Viking
Taking a job after Logan left saved my sanity in the moment. Getting out of town brought me clarity. Never in my life have I wanted to claim a woman before, but the time away allowed me to process the emotions she stirred up in me.
Not something I’m used to.
I’ve been a killer for most of my life. Spent my teens in juvie for killing the man who murdered my mother and younger brother and would have killed me too had I been there during his high.
Instead, I walked into our crappy-ass apartment and found him passed out on the couch with my mother’s dead body behind it and my brother’s still sitting at the dinner table.
I didn’t hesitate to grab his gun, hide it in my sweater pocket, and kick him in the head to piss him off enough that he’d nail me with a couple shots to the face and body, giving me the perfect reason to defend myself. For a panicked twelve-year-old, I think I did okay.
Since that day, however, my feelings have been turned off.
Not giving a shit about anyone but myself, then eventually my club brothers.
Priest is the closest thing I have to family now.
From the moment we met, we clicked. The trust was instantaneous, as was the familiarity and bond of similar trauma.
Returning from the trip, I recognized Priest’s restlessness like it was my own and immediately understood the cause.
After checking in with Brute and confirming the transfer of funds, Priest and I went to work renovating Skinny Dick’s Tavern until the sun went down.
Back at the clubhouse, few words were spoken, but we came to a quiet agreement that pursuing Logan would be in our future.
We realized Trista would be a problem, but what we hadn’t expected was the intruder in Logan’s motel room.
Seeing her face bashed through the thick panel of glass sent me into a blinding rage.
Her body crawling through the window stole my breath until I was able to touch her.
My focus had been split between wanting to kill the asshole and help her.
After delivering a few shots to his ribs and face until he went unconscious, I ditched him to check on Logan.
“Come on, hellcat, stay with us.” Cradling her to my chest on my bike, we cruise to a nearby 24-hour urgent care clinic. Thankfully, they should have the equipment needed to check her over.
Priest leads the way, but I notice him watching us in his mirrors as we travel.
The pale white building with bright neon lights comes into view, and I drop the throttle back to slow down as I park in the ambulance bay, ignoring the signs marked “No Parking”.
Holding Logan close, I can feel her blood seeping through my clothing and sticking to my body as I carry her inside. Immediately, I’m swarmed by nurses who direct me to the back and an empty room where I can lay her gently on a bed.
“What happened?” one of them asks as they start removing Logan’s clothes. She’s older than the others.
“Found some asshole beating her. Smashed her head through a fucking window.” Now that she’s in caring hands, the feral rage has an easier time overriding my logic and flowing through my veins where it lives.
“That it?” she asks when someone mentions bruising between her thighs.
Seeing what they are referring to, I know it’s not from tonight. They’re older, at least a week, around the same time she first came to the clubhouse.
“I don’t know,” I reply honestly. We don’t have a fucking clue what happened inside that room before her delicate fists began pounding on the window.
“Step back, let us examine her, then I’ll come get you.”
My every instinct shouts to stay by her side, but I won’t do her any good if I’m in the way.
Priest walks towards me as I leave the room, appearing every bit as pissed as I am.
“Had to fucking argue with security for a minute,” he smirks.
“Things are settled now.” I have no doubt he was inventive with his persuasion.
“She going to be okay?” He tries to see Logan, but the door is firmly closed now.
“A lot of bruising, more blood, and marks between her thighs.” Hissing as I think about it, the killer forever lurking within wants me to find the bastard and put an end to him. “It’s at least as old as her arrival.”
“You fucking kidding me?” Priest's anger is more subdued than mine. It’s why we balance each other out so well. He has control when I lose it.
“Lots of questions for her,” I mutter as we wait over an hour before someone comes to talk to us.
The same nurse who questioned me approaches. “All right, fellas, let’s have a seat.” She waves to a set of chairs in an empty corner of the waiting room. “Tell me what really happened to that girl.” She eyes our patches warily, likely assuming we did it to her.
“I told you!” There’s no restraining my frustration anymore. “Some asshole beat her up when she got to her motel room.” Logan’s stark look of terror won’t leave my mind any time soon.
“Fucking threw through a window,” Priest growls, scrubbing a hand up and down his face before he stands up and starts pacing, his aforementioned control beginning to slip.
“And the rest?” I raise a brow at her question. She sighs and glimpses down at her clipboard. “Multiple bruises in varying stages of healing across her body, scars that are years old. Her body shows signs of years of abuse.”
Sharing a look with Priest, it finally clicks why she showed up when she did. Waited until she turned eighteen so she couldn’t be reported as a missing minor. Sought out a sister who she thought would welcome her and was rejected.
Fucking Trista.
“We met her last week. She’s the sister of one of the girls that hangs around. She never said a word about what’s happened to her.”
There’s a beat of silence before Priest asks, “Can we see her?”
“You aren’t family,” she replies, getting to her feet.
“So what?” I follow suit, towering over the woman, but she gives zero fucks as she glares at me.
“Until she wakes up and tells me who hurt her, and that it’s not the two of you, I can’t let you back. Bring her sister, she can see her.”
Scoffing, I say, “That’s not happening. Until Logan showed up, her sister thought she was dead.” The woman scowls again. “Different mothers. Dad died when they were young; mothers told a shitload of lies.”
Sympathy softens her eyes, but the old broad doesn’t give a fucking inch. “I’ll let you know once she’s awake and asks for you.”
Whoever said silence is deafening was right as hell because the late-night waiting room could house crickets for all the noise there is.
“We need to talk about what the fuck we’re doing here,” Priest comments as he comes back over with a couple of bottles of water from the vending machine. “We can’t protect that girl and lead her on unless we’re crystal clear about what we want from her.”
Not where I imagined having this conversation, but better here than not at all. “What about her?” I ask, dropping into a chair, leaning back, and resting my head against the wall, waiting on Priest to speak.
“Well, I don’t fucking know either.”
I smirk as he drops down next to me. My head lolls to the side, and I see that he’s just as unsure. Not something either of us has experienced before.
“She’s fucking young,” is the first thing that comes to mind. “Too young,” I mutter again, unsure who I’m trying to sway into believing that matters.
“Yeah, yet she’s lived a lifetime,” Priest counters with exactly what I’ve been telling myself.
He’s right. Age matters with some women, and with others, it’s only a number. With Logan, her age is only a number. And now that we know she’s been abused for several years, the exhaustion in her eyes shines her in a new light. Life has made her tired, and that is something we can both relate to.
“Trista won’t like it,” I say. The other woman has had her sights set on a member claiming her for years. It was never going to happen with us; she doesn’t have what it takes to put up with our lifestyle as a partner. She’s too emotional, too territorial, and too clingy.
“Who fucking cares?” Priest growls. He was more pissed than I was the night Logan showed up at the club. “That bitch needs to be put in her place, and if claiming her sister is what does it, then so be it.”
“Logan finds out, and she’ll be pissed as hell.” I don’t understand how I know that; I just get the feeling she’s been used enough in her lifetime.
“We’ll deal with it,” he grouses. His gaze spears me as he asks, “You want her the way I do?”
“You know I do.”
It’s hard for me to share what I’m feeling, but Priest seems to read my mind.
“Yeah, me too.”
A whooshing sound stops further conversation as the nurse returns and waves us over. “She’s assured me it wasn’t the two of you who beat her up, so you can come on back now.”
We follow her, unprepared for the sight of Logan.