Demon (The Northern Kings MC #1)

Chapter Four

Demon

Anger surged through my blood. Hot. Irrational. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen the punters grope the women. Seen them put hands in places that weren’t invited. Yet suddenly I was a bull and he’d waved a red flag.

Fury and the twins pulled the astonished men up off their seats, pushing them to the exit as the dark-haired bar maid stared at me, then at them, then back at me again. She quirked an eyebrow at me in challenge. A demand for an explanation and I shook my head at her in answer. I needed a drink. But that would have to wait. Our patches brought us enough attention from the local police, and the last thing they needed was ammunition to bang one of us up in a cell for the night.

Reap moved across to the barmaid, who’d now returned to the table with a cloth.

“You OK, love?” I watched his lips move, the words drowned by the heavy beat of the music.

The punters at neighbouring tables had gone back to observing whichever naked woman was gyrating round the pole on the stage. Reap and the girl exchanged some words and now I watched as she bent over the table, her arse hanging out the bottom of the shorts. Maybe I should make Tez change the dress code? It had never bothered me before. I didn’t mind looking either, but suddenly I felt responsible. Responsible for every male whose eyes had raked over her and whose hands had touched her.

Tez dropped into the booth beside me, sitting quietly, waiting for me to acknowledge him. I didn’t. I watched the brunette go back and forth to the bar, carrying drinks, cleaning glasses. She never stopped, always doing something.

“Demon?” he said eventually, sick of sitting in the strained silence next to me.

“What, mate?”

“You OK?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Just. That,” he flicked his hand out in front of him, pausing as he chose his words carefully. “That was unusual. You don’t normally react like that.”

I rubbed at my eyes. “Who is that girl?”

“She’s new.”

“Yeah. Gathered that. What’s her name?”

Tez shrugged, “Ciara. Irish. That’s all I know. I don’t ask them questions. They just have to be something the punters look at and want to order drinks from all night.”

“I’m thinking you should change the dress code.”

“Why, Demon? It’s never bothered you before?”

“Does now.”

“Do you know her?”

I shook my head. I didn’t. We’d never met. Not before today.

“Look, Demon,” there was a note of nervousness in his voice, an attempt at appeasement. Whatever I told him, he would do. That’s how this whole gig worked, so if I told him that the bar staff were all wearing onesies, that’s what he would make happen. “I’ll keep a better eye on the barmaids. I’ll enforce a look don’t touch approach. But having them dress like this pulls the punters in, spending their money just to look at the merchandise. The, err, girls,” he added quickly.

I nodded. We were getting a shitload of the profits from this place, and it had been making a ton since it had opened. Every night was busy. The sex crazed and starved flooding in to see tits and pay for a lap dance. And it made sense to keep control. We’d paid off the licensing department to get it up and running, but we didn’t need to push our luck.

The girl moved back to the bar, a tray of empty glasses resting in her palm, and I sprung to my feet, following.

“Ciara, huh?” I said as she stepped back in behind the bar.

“That’s right,” the Irish accent purred across the space.

She didn’t lift her eyes, staring down at the glasses she washed in the sink.

“What you doing here?”

Her face sprung up, a sudden flicker of emotion, anger, fear, panic. Gone in a moment as she seemed to choose irritation.

“Working.”

“I can see that. You’re Irish.”

“And?”

“Just wondered what brings you to South Shields.”

“Not allowed in South Shields, us Irish?”

I swallowed the frustration building in my throat. Be nice.

“We don’t control who comes and goes in the North East.”

“Really?” she swirled her finger over the front of me. “That’s not what that leather cut says.”

Fuck, she was difficult.

“It’s not what you think.”

“Is it not? You’re not part of a bike gang?”

“I’m part of a motorcycle club.”

“I know what MC means,” she answered, swirling the cloth angrily around the glass she’d been cleaning the life out of. “You own this place?”

“No. We have an interest in it. But it’s owned by Tez. Terry,” I corrected when her eyebrows pulled together in a frown.

And then she looked up, her loose hair falling off her face, full lips pushed together as if she struggled to control herself. And for the first time, I really studied the scar running down her right cheekbone. The skin was puckered slightly around it, more noticeable in places where it hadn’t really healed, still slightly red. It wasn’t all that old, six months, maybe more. Parts of it still tinged pink where the flesh was healing underneath. I’d seen plenty of scars from knife wounds, and this looked exactly like it. But fuck knows who’d wanted to cut that beautiful face.

Her eyes darted away from me again, but mine couldn’t leave her. Her cheekbones were prominent, the points merging into heavy smile lines that elongated her chin, defining the point at the end of her heart-shaped face. Even though I was yet to see her smile. And I’d bet that was a stunning sight.

