them as bikers checked their weapons and moved out the front and back doors.
Cy and Bat came to stand in front of the us at the bar, their stances wide and their posture ramrod straight.
“Fuck,” came a shout and then, because everyone had quieted and someone had turned down the music, I heard the pop pop of gunshots.
“It’s King,” I whispered brokenly, somehow knowing it in my heart.
Tayline’s hand found mine and squeezed.
By the time King stumbled in between Mute and Nova, I was on my feet behind Bat and Cy, facing the door with my hand over my rattling heart.
My blond king was completely battered, blood lacquered across his face like some kind of grotesque Halloween mask. His beautiful halo of golden hair was matted with dirt and more blood. The tee he was wearing was torn by a slash mark that had clearly been made by a knife and he was completely unsteady on his feet.
“Oh my God,” I tried to yell but there was no breath in my lungs so it came out more like a wheezing gasp.
“What the fuck happened?” Lila demanded as they leaned King up against the bar and moved out of the way.
I took King’s sweet, battered face by the chin and cataloged the angry ripple of open, bleeding skin over his left eyebrow that accounted for the amount of blood seeping down his front.
Something in my chest was withering, going hollow and rotten and dying.
“I asked what the fuck happened,” Lila shouted at the bikers.
Mute glared at her and took one of his signature menacing steps forward but Nova slapped a palm against his chest. He turned to Lila but his eyes were on me, his voice uncharacteristically grim as he said the two words capable of terrifying us all, “The Nightstalkers.”
“They came here?” Cleo gasped.
Eugene trundled into the room carrying a prone body and dropped the leather-clad form to the floor without care. The man didn’t groan as he hit the ground with an almighty thump so he must have been knocked out all ready. I stared at the Nightstalkers MC rocker on his leather jacket, the laughing demon that grinned red-faced from back of the cut.
“Bat, Cy, help me load this fucker in my truck and we’ll take ‘im down to the compound,” Eugene growled.
He wasn’t technically part of the club, but I didn’t know the specifics other than that, apparently, Eugene was in someway related to the Garros.
The bikers moved to help him.
I slid my fingers into King’s wet hair and pushed it behind his ear.
“King, honey,” I whispered to him. “What the fuck happened?”
His hand came out and tiredly wound its way through my hair until it found the back of my neck. “Went to the john and four of them jumped me, dragged me out the back door and started beatin’ on me. Got one of them in the throat and managed to shake off another long enough to shout.”
“Thank fuck I was takin’ a leak,” Nova muttered, his distressed eyes on King.
“Amen, brother,” King agreed.
“Does this happen often?” I asked, my voice still reedy and thin with shock.
King was watching me, his eyes growing sharper and sharper as he recovered from the head banging.
I didn’t look at him, couldn’t bear to see the blood streaking his gorgeous face. It reminded me too much of Marcus and Lysander, too much of the many times I’d tended to my bleeding brother after he got into yet another scrap.
“Cress,” he called softly.
I ignored him to listen to Mute who grunted, “Used to.”
“People know not to fuck with The Fallen,” Nova explained. “We got complacent. Used to be a time at least one brother was with an officer at all fuckin’ times.”
“An officer” I parroted, hating how uninformed I was.
“There’re ranks in the MC,” Tay leaned forward to explain softly. “The higher ups are officers. King’s obviously not an officer but he’s still a target because he’s the Prez’s son.”
“So, this happens,” I concluded.
Mute nodded. “Happens.”
Fuck.
Fear solidified its hold on me, embracing me in its cold fingers, locking me in its sticky arms.
“Cress,” King called again.
He knew what was happening, I knew he did, but I couldn’t stop the panic from overtaking me and overriding the new Cressida with the old.