Page 22 of Heresy (The Lost Gospels #1)

SIXTEEN

A WALK THROUGH HELL

HEX

H er touch is a live wire on my skin. Not fear, not seduction.

Just a calm, clinical competence that I don't know how to fight. It’s a foreign language, and it’s screaming at me.

Every ghost I carry—Abel's betrayal, Cain's hatred, the weight of the crown—rises up in a tidal wave of pure, agonizing noise.

The control I've spent a lifetime building shatters into a million pieces.

I am a man drowning, and she is the only solid thing in the storm.

My hand locks on her wrist. A groan is torn from my throat, the sound of a beast breaking its own leash.

I turn, pinning her against the bar, the scent of her, of my own blood, of whiskey, filling my head.

I kiss her, not to dominate, but to silence the screaming in my own skull.

It's a desperate, punishing act. I lift her onto the bar.

She is the anchor. She is the eye of my hurricane.

The quiet, defiant center of my own personal hell.

I enter her with a single, hard thrust.

A choked gasp is torn from her throat, a sound of pain that the king in me registers as victory, but the man drowning barely hears.

I hold still, buried deep inside her, my eyes squeezed shut.

I want to be rough, unrelenting, to fuck her like I've fantasized, to punish her for the weakness she's unearthed in me.

But my body won't obey. I stay cautious, my mind screaming, next time.

Next time she'll be ready for something that brutal.

Her body is so small under mine, so frail and breakable. God, I could break her. I want to.

But her hands, instead of fighting, tentatively wrap around my neck. Her hips give a slight, involuntary shift beneath me. The invitation, however small, is more than I can handle. My control snaps.

I withdraw and surge in deeper, the movement agonizingly drawn out. Her mouth flies open in a silent gasp. I am maybe halfway inside, and her wet, tight grip is killing me. I need more.

"Kiss me," I growl, the words a raw demand.

She doesn't need a second order. The spirit I saw in the alley returns. She throws herself forward, her mouth ravaging mine, her legs wrapping around my waist. My cock buries itself inside her to the hilt, and I drink in her scream, holding still for a deadlocked moment.

"Did I hurt you?" I whisper against her lips, my own voice hoarse.

"Y-Yes." The word is a broken sob.

"Good," I grind out. "It wouldn't have been right if I didn't."

Tears escape from her closed eyes, such beautiful, defiant tears.

I begin to move, deep and slow, rubbing over her clit, soaking in her reactions.

It isn't until she is arching against me, her nails tearing into the skin of my back, that I finally let go.

The stinging has me going faster. Harder.

I bite against the brand on her shoulder, and she grows louder, not in pain, but in something else, something I refuse to name.

I begin fucking her right. Fucking her like I wanted.

My fingers bury in her hair on both sides of her head, and I grip hard, slamming into her with everything I have.

The screams and spasms that shake her body are the purest, most powerful drug I’ve ever experienced.

It sinks its hooks into my obsession and douses it with something new—something so strong, it's all I can feel.

"You feel this," I snarl, my mouth at her ear. "Tell me you feel this."

"I do," she chokes out.

My toes curl, my body rigid as I drive into her mercilessly. The suction of her mouth on my neck, the raking against my back… it is ecstasy. It has been so long, and she isn't just anyone; she is the splinter, the ghost, the only thing. Years of restraint are coming down to this moment.

"I see you, Vera," I whisper, the words a final, possessive claim. "I've got you."

Her broken cry as her orgasm hits is the final blow to my control.

The last wall inside me crumbles to dust. A raw, guttural groan is ripped from my own throat as my release tears through me.

My hips buck in a final, frantic rhythm as I flood her, hot and thick, each pulse a separate detonation, a branding iron searing my claim deep inside her.

My vision whites out at the edges. The world dissolves.

There is no club, no war, no ghosts—only the scrape of her nails on my skin, the scent of her, the feel of her body convulsing around mine.

For this single, terrifying moment, the king is dead, the monster is unchained, and even he is dissolving into the storm.

The storm breaks. The last tremor of my release fades, and the white-hot haze in my mind recedes, leaving behind the cold, gray ash of what I've just done. I can feel the frantic, slick beat of my own heart, the sting of her nails in my back, the wetness of her tears against my neck.

And I am horrified. The vulnerability, the raw, desperate need , is replaced by a wave of pure, chilling self-loathing. I didn't just lose control. I annihilated it. And I let her see it.

