Prologue
Wild Like
the Wind
Chaos Series
By Kristen Ashley
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Prologue
You’ll Never Be Alone
Seventeen years ago…
“Do you have anything to say?”
Hound stood in the line with his brothers of the Chaos
Motorcycle Club, staring at the man kneeling before them, waiting for him to
say something just so they could end this.
There were four drums of fire dancing at the corners of the
grouping. Outside of the moon, that fire was the only thing lighting the
clearing. It danced on the man in front of them and on the pine trees
surrounding him.
There was nothing but nature out there for miles all around.
And no sound but the fire crackling and the men who were
talking.
“Go fuck yourself,” the man on his knees spat, literally.
The words coming out of his mouth included spittle that Hound could see, even
by firelight, was tinted with blood.
His face was a mangled mess because he’d been held with his
arms behind his back while each brother took a one-two punch, every one of them
packed with power, all the power they could muster.
And with their motivation, they’d each been able to pack a
lot of power.
Hound was the only one who’d snuck in a third punch, right
to the kidneys.
It was the first but not the last time the man had chucked
up blood.
His eyes were swelling shut, his mouth dripping blood, the
flesh on his cheeks opened up.
His condition meant he was listing. On his knees because he
was forced there, keeping his position probably because he didn’t have the
strength to get up.
This wasn’t about the beating he’d taken from his
ex-brothers.
It was that he’d taken the slice of each brother’s blade
carved deep through his back.
This was Tack’s idea, and Hound and every brother that stood
with him supported it.
It was about obliterating their mark on his back that
claimed him brother.
In the rare event a man renounced the Club, he blacked out
the Chaos tattoo inked on his back.
If a man played traitor to the brotherhood, by the brothers’
hands that tat would be scorched off.
This man in front of them had not renounced the Club.
He had not simply played traitor to it.
He’d betrayed it in a way none of them would have expected.
A way none of them could allow to go unavenged.
He’d stabbed a brother in the back, figuratively.
But that brother was gone all the same, because the man
right there on his knees had ordered the hit.
Therefore he’d taken their blades for two reasons.
An eye for Chaos was not for an eye.
It was for your pound of flesh.
Stab Chaos in the back, that’s returned.
And then some.
The man kneeling before Hound and all the brothers of the
Chaos MC now had a mangled face and a back that was nothing but opened pulp of
bloody flesh.
And very soon he would be what he’d made Black.
Gone.
Hound shifted on his feet, impatient, when their new
president, Tack, pushed, “That’s all you got to say?”
“Suck my dick,” the man on his knees replied.
He was known as Crank.
He’d been their president. Their leader. The man who had
sworn to honor his brothers. Respect them above all else.
Protect them, even if it meant giving his life to do it.
And for his own greed and pride, not one fucking thing to do
with the brotherhood, he’d brought Black low.
Hound’s eyes shifted to Tack as he moved closer to Crank.
“You were Chaos, we were you,” Tack said quietly.
It took some effort, but Crank hocked up a loogie and spat it at Tack’s boots. It didn’t hit its mark
but it said what he wanted to say.
Hound shifted impatiently again, feeling his jaw tighten.
“You were Black, he was you,” Tack continued, speaking low.
Hound felt that in his throat and swallowed hard to wash it
away.
“Fuck you,” Crank whispered.
“You ordered your own death by ordering his,” Tack told him
something he had to know, but even if they hadn’t made that clear in the
proceedings, he knew it before.
What he did could not stand.
Not even out there in the other world, the world not owned
and run by Chaos.
But in their world, retribution for what he did was not
swift and it had only one end.
“Motherfucker,” Crank hissed. “You killed Black, and you
fucking know it.”
Hound growled, his eyes cutting to Tack to see his jaw go
hard, which meant his brother took that in.
All the boys started to get restless.
“Order the fire!” Hound bellowed.
“You’ve been gagging for the gavel since you were a
recruit,” Crank bit off to Tack. “It was you that put Black where he is.”
“We are not what you made us,” Tack replied.
“We’re outlaws,” Crank shot back.
“We are not what you made us,” Tack returned.
Crank swung his torso back and asked sarcastically, “Yeah,
right, so I’m gonna walk away from this?”
“No. You. Are. Not,” Tack stated deliberately, his face
changing from pensive to hostile. “Because we’re,” he leaned in toward Crank, “outlaws.
But we’re also,” he leaned farther forward, “brothers.” He leaned back
and took a step away, ordering, “Get to your feet.”
