Chapter Nineteen #2
“I have absolutely no doubt that you would,” I rasp, a dark, heavy layer of laughter coating my words, masking the terror vibrating in my throat.
She struggles to lift a hand, pointing a bloody finger past my shoulder at Pope and the rest of the crew standing guard. “You bunch of panigyrtzides. I should put glitter in your gas tanks. Better sleep with one eye open.”
I huff a dry, ragged chuckle, the tension in my chest loosening just a fraction.
“She says you’re a bunch of festival-clown amateurs.
A total joke-show.” I lean in lower, my voice dropping into a rough rumble meant only for her.
“Focus on keeping those pretty eyes open, little shadow. I'll buy the goddamn glitter.”
Her eyes snap up to mine, a sudden, blinding flash of love and raw gratitude sparking through the haze of her pain. “You learned Greek?”
The breathy, reedy tone of her voice has way more to do with her sheer shock than the blood leaking onto my hands.
“What? You didn't think I was going to let you talk shit about me behind my back forever, did you?” I ask, the corner of my mouth twitching into a smug smirk.
“Fucking love you,” she breathes, her arm drifting up toward my face.
Instead of the soft, burning warmth of her palm against my cheek, the cool, solid slap of heavy silicone greets my skin.
A sharp, choking sound explodes behind me, like one of my brothers just took a knee to the ribs trying to swallow his own tongue. A tiny, pain-filled giggle escapes the woman bleeding out on the asphalt.
I close my eyes, my forehead dropping for a second as the reality hits me, and I bite the inside of my cheek until it tastes like copper. “Goldie. Please tell me you didn’t actually use your fucking dildo as a weapon. I thought we were joking.”
“Uh, yeah. Told you. Good idea. Jack the Dripper kicked butt. My champion."
A strange, toxic knot tightens directly behind my ribs. Wait… am I seriously getting possessive and fucking jealous over a thirteen-inch piece of pink silicone because she called it her champion?
Behind me, the dam breaks. My club brothers lose all fucking control, their booming, deep-chested laughter erupting and ringing loud against the narrow brick alleyway. I snap my head around, scowling viciously at the pack of them over my shoulder.
“Would you motherfuckers not encourage her?” I snap, my grip tightening on the shirt pressing into her leg.
“Wait. Is she fucking serious? Did she really fend off a goddamn attacker with that enormous thing?” Butcher asks, his face cracking into disbelief that mirrors my own.
Snow laughs, her shoulders shaking under Butcher’s oversized shirt. “She did. You all should have seen it. I don’t think he knew what the heck was happening. He was trying to tackle her, and she was swinging that thing like she was trying out for a pro baseball league. It was freaking glorious.”
“Fucking hell,” Pope groans, rubbing a heavy hand over his jaw as he looks down at us. “She fits into this crazy-ass chapter like she was born in the dirt here.”
Marigold sticks her tongue out at the President, her face turning a terrifying shade of translucent white, the stubborn, feral defiance in her eyes the only thing keeping her conscious.
“?χι μ?χρι να ζητ?σετε συγγν?μη που ε?στε βλ?ματα,” she rasps, the Greek syllables blurring together as the shock and pain start stealing her voice.
Pope stares at her, entirely blank, before throwing an unreadable look my way. “I’m assuming that wasn't an invitation to some charity bake sale.”
My fingers dug into her uninjured hip, a cocktail of protective worry and dark amusement flooding my veins.
“Not even close, Pres. She said not until you apologize for being goddamn idiots.” I pull Marigold’s focus back to me, my thumb wiping a smudge of dirt from her pale cheek.
“Your accent is getting messy, little shadow. Stop worrying about them and focus on me.”
She reaches up, her bloody fingers leaving a wet, dark smear across my cheekbone as she gives me a dazed, lopsided grin. “Ε?σαι κο?κλο?,” she chirps, the Greek vowels sounding soft and heavy, slurring around the edges as the blood loss starts to pull her under.
My heart skips a violent beat, the intensity focusing my vision faltering for just a fraction of a second.
“Is she insulting us again?” Pope says from behind me.
I don’t look back, but a ghost of a smile touches my lips.
“No. She’s just high on the adrenaline.” I lean closer, my mouth brushing the shell of her ear, my deep rumble meant only for her.