I have to sever this. Now. I have to put the king back on the throne.

I pull out of her with a single, abrupt motion and shove her away. She stumbles back against the bar, a mess of torn clothing and stunned, tear-streaked confusion. She looks at me, her dark eyes wide and searching, and I see a flicker of dangerous understanding. She saw the crack in my armor.

I can't let her keep that knowledge. I have to shatter it.

"Don't ever think that meant anything," I spit, my voice a cold, vicious snarl. "You're a convenience. Nothing more."

I turn my back on her, a final, brutal dismissal. I see one of the prospects, the scared kid from her cell, frozen by the doorway to the back hall. I point a single, trembling finger at her, my voice a low command that brooks no argument.

"Get her out of my sight. Back to the cell. Now."

The prospect flinches but nods, immediately moving to do as he's told. I don't watch. I need another focus, an anchor, something to pull me out of the storm of my own making. I need to be the President again.

My gaze lands on the same prospect. "What's the word on Crusher?" I ask, my voice hard, all business, referring to the brother who was carried in earlier.

The kid looks startled by the shift in topic. "Doc's with him, Prez. He's stable."

It's not enough. I need to see it. I need to perform the duties of the man I'm supposed to be, not the animal I just was.

"I'll see for myself," I say, and stalk toward the back room where they're tending to our wounded brother, leaving the prospect to handle the mess I made. I don't look back.

I leave her there, being escorted away by a subordinate, a problem to be filed away. I walk toward the sounds of a brother's pain, seeking refuge in the clean, simple loyalty of my club. Seeking refuge from the ghost I just created at the bar.

I push through a set of swinging saloon-style doors and into the back hallway.

The sounds of the main room vanish, replaced by the low hum of a generator and the sharp, antiseptic smell of rubbing alcohol trying and failing to cover the scent of blood.

This is our infirmary—not a real medical room, but a converted storage space with a stainless-steel table, a few mismatched cabinets, and a single, harsh fluorescent light overhead that buzzes with an annoying, electric persistence.

Crusher, one of our oldest and toughest members, is laid out on the table.

His jeans have been cut away, revealing a mangled, bloody mess where his left calf used to be.

The wound is a grotesque landscape of torn muscle and shattered bone, a clear picture of what happens when a rival MC decides to use a pickup truck as a battering ram against a motorcycle.

Standing over him is Doc.

Doc isn’t a real doctor—not anymore. He was a combat medic in the army, a surgeon with gifted hands until he lost his license over a disagreement with the hospital board that involved a scalpel and a large quantity of painkillers.

Now, he’s ours. He’s a quiet, wiry man in his late fifties, his forearms a roadmap of faded ink and old scars.

His face is a mask of intense, professional focus as he works, stitching the ragged edges of Crusher’s flesh back together with a steady, practiced hand.

Zero stands in the corner, a silent, grim guardian.

No one looks up when I enter. The air is thick with the sacred, focused silence of a life being saved.

"Talk to me, Doc," I say, my voice a low rumble. I move to the side of the table, my eyes on Crusher’s pale, sweat-sheened face.

Doc doesn't break his rhythm, his needle dipping and rising. "He's lucky," he says, his voice a calm, dry rasp. "The artery is intact. Tibia is shattered in three places. Fibula is a mess. He'll keep the leg, but he's not riding again for a long, long time. If ever."

I look at the mangled leg, at the bloody rags on the floor, at the grim reality of the war Cain has started.

This is clean. This is understandable. A body to be fixed.

A brother to be saved. A clear, external enemy to be destroyed.

It is a simple, honest equation compared to the chaotic, unsolvable one I just left at the bar.

"He conscious?" I ask.

"In and out," Doc says, tying off a stitch. "Gave him enough morphine to tranquilize a horse."

I place a hand on Crusher's shoulder, my grip firm. His eyes flutter open, hazy with pain and drugs. He tries to focus on my face.

"Hex..." he groans, the word a pained whisper.

"I'm here, brother," I say, my voice steady. "You're good. Doc's got you."

He gives a weak, almost imperceptible nod, his eyes sliding shut again.

I stand there for a long moment, my hand on his shoulder, performing the role of the President.

The concerned leader. The brother. I am a shield, protecting my own from the wolves.

Abel's words echo in my head, a bitter, mocking accusation.