“You take out a man down on his knees, it’s as pussy as
you’re gonna make my Club, so I’ll make that
statement for you since you’ll be taking me out on my knees.”
“Face your death on your feet,” Tack urged.
“Blow me,” Crank clipped.
Tack took a moment to study him.
Then he muttered, “Your call.”
After that, he walked back, taking his place in the line.
The men went from restless to wired.
Tack felt it and didn’t waste any more time. He couldn’t. If
someone jumped the gun, this would not be what Tack needed it to be, what the
brothers needed it to be.
For Tack, it wasn’t about one man taking the right to
vengeance from the others.
For Tack, it was about one man shouldering the burden of the
end of a human being, even if that being was a man as lowdown dirty, useless
and an absolute waste of space as Crank.
They would do it as one.
They would do it as a band of brothers.
That was who Kane “Tack” Allen was.
That was where he was guiding Chaos.
“Brother Crank,” Tack called out. “You’ve been found guilty
of a crime against the brotherhood, the worst of its kind, the betrayal of a
brother. Your patch has been stripped. You’ll rot without the mark of Chaos on
your back. Your final sentence is execution. You’ve had your chance to speak.
You’ve got five seconds to take your feet before you meet your maker.”
In the end, unable to do it on his knees, Crank struggled up
to his feet.
“Ready!” Tack shouted.
All the men lifted their guns and pointed them at Crank.
But when Hound took aim, his focus was not on Crank.
He was looking at Crank, but everything he had in him was
focused on Tack.
So the minute the first sound from the first letter came out
when Tack boomed, “Fire!” Hound was already squeezing the trigger.
It was a nanosecond before any of his brothers, all who did
the same, pulled theirs.
But Hound knew it was his bullet that was the first that
penetrated Crank.
And it did this right through his eye.
This made Hound happy.
Later that night, which was the early hours of the
morning, Hound was with Tack when they went to the house. He was one of five
men with him—Hop, Boz, Dog, Brick, and Hound. They were all, Hound knew, in
consideration for being Tack’s lieutenants.
For Hound, who was young, this consideration was an extreme
honor.
Still.
Hound did not want this.
He had another position in the Club, now more than ever.
And he needed to be free to focus on it.
But he went anyway.
He had to.
For him, there was no other choice.
Tack knocked on the door and she didn’t make them wait. She
probably hadn’t slept in weeks. But she’d know to be waiting for this.
Because she was Chaos.
When she opened it, Hound felt the sight of her hit him like
a punch in the throat.
It wasn’t about her beauty, which was extreme.
A sheet of black hair that glistened like silk. Lush
features that stamped plain her American lineage was either native or seriously
exotic. Body, long and lean. Tits, firm and high. Ass, round and sweet. Skin,
smooth and tanned.
Hound had rounded the Compound years ago in order to dump a
spent keg back there and caught Black fucking his then fiancé, now widow,
against the back wall. Before he’d backed away silently, he’d seen that
beautiful face in orgasm and he’d never forgotten it.
But it was before that when he’d taken the fall for Keely
Black.
So now it was not about her beauty, that punch in the
throat.
Now it was about the dead in her eyes, the grief carved in
her features in a way each brother knew, Hound especially with the attention
he’d given her, she’d not put the effort in to smoothing it out.
She’d met, fallen in love with, married and given two sons
to the only man on earth that was good enough for her.
Now he was dead.
And she might be breathing, but she was the same.
“Where are the boys, honey?” Tack murmured.
“Asleep,” Keely replied, her unusual, low, smooth voice even
on that one word slithering through the air like a ripple of velvet.
She knew the drill and moved out of the way as Tack moved
in.
Hop, Boz, Dog, Brick and Hound moved in after her. Each man
took time with her, stopping, touching her, pressing lips to her forehead,
stubbled cheeks to her smooth one.
Not Hound.
He stopped in front of her and looked down into her
dark-brown eyes.
She stared up in his.
I’d take his place if I could, he thought.
But he said nothing.
He just followed his brothers and walked into her living
room.
Keely followed him, and after Hound stopped by Brick, Tack
spoke.
“It’s done.”
For a second, Hound didn’t know if she heard him.
Then she asked, “It is?”
“It is, darlin’,” Tack said gently. “Black has been
avenged.”
He hadn’t, Hound thought. Not yet. Not fully.
But he will be.
“Now what?” Keely asked, and Hound reckoned he was giving
her all of his attention, but at that question he realized he was wrong.
“We—” Tack started.
“I don’t care about Chaos,” she cut him off.