Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
SILAS
Late afternoon light spilled from the vast blue sky, blinking down through the leaves of the trees that grew so high against the road that they nearly touched overhead.
Beneath it, it felt like we might be traveling a passageway of peace.
The roar of the engine and the vibration of my Harley rolling through me like comfort.
A familiar caress for a hardened man.
All except for the fact that Brinley’s hot body was tucked tight against mine.
The woman had her arms locked around my waist and her shallow breaths were panted at the side of my cheek.
Scent of her all around.
Lulling me into a calm that I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
I knew better than to fall into the false security of it, though.
In my world, you didn’t get complacent. When you did, you ended up in a shallow grave somewhere deep in the forest. Nothing to show for your life but the bones pirated by the scavengers that sniffed out your decaying flesh.
Besides, this wasn’t a joy ride.
This was business.
Duty.
I had something significant to protect, and I wasn’t about to botch this job by getting stupid.
I kept the throttle steady as we rode by the industrial buildings near the property before Deer Creek Lane curved left and the road gave way to the family neighborhoods that hugged each side of the road.
My bike rising and dipping over the humps.
Brinley’s arms cinched tighter when we hit the height of each one, and I could only imagine her belly was plunging and soaring.
Both exhilarated and afraid.
I could feel each emotion radiate from her.
This ferocious woman with the faintest traces of vulnerability hidden right below the surface.
I slowed as we came to the T and made the right onto Crimson Creek Blvd, the main drag that cut through the small town.
Crimson Creek wasn’t big.
But it was quaint.
Cozy.
Tucked in the deepest part of the forest about two hours from the southern Oregon border.
I still wasn’t sure what’d possessed me to return here. This place haunted by ghosts and written in horrors. Memories so thick and chilling, each driven into my brain like an icepick.
Her voice still lingered on the breeze. At one with the trees as they swished overhead.
It’s your heart.
It was a simple statement and had seemed so simple then. Before that promise had become defiled by hate.
Most of Crimson Creek was spread out. Roads turning off and winding you down into the different neighborhoods. A cool restaurant, a motel, and some shops on the river.
But there was a congested area right in the middle built up with buildings and streets.
Most of them old but revamped.
It had a bit of an eclectic vibe. A ton of art galleries and quirky shops.
Before we made it to the center of it, I made a right at Crimson Creek’s only stoplight that led to the section of town that was less touristy.
A hardware store, some medical and professional offices, a couple of banks, a grocery store.
I slowed even more and slid into the lane to make a left into the drugstore.
My bike chugged low as it carried us through the parking lot and to an empty spot at the front, and I angled the metal around so I could use my feet to back us in.
My attention swept left and right to ensure nothing was amiss. To ensure I wasn’t recklessly hauling her out and making her a target.
Apparently, the only thing amiss was me.
I wondered if the residents here remembered me. If they knew exactly who we were and what had happened all those years ago. If our family had become gossip and speculation.
A faded headline that had come back to repeat itself. Nothing but a Dateline exposé.
Because every damned eye in the parking lot swung toward us.
Taking note of my presence.
Wary and unsure.
Whatever they remembered, the one thing they were certain of was that I’d brought trouble to their town.
Sticky fear slipping down their spines.
Didn’t really relish injecting it, but it was necessary.
My position commanded respect, and as much as they might like to think they were condemning me, I could still feel the most fundamental part of them bowing to me.
Killing the engine, I grabbed Brinley’s hand.
“Hop off.”
“I’m not sure I can walk after that.” Her breath was raspy and low and fuck, one sentence out of her mouth could trip a circuit in my brain.
I chuckled low. “That was four miles, not a cross-country trip.”
I could almost feel the roll of those harvest eyes. “I’m no biker, Silas Mercer.”
“No?” I said it like I hadn’t felt her shaking out of time during the whole ride.
“Not a scrap of leather in my closet.”
“Well, that is a shame. Guess we’ll have to rectify that.”
Horrible plan.
What she’d been prancing around in was bad enough.
Stunner on my property doing exactly that.
I couldn’t imagine what the sight of her clad in black lace and leather would do to me.
“I’m good, thank you.” Nothing but sass, this one. “Besides, I won’t be around long enough for that.”
Right.
The thought of it should bring relief, not that antsy feeling rising up in me again.
