Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC 5)

“Brother,” he said quietly, no fuckin’ clue what else to say. He didn’t do girly comforting words. They didn’t have fuckin’ heart-to-hearts. But his brother was bleeding. His best friend. Fuck if he would just stand there and watch it happen.

Lucky’s head slowly moved up a good few seconds after Asher spoke, as if it took longer for words to get through his head.

Asher flinched, actually fuckin’ flinched, at the look on his face. It was like what Bull had been wearing since the moment Laurie was dumped outside the club, since she died. The one that had only just faded away when he met his wife. It was always there, though. A shadow over him. A scar. You didn’t escape that shit; it was tattooed on your soul forever. It had been hard seeing that on Bull, but it almost fuckin’ killed him to see it on Lucky. They’d patched in together, grown up together. Fuck, they’d screwed their first girls on the same night when they were tangled up in a world they’d escaped together. Like Asher, Lucky had a fuckin’ rough childhood. He’d had to do some serious shit before he’d even gotten his dick wet. He turned into a ruthless motherfucker when needed, but most of the time he was smiling. Laughing. Not letting the shit of his past turn him into something else.

That’s why it got to Asher. Seeing everything torn away from his face. Everything.

“Fuck,” he muttered, locking eyes with the wild animal that used to be his best friend. “Let’s—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence because Lucky moved. Surged up and pushed past him without a word. Asher turned to watch him storm out of the clubhouse and then heard the roar of his bike as he left the lot.

“Fuck,” he muttered again.

Then he welcomed the rage, let it fill him up. “We’re getting blood for this,” he said to Cade, who’d approached after Lucky left.

Cade’s gray eyes met his. “Oh there will be blood,” he bit out. “A fuckin’ ocean of it.”

There was only one problem with that statement.

They were already swimming in that ocean of blood.

Drowning in it.

Chapter Fifteen

“Some women fear the fire. Some women simply become it.”

-R.H Sin

One month later

Becky

“Rebecca, you’ve been attending group for three weeks now and still haven’t shared. Have you got something to add today? To get off your chest?” The rehab counselor asked me in her throaty voice.

Get off my chest? Yeah, how about the weight of the world, lady.

“Bex,” I said instead.

Her overgrown brows furrowed. “Excuse me?”

“Well, I’ve been here for three weeks and for that time you’ve called me Rebecca while I’ve repeatedly told you it’s Bex.” I thrummed my fingers against my jean-clad thighs in irritation.

I needed a smoke.

I actually needed a fix. A fucking huge one.

They didn’t offer that at this particular facility, hence me nearly smoking a pack a day.

Not the healthiest coping mechanism, but what was a little more tar on my already blackened insides?

She regarded me with those kind eyes that made me want to strangle her with one of her many tiny scarves. “Does something about your given name upset you?”

I didn’t lower my gaze, though I felt everyone else’s heavy on me. I didn’t like it, the attention. Precisely why I hadn’t spoken a word in this little circle jerk that I was subjected to daily. The group session of depression, of people’s addiction sob stories, would make even the most cheerful person want to eat a bullet just to escape it all.

“Besides the fact that the stupid name was the one and only thing my asshole parents gave me before dumping me on the state? It’s not really my style,” I said, leaning back in my chair. I inspected my nails instead of looking at the people who were staring at me.

The black polish had chipped off, the nails bitten down almost to the skin. They were a testament to how fucking ruined my insides were. Black and peeling, chewed and torn.

“You don’t know your parents, then?” the counselor probed.

I glanced up. “You think I’d be here if John and Judy Cleaver raised me and Mom baked cookies every day?” I was being a bitch. It was my default. Plus what little cheer I possessed had been well and truly beaten out of me. Only sarcasm and venom were left.

The counselor jostled in her chair. “It sometimes doesn’t matter what background we come from. Addiction happens to everyone. It doesn’t discriminate. But I’m intrigued to understand how you think your own addiction is connected to your childhood. Was it hard?”

I laughed, the first time since…. It wasn’t a pretty laugh; it sounded ugly, like nails on a chalkboard, like the soundtrack of my soul. “My childhood? No, it was a fucking breeze.”

She furrowed her brows. “It’s a safe space here, Bex. You can tell us.”