Chapter Fifteen
Firestride
Sitting in the velvet booth at Dead Intention’s, Rapid City’s newest high-class strip club, I watched as Honey danced before me, one hand holding onto the brass pole, while her other hand grabbed her breast and squeezed hard as she gyrated her pelvis against the pole.
The music pumped all around, canceling out the patrons in the other room.
Yet the music and Honey did little to stop the war going on in my head.
Why did I fucking kiss her?
Grimacing, I shifted in my seat, and Honey smiled, her hand trailing down her trim body to rub her naked pussy. I watched as she dipped a finger between her wet folds and then brought her finger up to her lips before she sucked it into her mouth, moaning.
“What the hell are you thinking, brother?” Cerberus’ voice, a low growl from beside me, broke through the haze of my thoughts.
He gestured with his chin towards Honey, her routine now a blur of cheap desperation.
I grimaced, the sight of her doing little to quell the tempest in my gut.
It was Kyllian, her defiance, her sheer refusal to be broken, that had consumed me.
Morpheus had warned me; Cerberus had warned me, but I hadn’t listened to either of them. I’d played with fire, and now I was getting burned, but it wasn’t just my own skin that felt the heat.
“She’s a liability, man,” Cerberus continued, his eyes narrowed, tracking my own gaze toward the exit. “Morpheus is going to have your head if this blows up in our faces. You know how he is about loose ends.”
He was right, of course. I knew the rules.
I knew the consequences of letting personal feelings interfere with club business. But every time I thought of Kyllian, of her fire and her brokenness, something inside me shifted, something I couldn’t control.
She wasn’t just collateral anymore; she was becoming a complication I couldn’t afford to ignore.
I downed my whiskey, the burn doing little to numb the cold dread that was settling in.
“I know,” I admitted, my voice rougher than I intended.
“My advice, brother, is fuck the stripper until you get that bitch out of your system. It’s the only fucking way, and you know it.”
“I know.”
Slapping me on my back, Cerberus waved Honey over as he got to his feet, handing her a wad of large bills. “Fuck my brother good and make sure he forgets.”
Grinning from ear to ear, Honey smiled. “No problem, Cerberus. I’ll make sure he doesn’t even remember his name.”
A low growl rumbled in my chest, a protest against the familiar dance of manufactured desire.
Honey was good; I’d always admit that. But she was a pale imitation of the storm that raged inside me.
The scent of cheap perfume and desperation clung to her, a stark contrast to the wild, untamed fragrance that Kyllian carried.
I pushed her away, the whiskey bottle in my hand offering little comfort against the sense of uneasiness swirling in my gut. Morpheus was right. I was playing with fire, and the flames were licking at my resolve, threatening to consume me entirely.
“I’m not in the mood tonight, Honey,” I growled, my words rough with a weariness that had nothing to do with lack of sleep.
She batted her eyelashes, her practiced smile faltering, a flicker of confusion in her eyes.
She was good at her job, damn good, but she wasn’t Kyllian.
She couldn’t compete with the tempest that had taken root inside me, a storm that only seemed to grow with every passing day.
Dropping to her knees, she ran her hands over my thighs before moving to slowly unbuckle my belt.
“You’ve got to let me try, baby. I promised Cerberus I’d make it real good for you.
” She smiled as she removed my flaccid cock.
Leaning down, I didn’t stop her when her mouth sucked the head, igniting a flicker of something dangerous deep within me.
The raw power of Honey’s submission, the blatant disregard for my own desires, was a potent, intoxicating elixir.
Yet, even as a flicker of something akin to lust sparked within me, the image of Kyllian’s defiant eyes, her raw vulnerability, flashed through my mind, a stark reminder of the storm she’d ignited.
Honey offered me an escape, a simple, uncomplicated pleasure that felt like a betrayal.
Kyllian, on the other hand, was a tangled mess of righteous fury and a terrifying glimpse of a future I’d desperately tried to avoid—a future where I wasn’t just the victor, but the one who could also be broken.
She was trouble, alright. A dangerous, destabilizing force that threatened to unravel every carefully constructed wall I’d built.
A distraction I couldn’t afford, not when Kyllian’s survival, and my own carefully cultivated peace, depended on my absolute focus.
Yet, the insistent, undeniable urge clawed at me, a primal need that whispered of oblivion, of forgetting Kyllian’s accusing gaze, her pain.
Leaning my head back against the booth, I closed my eyes, the scent of her cloying and too sweet as Honey sucked my cock deep into her hot mouth, and for a fleeting, shameful moment, I allowed myself to sink into the oblivion.
