Feel My Pain (Curse Bound 1)

Zane barked with laughter. “Funny you’re the one saying this. Is that why you left me at the mercy of your so-called club? You wanted the end result but not the responsibility?”

“What did you think was gonna happen if you stole from an outlaw biker, huh? You deadbrained?” Roach raised his voice, devastated to find out Zane had never wanted him in the first place. Just like last time.

“I assumed that if we fucked you’d be satisfied enough,” Zane said, drilling his gaze into Roach, as if he wanted him flayed alive. “But it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, raising the gun. The weapon shook only slightly, as if Zane had never used anything like it and didn’t trust his skills, but he was still intent on going through with his crazy plan.

Roach took a step his way, holding out his hand. “Gimme the gun and get the fuck out.”

Zane’s mouth twisted, his forehead folded into deep wrinkles, his neck sunk into his shoulders, but he shook his head and pulled the trigger, closing his eyes as it clicked, as if he wanted Roach dead yet didn’t want to see the blood.

Ha. No bullets.

Roach charged at Zane without a second thought, and as he grabbed the gun, he elbowed the fucker in the stomach. The pain he instantly felt in return blurred his understanding of their position, because he couldn’t see how Zane could have landed a punch there.

Zane’s eyes flashed, wild with barely reined-in fury. Just like that time two years back, the bastard knew he’d been cornered and he was ready to risk his life for the killing blow.

They tumbled onto the boxes, and Zane cried out when his opponent's weight knocked the air out of him. Breathless, Roach attempted to hold the fucker down when heavy steel came out of nowhere, colliding with his jaw.

“Fuck!” He yelled and punched at Zane blindly, yet somehow the fucker gave as good as he got, and they went down to the floor. He tasted blood on his tongue, and when Zane crawled on top of him, agile hands pushing down on Roach’s throat, more of it sprayed on him from red-stained lips. Zane’s teeth had a pink tint, as if he’d already tasted Roach’s meat.

He clawed at Zane with one hand, reaching for the switchblade in his back pocket with the other, but as he was losing breath, the hold on his neck eased. As soon as he was able to gasp for air, the hateful hands closed around his throat again. Was Zane playing a game of torture-the-biker with him even now? He couldn’t tell, because as Zane leaned forward, the lush hair covered both their faces and tickled Roach like citrusy tentacles.

Roach wasn’t having any of this shit.

The air he did inhale allowed him enough clarity to pull out the knife and snap it open.

Zane let go of his neck, coughing as if someone had been choking him, not the other way around, and as he leaned back, his top rode up, exposing fine skin. Roach didn’t hesitate and slashed right through it, opening flesh in a single move, but the knife dropped out of his hand when pain seared his own stomach at the very same moment.

He grabbed his belly to find his T-shirt damp with hot blood. When Zane screamed out his fury, busy with the cut on his stomach, Roach bucked him off and crawled away, confused beyond reason.

Zane didn’t have a knife.

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

Zane’s hair was all over his face as he rolled to the side, a horrified shriek on his lips as he looked at the fresh blood staining his fingertips. “You f-fucking stabbed me!”

“Fuck yeah I did!” Searing pain assaulted Roach again, so he took a deep breath and pulled up the T-shirt where an elongated cut opened up at him, spilling more blood.

Someone pounded at his door. “Fuck quietly for god’s sake!”

Zane laughed, rolling to his back, and then to all fours like a ghoul straight out of a horror movie, one hand pressed against the open wound, the other helping him keep balance.

“You wish, pervert,” he shouted back.

“Fuck off, Travis!” Roach yelled, but his eyes grew wide when he saw Zane advance toward the bloodied knife. “Just give up!”

Zane shook his head, stumbling toward him like a maniac with blood spilling from his broken lip. His determination spread a frosty sensation through Roach’s insides, and he didn’t back away on time when Zane swung his arm into his face.

Roach grabbed Zane’s wrist, but the bastard still mercilessly pressed the blade into his cheek while pushing Roach down with his weight.

Roach huffed as blood spilled to his ear and jaw, a hot trickle that could end in his death if Zane managed to push down and shove the knife into his brain. But his attention drifted as more blood dripped from Zane’s face onto his.