Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 37093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
“Nah. Not this time. I’m just buzzed enough to really look forward to seeing your reaction to my little surprise.”
I turned to Blaze. “He knows I hate surprises.”
“Yep.” Though Blaze knew how fine the control on my temper was most days, he looked like he was loving the anticipation as much as Wylde was.
“I may end up killin’ you both.”
Blaze shrugged. “Some things are just worth it.”
Granted, I had trouble reading people. I never got other people’s emotions. Hell, I had trouble with my own emotions. Expressing myself was difficult on the best of days. I’d given up trying to figure out everyone else a long fucking time ago. Usually, Wylde was with me to translate when I didn’t get something so whatever he knew was getting ready to happen would likely knock me on my ass. As far as people went, Wylde and Blaze were probably the only two who understood me. They just used that knowledge to torment me sometimes. Said it was their way of showing they cared.
Whatever.
I stood and stalked to the bar as whichever poor bastard on stage tried to hit a high note in Bohemian Rhapsody. So help me God, if I made it out of this with my sanity intact, I was gonna kill Wylde tomorrow. I wanted him to be completely sober so he could fully appreciate the pain he was going to experience before he begged me for death.
Another cup of black coffee was set in front of me, and the bartender gave me a slight nod as he winced at the same drunk singer on stage. I’d never fully appreciated the phrase “infernal caterwauling” before until tonight.
The song ended and there was a rousing round of applause. Probably because the song was over. “Thank fucking God,” I muttered into my cup as I took a sip. What I wouldn’t give to be called away on a mission. Or even to weapons testing for Shadow Demons. Mindless target practice wounded like heaven.
Then the next song started and I wanted to bang my head against the bar. Of course, that was before the singer opened her mouth to belt out the lyrics to a raucous country and rock hybrid.
She was fucking good, her voice a strong, sultry contralto with the perfect amount of rasp. I perked up, setting down my coffee and straining to see the small figure on stage. Me and everyone else. The bar, which had been moderately sedate, seemed to come alive and spark with excitement the second the music started.
The woman on stage engaged the crowd with her presence alone. Just looking at her, one would never be able to tell she had such a big voice. Not only that, but her charisma was off the fucking charts. She had every fucking horny-ass motherfucker in the fucking bar moving toward her. Some were whooping and hollering, singing the song with her like it was some rock anthem at a stadium concert. Some swung women around on the dance floor, but every single one of them was homing in on her. And the little witch looked disturbingly familiar.
As she danced on stage and flirted with the audience, I became aware I’d left the bar and was moving toward her myself. I’d love to say I was caught up in the moment, in the music and the spontaneity of it all. I’d love to say that. But the fact was, it was the woman. Her beauty and sexuality. Her passion for life and people. And I knew the little witch! How the fuck had she ended up here?
Odette Muse was trouble with a capital T-R-O-U-B-L-E. She was also the much younger half-sister of a man I knew when we were in the Air Force together. Last I heard, he still lived in Palm Beach, Florida, and rode with a club called Salvation’s Bane. I’d met Odette there where she was trying to sneak into the compound with a prospect she was way too good for. At sixteen she’d been a free spirit. In love with life and all the pleasures of the flesh, so to speak.
That had only been two years ago, but it was a memory that was clear as fucking crystal. I’d stopped her from fucking that prospect by dragging her back to her brother, but I had no doubt she’d found someone else. Hopefully a man more worthy of her beauty and passion. As well as closer to her own fucking age. Though now, at eighteen, I suppose it didn’t matter as much.
I clenched my fists as I made my way toward the stage like I was in a trance. Emotions were elusive for me. Things better left in a sealed box inside my mind. Not today. Rage like nothing I’d ever experienced poured through me like molten lava. Hot and viscous. It clung to my insides and seared me from the inside out as I watched other men watching her. Touching her when she danced near them as she sang fucking karaoke. I wasn’t good with emotions. Mine or anyone else’s. So this punch to the gut was as unwelcome as it was unexpected.