But even as the sensations began to flood my senses, a cold dread seeped in, the chilling certainty that this fleeting release was a capitulation, a surrender to the very weakness I despised, a betrayal of Kyllian and the precarious balance I was trying to maintain.
I knew, even as my body responded, that this would be a choice I would carry, a stain on my resolve.
The shame of it all washed over me, a bitter wave that threatened to drown me. Cerberus’ words, Morpheus’ warnings— they all echoed in my head, a cacophony of accusations.
I was playing with fire, and I was getting burned.
Kyllian was the complication, the instability I couldn’t afford, but she was also the only thing that felt real in this manufactured world of leather and loyalty. Her defiance, her refusal to be broken, had ignited something within me, a dangerous spark I couldn’t extinguish.
Honey’s mouth was a practiced instrument, her ministrations efficient, but devoid of the raw, untamed energy that Kyllian radiated. It was a performance, a hollow imitation of the storm that raged within me.
I knew, even as my body chased this fleeting oblivion, that I was surrendering to the very weakness I despised. For a moment, the fragile balance I so desperately tried to maintain tipped. However, when Honey straddled me, and sank her hot pussy onto my cock, I fucking knew there was no going back.
I was Firestride.
The Sergeant at Arms in the Brotherhood of Bastards.
I was a Bastard to the core and would die a Bastard like my father before me, and God have mercy on my soul.
For days, I followed Cerberus’ orders and fucked every pussy he shoved in my face. If I wasn’t fucking, I was drinking; if I wasn’t drinking, I was fighting. By day five, I couldn’t do it anymore.
“It didn’t work, Cerberus,” I said, my voice rough, defeated. I watched the building, the same damn building I’d been watching for days, waiting for Jessup to show his ugly mug. “I can’t forget her. She’s... she’s like a goddamn drug.”
Cerberus sighed, the plume of smoke from his cigarette momentarily obscuring his face.
“I know, brother. Called Morpheus. He wasn’t happy, but he agreed to let it play out.
He still thinks you’re making a huge fucking mistake, though.
” He took a long drag, his eyes fixed on the same spot mine was, the same building that held the bitch Jessup had been fucking lately, hoping the fucker would show up.
“Just remember where your loyalty lies, brother.”
Loyalty.
It was a word that had always been etched in stone, a fundamental truth of the Brotherhood.
But Kyllian... she was chipping away at that stone, revealing something raw and real beneath the granite exterior.
Something I couldn’t afford to acknowledge, couldn’t afford to feel.
But the thought of her, trapped, defiant, and so goddamn beautiful, had burrowed its way under my skin, a constant, gnawing ache.
“She’s not collateral anymore, is she?” Cerberus’ voice was low, laced with a weariness that mirrored my own. He knew. He saw the war raging inside me, the battle between the club and the woman who had somehow found a way past my defenses.
“No,” I admitted, my word a harsh rasp in the quiet night. “She’s not.”
“Then what is she?”
“Mine.”
That one word hung between us, heavy and undeniable.
Kyllian Ward was no longer a debt to be collected; she was mine.
The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow.
It was a truth I could no longer deny, no matter how much I tried to bury it under whiskey and meaningless sex.
The fire in her eyes, the defiance that burned so brightly, had ignited a fire in me, a dangerous blaze I couldn’t control.
I was a Bastard, a man carved from the same harsh granite as this unforgiving landscape.
Loyalty and survival were the only currencies I knew.
But Kyllian, my kitten with claws, had somehow clawed her way past the granite, into the raw, untamed heart of me.
She was trouble, pure and simple, a complication I couldn’t afford, not with the Brotherhood’s code etched into my very bones.
But the thought of her, vulnerable and defiant, a pawn in a game she never asked to play, ignited something fierce and protective within me.
Cerberus whistled into the night, a low, knowing sound that seemed to acknowledge the shift.
“Brotherhood’s never had an old lady before.
Not sure how the brothers will handle it.
” He took another drag from his cigarette, his gaze fixed on the distant Black Hills, a silent acknowledgment of the precarious balance I was about to disrupt.
“They can get on board, or they can deal with me. Not walking away from her.”
“She’s still married.”
“Not for long,” I growled as we both heard a bike turn the corner, then roll to a stop at the curb.
Jessup motherfucking Winston.
“About fucking time,” Cerberus groaned, flicking his cigarette on the ground. “My ass was going numb waiting for that fucker. Let’s grab the son of a bitch and get the hell out of here. I want to sleep in my own bed tonight.”