Tempted By Saint (Damned Saints MC #4)

Chapter 1

Nadia

I grip the steering wheel hard enough that my knuckles ache, the interstate stretching ahead under a bruised, early-morning sky.

Mountains rise on either side, dark shoulders against the dawn.

I’ve been driving since before sunrise. The coffee in my cup holder has gone cold.

A bag of gummy bears sits open on the passenger seat like a tiny act of rebellion.

Every mile takes me closer to Lovestone Ridge, to my sister, to a fresh start.

I’ve never set foot in the place. Ava fled home and only moved there recently. I finished college in another town, telling myself that being away from him meant I was safe.

It didn’t. It just meant I wasn’t there to see what she was surviving.

My mother married the wrong man. When she died, her mistake didn’t die with her.

He got worse after the funeral, like being left with two girls who weren’t even his turned grief into rage. And in our house, rage always chose a target.

Ava.

Ava took the brunt of him. Ava took the punishments. Ava took the cigarette burns on her hands and arms and hid them like secrets she didn’t want me to carry.

She's only a couple of years older than me, but she learned faster. She learned how to stand between me and him without making it look like a stand. How to redirect his attention. How to take the hit and then look at me and smile like everything was fine.

She taught me how to live around a predator.

Keep your head down. Be agreeable. Don’t poke the bear.

I learned to read his moods before he even walked through the door. I learned when to speak and when to disappear. I learned how to make myself small enough to slip through a room without becoming the reason for his anger.

Then I left for college, and guilt followed me like a second shadow.

Every test I aced, every friend I made, every stupid campus event I laughed through felt like I was stealing air Ava didn’t have. She stayed behind. She endured.

And she still told me to live my life, as if she wasn’t the one paying for it.

I graduated with my degree in Elementary Education and my license to teach kindergarten through sixth grade. I was supposed to feel proud.

I did. For about ten minutes.

Then Ava’s world imploded.

Then the Damned Saints MC pulled her out.

Our stepfather landed in jail, but a cell doesn’t erase what he did. It doesn’t erase what he’s capable of.

The guilt in me didn’t disappear. It just changed shape.

It turned into resolve.

I couldn’t stand being hours away anymore. I wanted Ava close enough to see with my own eyes. I wanted a place where I could build something that wasn’t based on fear. I wanted to show up for her in a way that wasn’t limited to phone calls and guilt-drenched promises.

A green highway sign flashes by: LOVESTONE RIDGE 200 MILES.

My pulse kicks up.

Two hundred miles. Three hours, maybe a little more if I don’t drive like a maniac.

I exhale slowly and let myself imagine it. The town. The ridge. Ava’s laugh in the same room as mine. A school interview that could turn into my first real classroom. My own keys. My own front door. My own life.

My phone buzzes in the center console.

Ava.

I hit accept and put her on speaker.

“Hey,” she says, breathless. In the background, steam hisses and an espresso machine roars. She’s at the coffee truck. “You almost here?”

The sound of her, alive and busy and normal, loosens something in my chest.

“I just passed the two-hundred-miles sign,” I tell her, smiling even though she can’t see it. “Maybe three hours. How are you? How’s… everything?”

I don’t say his name. Viper. Ava’s man. I’ve only heard about him through protective-sister filters and a handful of clipped details. Scary. Loyal. Damned Saints. The reason she’s breathing.

But I also know what it means to have someone powerful decide they’re responsible for you. I know the way protection can tilt into control if the wrong man is holding it.

“Everything’s good,” Ava says, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “Viper’s out on a run, but he’s been counting down the hours.”

She hesitates.

“I think he’s… nervous,” she admits, like the word tastes strange. “He won’t say it, but he keeps asking what you’re like. What you’ll think of him.”

My throat tightens.

“He’s saved your life,” I say carefully.

“I know,” she answers, softer. “But meeting family is different. He’s not scared of anyone. He’s just… scared of getting this wrong.”

It’s hard to picture a man like that nervous about anything. The idea makes him feel a fraction more human, which I’m not sure is reassuring or terrifying.

“Ghost said he’d keep an eye out for you on the road,” Ava adds.

“Ghost?”

“An enforcer. One of ours.” Her voice turns gentle but firm, the way it used to when she was trying to keep me calm without lying. “Nadia, listen. If one of the Saints tells you to do something, you do it. No arguing. If they ask you something, answer. It’s about safety, not control.”

My stomach tightens.

I don’t like the idea of needing men like that. I don’t like how familiar it feels to be told to comply, even if the intention is different. Even if this time it’s meant to keep me alive.