And her chest, that bulged in the white shirt, the top buttons loose enough that I got a good eyeful of the promise of plentiful tits, was enough to captivate every conversation. But I’d guess she was used to that, to the depraved looks of men, salivating over what was in her top.

“So, who are you then?” she asked suddenly, snapping my attention away from her chest and back to her face.

“Sorry, what?”

“Yeah, thought as much,” she grumbled, more to herself than me.

“No. Really. What did you say?”

“I asked who you are.”

“I’m Demon.”

“Demon? You not have an actual name?”

“Not one I tell anyone.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just not a thing we do.”

“You do?”

“What are you? A parrot?” I asked, watching her eyebrows draw together again.

“Forget it.”

She turned away, taking the glasses she had washed and dried and stacked them under the shelves under the rows of optics hanging on the back wall of the bar. Her arse cheeks bulged out of her shorts again, ending at the top of shapely long thighs and I caught myself leaning over the bar top, following her bare legs to the black boots that pulled up her ankles, cutting off only a couple of inches below her calves.

When I managed to move my eyes back up her body, I saw her. Two brown eyes staring at me in the reflection of the mirrored panel, scrutinising my every move. Her lips were pursed again, a dark look on her face.

“You actually going to sit with your friends or you just gonna hang here all night and annoy me?” she said, turning round to face me once more.

“You can get me a diet coke, darl,” I answered her, feeling the irritation deepening my voice.

*****

It was late by the time we left Trouble and most the staff had left long before we had. I stuffed our cut of the night’s takings into my bike jacket. The envelope was thick with notes, all to add to club funds. Sex clubs always brought in a good return on investment, but we didn’t often collaborate with other bike clubs. Tez was an exception. Tyne Thunder was just a hobbyist’s club. A mismatch of motorbikes of all types of sizes and even a trike or two. They were weekend riders, looking for the thrill of the lifestyle, but none of the danger that went along with it.

Tez was a good president. An ex-MC member himself who’d wanted a quieter life but was still with the love of the road. And it always helped to have the smaller clubs in your favour, for when the shit hit the fan. Not that it happened often these days. The old patch wars on Tyneside had settled, clear boundaries and a new era helping to ease previous tensions.

The roller shutter over the garage door rattled loudly in the quiet street of shops and restaurants and behind the garage door a deep low bark resounded. The street had shut up for the night. The only resident was me, living in a flat above my tattoo shop. It was easier to come and go like this, particularly at 3 o’clock in the morning, with a motorbike that sounded like it had anger management issues.

I rolled the bike inside the garage, yanking the metal shutter quickly down behind me, closing me into pitch black space. Shuffling, I moved to the back wall, my eyes straining to adjust in the darkness. I’d taken this route, or similar, every day for years, in the pitch black, cautiously moving, and still my toe caught. I staggered forwards, my arms flailing, trying to grab hold of thin air. My next step clattered against the tins of paint on the floor that I’d stumbled into, tangling my feet and sending me crashing to the ground. Pain screamed in my shoulder where I’d hit the hard floor of the garage like a sack of shit, wobbling the shelves I’d grabbed onto instinctively, a heavy wrench smashing into my face.

Fuck. It stung like a bitch. The dog behind the door on the far side of the garage barked ferociously, a deep dangerous sound, urgent.

“Alright, Kinobi. I’m still alive.”

Fuck. Just. I was going to fucking kidnap Fury the next time I saw the fucker. He’d promised to re-site the light switches in the garage months ago. And I was still waiting. This was definitely urgent business for church.

Eventually, I stumbled through the doors at the far side. It was pointless turning the lights on in the garage now. The damage had been done, to me at least, and I couldn’t be bothered to look at the mess I had caused. I was already fuming. The extra pressure of chaos at 3am would add to the agitation pulsing through my body.

The black and tan dog bounded at me the moment I stepped over the lintel, snapping the lights on quickly as a blur of Doberman launched itself into my arms. The only female throwing themselves at me, it would seem. Her tongue lapped at my face, her front legs wrapped around my neck, the whole dog almost meeting my height when she stood up on her back legs.

“Come on, girl. Wee, then bed.”

For both of us.

But as Kinobi snored her head off right beside me, I couldn’t switch off. Every time I closed my eyes, she was there. Stubborn and defiant, and the mysterious scar on her face forcing questions through my tired but over stimulated brain. And soon I was up again, perched over the table in my kitchen, the charcoal pencil moving over the paper in front of me like an automaton. Her face taking shape under the orange glow from the lamp poised over the paper and the clock on the wall behind me ticked past 5am.