I beat it back, changed the subject as I gritted my teeth. “Keep those legs away from the exhaust pipe. It’s hot as fuck, and believe me when I tell you that you don’t want that kind of burn.”
She nodded in understanding then swung off, that skirt hiked up so high it gave me a peep of satiny white underwear.
Fuck me.
This temptress had to be doing it on purpose.
Maybe she was the demon in this whole scenario.
Pure succubus who’d been sent to distract me from the objective.
Ending the monsters who’d hurt my sister and uncountable others.
My only goal destroying their kind.
There would be no rest until they were extinct, and I still had no idea if her brother was going to come through or end up a casualty of that.
How badly would she hate me then?
I swung off and stood on my feet. “This way.”
I gestured for her to go ahead of me.
Another terrible idea but one that was necessary.
I needed to be able to keep an eye in every direction of her.
Watching who was out ahead all while being a writhing, human shield from behind.
A virtual catastrophe since it meant those hips were sashaying back and forth, right in my line of sight.
Hypnotizing.
Fisting my hands, I inhaled a breath and forced my attention up where it belonged.
The double doors swished open as we approached, and the second she was inside, Brinley turned and cut through the store, heading to the cosmetics and self-care at the back.
She went directly for the hair products, scanning before she picked up a bottle to inspect its ingredients.
I peered over her shoulder.
Heat protectant and detangler.
“Are you shitting me?”
She flung half her body around, wide-eyed and innocent. “What?”
“You demanded someone take you into town so you could buy hair detangler?”
On all things holy, she might be worse than Elena. At least she hadn’t beelined to the glitter section.
I figured she’d started her period or some shit, and we were on a tampon run.
“Have you seen my hair?” She said it like she was suffering a tragedy. “These curls are impossible.”
She flicked one over her shoulder as evidence.
She was what was impossible.
But she didn’t know.
Had no real clue that every time she stepped out of the shelter of the club, she was taking a risk.
Yeah, I warned her.
But unless you were in the thick of it?
Unless you’d seen it firsthand?
You couldn’t quite fully grasp it.
Didn’t mean I wasn’t irritated as fuck.
“You heard of this little thing called delivery?”
Brinley huffed. “I haven’t had my detangler for two mornings in a row, and I’m afraid if I go one more day, the only option left will be to cut it off.”
On second thought, this was an emergency.
I had to stop myself from reaching and twining my finger around one of the wild, wayward locks.
Those curls were honestly a hot mess.
A riot of brown woven with those reds and golds.
A thousand times worse—or better, however you wanted to look at it—since she’d been on the back of my bike.
“Guess that won’t do, now, will it?” My voice went low and gruff.
Severity arced between us, and something shifted in her gaze.
Confusion and flickers of need.
Did she feel it?
The attraction that buzzed across my flesh?
Funny how you always wanted the things you couldn’t have.
“My mom’s hair was just like this,” she suddenly whispered, vulnerability slipping into the words. “I’ve been growing it for years.”
That fierce veil dropped for a beat, and it allowed a river of sorrow to flood through.
Fuck.
I knew that kind of pain.
Knew that she was talking about her mother in the past tense.
Knew the gutting sense of missing something that you were never going to get back.
My throat felt too fucking thick, and I had no clue what was happening to me. “I bet she was beautiful.”
Brinley’s face pinched in an old sort of agony. “There was no one like her.”
“There was no one like my mother, either.” Couldn’t believe that I gave her that when I never mentioned my mother to anyone but my family, and even with them, the words were brutal.
Dispatched like tragedy and grief.
A moment was held between us. Something like understanding and camaraderie passing in the bare, shivery space.
Then she blinked frantically and turned away, rushed as she grabbed two more bottles.
“I think I’m ready.” It was a rasp of her own tragedy and grief.
I stepped back, giving her space because I was in dire need of it, too.
Had no clue what it was about her.
Why this stranger, this woman who was under my charge and my protection, had me twisted up the way she did.
She was so off-limits, touching her would be no less than a religious desecration.
The oath I made to Dereck a badge of my loyalty.
Not that the twat deserved it, but Brinley did.
But it was the oath made to my family and crew that mattered.
She was collateral.
Resource and reserve.
A down payment that her piece of shit brother would come through.
And going there would be treachery.