“Save the flirting for when you aren't leaking out, Goldie.” I look up at Pope. “Let’s get her loaded in the cage. Patch will meet us at the clubhouse. I don’t think it’s life-threatening, but she’s still lost more blood than I’m happy with. ”
Pope moves around to Marigold’s other side, squatting his massive frame down so he can lock his heavy gaze right with hers. “Know we got shit to work through, but you okay with me helping him load you up, sunshine?”
“Sure,” she croaks, her throat dry. “But first, you have to take this.” She clumsily thrusts Jack the Dripper forward, holding the massive thing out to the President. “Handle him with care. He gave a real beating tonight.” She snickers, a raspy, pain-filled sound. “Get it? Gave a real beating?”
The way Pope stares at the pink silicone, you’d think it was a live grenade.
He doesn’t know whether to be amused or horrified, which is completely fucking ridiculous considering he’s the same man who named his favorite execution axe Precious and sings nursery rhymes while he hacks people to pieces.
“Come on. Take it. Jack is used to pussy, so it’s okay,” Marigold says, her eyelids drooping, but the spark in her eyes dares him to react now that she’s hurled the insult straight at his face.
Oh, for the love of all things holy. Every muscle in my back tenses, my nervous system locking up as I wait to see if I’m going to have to kill the president of my own club in an alley tonight to protect my woman.
Instead, a booming laugh tears from Pope’s chest. He reaches out, wrapping his huge fist around the thing, and points it right at her nose. “You’re a fucking brat.”
He shoves it over to Malice, who takes the adult toy with a slow, wicked grin spreading across his face.
As Pope and I slide our arms under Marigold, lifting her with care so I can keep my weight clamped hard over the bleeding puncture in her thigh, Malice actually starts talking to the monstrous piece of silicone.
“I heard you did good tonight, friend,” Malice tells Jack the Dripper, lifting it up to eye level. “You look a little worn out after the beating you just gave.” Then he fist bumps the fucking thing. "We'll be besties. I love pussy, too."
A choking, protective squeak comes from Marigold as we settle her into the back of the cage. She glares at Malice through the open doors. “You leave him alone. He’s mine.”
Malice pouts, mocking her with a tragic sigh.
“I just thought he’d like his own spot on the shelf behind the bar.
I bet we can even get Scorch to stitch him his own little leather kutte.
” He cuts his eyes toward me, a grin pulling at his jaw.
“He’s officially part of the club now, right?
Since he saved your ol’ lady’s life and all that. ”
Marigold peers up at me from the floor of the truck, a sudden, bright hope bursting through the heavy haze of pain in her eyes. “Oh, please, Tomcat? Jack would really like that.”
But it’s Pope who answers her, his kutte creaking as his massive shoulders lift and fall. “Why the hell not?” He reaches out and pats the top of the dildo like a proud father. “Welcome to the family, Jack.”
I take in my brothers, my bleeding woman still roasting the president as she bleeds out, and a hot pink dildo being inducted into an outlaw motorcycle club, and something vast and warm surges through my chest. Something I can’t name yet.
Boring?
No, that word will never belong to my fucking family. That’s for damn sure.
While Patch was working to get Marigold’s stab wound stitched up, Cypher was digging through the CCTV cameras throughout Coral Cay where she was found, trying to see if we could identify her attacker.
Marigold hasn’t been able to give us much about the ambush since she’s been drifting in and out of it.
Snow said the motherfucker was wearing a balaclava, so she couldn’t get anything from his face except that he had dark brown eyes.
She confirmed the attacker was definitely male of average height and build.
Marigold is normally hyper-vigilant of her surroundings, which means she had to be heavily distracted by something when he was able to get the jump on her.
I just don’t know what the hell pulled her focus away.
But until we figure out where this threat is coming from and exactly who it is, I’m going to have a stern talk with her.
If she doesn’t want to drive her truck, fine, but she needs to at least be on her bike.
I wouldn’t fucking mind watching her ride again, anyway. The sight of her handling something that powerful, wrapping her thighs around a roaring engine, does some crazy, wicked shit to my head.
“Find anything?” I ask Cypher as I step into the dim security room.
He has his own customized setup going on the far side of the room, completely isolated away from the main monitors.
“Caught him on a few of them,” Cypher says, his fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard.
“He didn’t put the mask on until right before he hit her in the alley.
It would have drawn too much attention on the main strip otherwise.
I wasn’t able to see where he came from initially, but I sure as hell caught where he headed after the attack.
I’ve got the street cams continuously feeding into the server now. Keres is booting up.”