Chapter 5 - Blade
I kneel before her, examining the scratches that crisscross her thighs.
Some are shallow. Mere surface abrasions from branches and thorns.
Others are deeper, angry red lines where barbed wire or something similarly vicious caught and tore her skin.
She must have been running blind through that forest, desperate enough not to care what stood in her path.
"This will sting," I warn her, lifting the hem of the boxers higher to access a particularly nasty gash.
She doesn't flinch as I clean the first wound, though I know the antiseptic burns like hell. Tough little thing. Or maybe just too exhausted to react.
Why the fuck am I doing this?
The question circles my mind as I clean each cut. This isn't me. I don't play nurse to strays. I'm the guy the club calls when someone needs to be hurt, not healed. Yet here I am, on my knees before a woman I found on the roadside, tending wounds like I give a shit.
Reaper's face when I said she'd stay in my room flashes through my memory. That mixture of surprise and suspicion. Can't blame him. In all the years I've been with the Outlaw Order, I've never once brought a woman back to my room. The club has plenty of empty beds.
We keep rooms ready for visiting members or for when someone needs to crash after a party. Kelly could have taken any one of them.
Or Evelyn could have handled this. Reaper's old lady knows how to deal with traumatized women. She was one not so long ago. But the thought of handing Kelly over to anyone else, even Evelyn, sets my teeth on edge. And that makes no fucking sense.
I tell myself it's strategy. She's our only lead on Charles's location. After two days of dead ends, she literally fell into our laps, wearing a fucking wedding dress no less. If anyone's going to get that information out of her, it should be me. I found her. She's my responsibility.
But responsibility doesn't explain the possessive heat that flared in my gut when she stood before Reaper and Ghost, ready to pull her behind me if anything went sideways.
It sure as hell doesn't explain why I'm still on my knees, wiping blood from the thighs of a woman who's practically a stranger.
"You don't have to do this," Kelly says quietly, breaking into my thoughts. "I can take care of it myself."
I look up, meeting her blue eyes. They're clearer now after her shower, less wild with fear and exhaustion, though dark circles underneath betray how tired she still is.
"I know," I reply, returning to my task. I don't offer further explanation. I don't have one that makes any sense.
Her skin is soft beneath my rugged fingers, pale and unmarked except for these fresh wounds.
The contrast of her smooth flesh against my scarred, tattooed hands is stark.
I shouldn't be touching her at all. Women like her—young, beautiful, untouched by the violence that defines my existence—they don't belong in my world.
Except she has been touched by violence, hasn't she? Running from a forced marriage to a biker, witnessing four deaths tonight without breaking. There's steel in her that doesn't match her delicate appearance.
"Almost done," I mutter, reaching for the antibiotic ointment.
The boxers have ridden up dangerously high on her thighs as I've worked, and I'm suddenly acutely aware of how close my hands are to parts of her I have no business thinking about.
She makes a small sound—not quite pain, not quite something else—as I spread the ointment over a particularly deep cut high on her inner thigh. My fingers freeze.
"Sorry," I say, pulling back slightly.
"It's fine," she says quickly. Too quickly. Her cheeks are flushed, and it's not from pain.
Well, shit.
I finish as efficiently as possible, trying to ignore the way her breathing has changed, slightly faster now, or how the pulse at her throat visibly quickens when my fingers brush sensitive skin.
This is not happening. I'm not going to complicate an already fucked-up situation by getting hard over a woman who just escaped sexual slavery.
Because that's what it was, wasn't it? Dressed up as a "marriage," but the endgame was the same. Owning her, using her, breaking her.
The thought kills any inappropriate response my body might have been considering. I close the first aid kit with more force than necessary and stand.
"You should sleep," I tell her, putting distance between us. "Take the bed. I'll be in the main room."
She looks surprised. "You're not staying?"
"No."
Her eyebrows draw together. "But won't your president be suspicious if you're not keeping an eye on me?"
"I'll be right outside. You try to leave, I'll know."
She doesn't seem reassured by this. If anything, she looks more uneasy than before. "What if they come back? The Vultures MC."
"They won't."
"They found us on the road," she points out. "They could find us here."
She's not wrong, but I'm not about to tell her that. The Vultures MC have been getting bolder, pushing deeper into our territory. That's why I was out patrolling in the first place.
"This place is a fortress compared to that warehouse," I say instead. "And there are always armed men awake. You're safe here."
The word "safe" seems to trigger something in her. Her eyes fill suddenly with tears she quickly blinks away, but not before I catch the glimmer of them.
"I haven't been safe in a long time," she whispers, almost to herself.
Something twists in my chest, an unfamiliar sensation I immediately try to shut down. I don't do sympathy. I don't do comfort. I'm the club's weapon, not its fucking therapist.
But before I can stop myself, I'm sitting beside her on the bed, not touching, but close enough that she could lean into me if she wanted to.
"I killed the men who were hunting you tonight," I remind her, my voice low and steady. "I'll kill anyone else who tries. You have my word on that."