“I’ll be careful,” I promise.

“I can’t wait to hug you,” she says. “Call me when you’re closer.”

The call ends, and I set the phone back in the console, my fingers lingering like I can keep her voice within reach.

Ava is alive.

She sounds happy.

She sounds worried about me.

I’m heading toward her.

The world can’t be all bad.

Then headlight glare blooms in my rearview mirror.

Two motorcycles surge up behind me, engines low and aggressive. Not weekend riders. They move in formation, staggered and controlled. The hairs along my arms lift.

A third bike slides into place.

Then a fourth.

My mouth goes dry.

It’s fine, I murmur, more to myself than the empty car. Ava said Ghost would keep an eye out. Maybe this is him.

Except the colors on their leather cuts are wrong.

I’ve seen the photo Ava sent me, Viper in his vest, the Damned Saints patch clear as day. A skull with a halo. A symbol you didn’t forget once you’d seen it.

These men wear something else.

A snarling wolf over crossed guns.

Not Saints.

Cold adrenaline spills through me. I flick on my signal for the next exit when I spot a sign promising gas and food, not because I’m calm, but because I want lights. People. Witnesses.

The ramp drops me onto a narrow two-lane road flanked by pines, the kind of stretch where the trees lean in and swallow sound.

The bikes follow.

One slides ahead and eases off the throttle, forcing me to drop speed. Another drifts up beside my driver’s side, matching my pace so perfectly it feels practiced. I glance over despite myself.

Full-face helmet. Visor up. Dark eyes. A greasy goatee visible beneath the chin bar.

He grins and makes a rolling motion with his hand, a command without words.

My grip tightens. Ava’s warning echoes in my head, but this isn’t Ghost. This isn’t protection.

I keep my window up and stare straight ahead.

His gloved hand slaps the glass, loud in the tight space.

My stomach flips.

Forest on both sides. No cars. No driveways. No houses. Just trees and the thin strip of asphalt that suddenly feels like a trap.

The bike in front brakes again, sharper this time, and jabs a finger toward the shoulder like it’s an order.

I take the first widening of gravel and ease to a stop, tires crunching.

The bikes fan out around my car, four of them, hemming me in like they’ve done this before.

One dismounts and strolls up to my window like he’s knocking on a neighbor’s door for sugar.

This time his knuckles tap the glass, slow and almost polite.

“We just wanna talk,” he says, voice muffled but still audible.

Sure. And I’m the Queen of England.

I hit the lock again anyway, even though I’m pretty sure it’s already locked. My fingers shake so badly I miss the button the first time.

My thoughts trip over each other.

Phone. 911. Whisper. Keep it hidden.

My stepfather’s voice crawls up from old memory, oily and certain.

No one’s coming. No one cares.

I refuse to believe it.

Somebody will come.

They have to.

He tilts his head, eyes flat, like he’s deciding how much trouble I’m worth.

My stomach drops.

A shout carries from behind the bikes.

Then another engine cuts in, deeper and steadier, not frantic and showy like theirs. The man at my window stiffens and turns his head.

For a split second, I see it.

Uncertainty.

A lone motorcycle appears from the direction I came, eating up the road like it owns it. One rider. No formation. No backup in sight.

But the presence that comes with him feels bigger than the four men currently surrounding my car.

He pulls onto the shoulder and stops his massive bike between my car and the road, a deliberate block.

He kills the engine.

Swings his leg over.

Stands.

My breath catches.

He’s tall and built like a wall, faded jeans and a black Henley stretched across a chest that looks like it could stop bullets. A leather vest rides over it, and the patch on the back is unmistakable.

Skull.

Halo.

Damned Saints.

He doesn’t look at me at first. His gaze sweeps the men around my car, like he’s taking inventory. His posture is easy, almost relaxed, but tension sits in the set of his shoulders like a promise.

He pushes his helmet up.

Blue eyes. Sharp. Assessing.

When they finally flick to me, the impact is physical. Heat pricks up my neck, sudden and unwelcome, like my body is reacting before my brain can remind it to be smarter.

Not that it matters.

Men like him don’t look at women like me twice. I’m soft in places I’ve spent my whole life trying to hide, curves I can’t tuck away with good posture and a careful smile.

And even if he did look, I don’t want the kind of man who comes with that much power. I know what power can do when it decides it owns you.

The heat fades into something colder.

Recognition.

Like he’s cataloging me the same way he cataloged the threat around me.

“Problem?” he asks.

Low voice. Calm tone.

The leader of the wolf-patched crew steps forward, puffing himself up.