She looks at me then, her blue eyes searching mine like she's trying to read something written there. "Why? You don't even know me."
It's a good fucking question. One I've been asking myself since I stopped my bike on that dark road.
"You were running from Vultures MC," I say finally. "That makes you either very brave or very stupid. Either way, you're now a problem for Charles. I like causing problems for Charles."
It's not the whole truth, but it's the only part I'm willing to share right now.
She seems to accept it, nodding slightly. "Thank you. For stopping. For helping me. For..." she gestures to her now-bandaged legs. "This."
"Don't thank me yet," I warn her. "Tomorrow, Reaper's going to want answers about Charles's operation. Everything you know about where they're based, how many men, what kind of weapons. If you can't deliver, or if he thinks you're lying..." I let the implication hang.
"I understand," she says, and I believe she does. "I'll tell him everything I know. I want them stopped as much as you do. My sister is still with them."
Right. The sister. The complication she mentioned earlier. A sister still in Charles's clutches changes things. Makes Kelly both more valuable and more vulnerable.
"Get some sleep," I say, standing. "Morning comes early around here."
She nods but makes no move to lie down. "What's your real name?" she asks suddenly.
I pause, halfway to the door. No one has asked me that in years. In the club, I'm just Blade. It's who I am, all I need to be.
"Marcus," I answer, surprising myself. "Marcus Davidson."
"Marcus," she repeats softly, testing the name. It sounds strange in her mouth, like she's talking about someone else entirely. Someone who isn't me.
"No one calls me that," I tell her. "It's Blade. Just Blade."
She nods, accepting this. "Goodnight, Blade."
I grunt in response and leave before I can do anything else unexpected, like tell her more about myself or, worse, stay.
The door closes behind me with a definitive click. I stand in the hallway for a moment, listening. After a few seconds, I hear the creak of the mattress as she finally lies down. Good. She needs the rest, and I need... space. Distance. Perspective.
I head to the main room, unsurprised to find Reaper still at the bar, now alone. Ghost must have gone to bed. Reaper looks up as I approach, pushing a shot glass of whiskey toward me without a word.
I take it, tossing it back in one swallow, welcoming the burn.
"Where's Ace?" I ask, setting the empty glass down.
"Sent him to bed. Kid was dead on his feet after pulling a double watch." Reaper studies me as he pours me another shot. "You want to tell me what the fuck you're doing?"
I don't pretend to misunderstand. "She's a lead on Charles. First real one we've had."
"That’s why you offered your room instead of putting her in one of the empty ones?"
I shrug, downing the second shot. "Made sense to keep her close. Keep an eye on her."
"Bullshit." Reaper's voice is calm but firm. "In all the years we’ve known each other, I've never seen you give a shit about anyone outside the club. Now suddenly you're bringing home strays in wedding dresses and letting them wear your cut?"
He noticed that. Of course he did. Nothing gets past Reaper.
"It was cold," I say flatly. "She was shivering."
Reaper snorts. "Try again."
I meet his gaze, feeling a flash of irritation. "What do you want me to say? That I've gone soft? That I'm thinking with my dick? Neither is true."
"Then what is true?"
I consider the question, genuinely trying to find an answer that makes sense. "She's different," I finally say. "She watched me kill two men tonight and didn't fall apart. Helped me dump a car with two more bodies in it. Most civilians would be catatonic after that shit."
Reaper nods slowly. "So, she's tough. Still doesn't explain why you've suddenly developed a protective streak."
"I don't know, alright?" The admission comes out harsher than I intended. "There's something about her. Something... familiar."
Understanding dawns in Reaper's eyes. "She reminds you of yourself. Before the club."
I don't answer, which is answer enough. Reaper is one of the few people who knows anything about my past. The orphanage, the foster homes, the violence that shaped me long before I found the brotherhood of the MC.
"Just be careful," he says after a moment. "If she really was supposed to marry one of Charles's men, this could get messy fast. And if she's lying..." He doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't need to.
"I know." I push the empty glass away. "I'll handle it."
Reaper nods, accepting this. "Get some sleep. We'll talk to her in the morning."
I should go crash on one of the couches in the common room or take an empty bed in the dorms. But as I walk away from the bar, my feet carry me back toward my room—toward Kelly.
I tell myself I'm just checking on her. Making sure she's actually sleeping and not snooping through my shit or trying to contact someone. It's reasonable. Prudent, even.
But when I quietly open the door and see her curled on my bed, her blonde hair spread across my pillow and her face finally peaceful in sleep, I know I'm lying to myself.
I close the door and sit in the chair across from the bed, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. I'll just stay for a few minutes, I tell myself. Just to make sure she's really asleep.
I don't examine why the sight of her in my bed, wearing my clothes, stirs something possessive and primal in me. Why I'm suddenly willing to risk Reaper's suspicion to keep her close. Why I gave her my real name when no one has called me Marcus for over a decade.
Some questions are better left unasked. Especially when you're afraid of the answers.