“Mind your own business, Saint,” he says. “We’re just having a friendly conversation.”

Saint.

The name hits something in my memory. Ava mentioned him once in passing, like you mention a storm that lives in the distance. Vice President. Ex-military. The spine of the Damned Saints.

I hadn’t pictured him like this.

Solid.

Lethal.

Saint’s mouth curves into something that isn’t a smile.

“Yeah?” he says. “Because it looks like you’re harassing a woman on the side of the road. That’s my business.”

“We just want to know where she’s going,” the leader says. “Maybe Lovestone Ridge. Maybe Black Pines. Blissmont County is our territory too. We don’t like strangers wandering in unannounced.”

Black Pines.

So that’s where they’re from. Same county, different town, and they’re acting like county lines are borders they can enforce with intimidation.

My stomach tightens.

I don’t know their rules. I only know what it feels like to be surrounded by men who think they get to decide what happens next.

Saint tilts his head.

“Your territory doesn’t include stopping cars on a public road,” he says. “Unless you want to explain to law enforcement why you’re running your own little toll booth.”

The leader’s jaw flexes.

“Careful, Saint. You don’t want to start a war over a stranger.”

Saint’s expression doesn’t change. His hand drops casually to his side and I catch the outline of a shoulder holster beneath his shirt, the quiet kind that doesn’t need to be flashed to be understood.

“You’re right,” Saint says. “I don’t.”

He steps closer, closing the distance.

The other bikers shift. Not eager now. Not confident. They’re watching Saint like he’s the only thing in the world that matters.

“But you’re going to leave,” Saint continues, voice still calm. “Right now.”

The leader lets out a humorless laugh.

“And if we don’t?”

Saint’s eyes stay on him.

“Then you’re going to have a very bad morning.” He tilts his head slightly. “And that’s me being polite.”

A beat of silence stretches.

A squirrel darts across the road like it has better survival instincts than any of us. Somewhere above, a hawk cries out.

The leader jerks his chin at his crew.

“Let’s go. For now.”

They mount their bikes, engines snarling louder than necessary, and peel away in a spray of gravel and pride. The man who banged on my window throws me one last glare before he follows.

When they’re gone, my hands finally unclench.

Air rushes back into my lungs like I’ve been holding it for an hour.

Saint walks to my window and taps lightly, nothing like the other man’s fists.

“You okay?” he asks.

My laugh comes out shaky.

“Define okay.”

Something shifts in his face. Not amusement. Not softness, exactly.

Attention.

Like he’s hearing more than my words. Like he’s deciding something.

“Fair,” he says.

He holds up his hands in a gesture that reads careful, not surrender.

“Mind if I open your door?” he asks. “I’m not here to haul you off into the woods. Ghost called. Said you might run into trouble.”

He pauses, eyes steady on mine.

“I’m Saint,” he adds. “You’re Nadia. Right?”

Hearing him say my name sends a weird shiver through me. I nod and hit the unlock button.

He opens the door and steps back, giving me space to decide.

My legs feel unsteady when I climb out, but I manage it. The air is crisp and pine-scented, cold enough to clear my head.

Up close, he’s even more imposing. Scars map his forearms. His hands look strong and used, callused in a way that suggests work, not show. His hair is cut short and practical.

At his throat, tucked under his collar, a small old cross flashes briefly when he moves. Silver, worn, private.

“Thanks,” I manage, because what else do you say to a man who just chased off four bikers like he was shooing flies? “I guess I owe you a drink.”

His gaze drops to my mouth and lifts back to my eyes, fast and controlled.

“You don’t owe me anything,” he says.

His tone shifts hint-of-steel.

“But you do need to come with me. They’ll be back. And next time they won’t come in fours.”

My first instinct is to bristle.

Not because he’s wrong, but because I hate being told what to do by men who think size and certainty equals authority. I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.

Then I remember the look in the wolf leader’s eyes.

I remember Ava’s voice on the phone, gentle but firm, telling me to let the Saints handle it.

I swallow and force myself to ask the question I should have asked first.

“Where are we going?”

Saint’s eyes hold mine. He doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t crowd my space.

“To a safe house. Close enough to move fast, far enough they won’t stumble onto it.”

I hesitate. “What about my sister?”

“We’ll tell her you’re safe,” he says. “Ghost is already handling the fallout.”

The calm in his voice feels like something heavier than reassurance.

“You’ve got my word, Nadia,” he says. “No one’s going to hurt you on my watch.”

He says it like a vow.

And suddenly I’m not just afraid of the wolves.

I’m afraid of what happens if I start trusting him.