My heart beats harder in my chest. A sliver of hope flares inside of me at the newcomer’s voice.
Will he be able to defeat Monster and claim me for his own?
The crowd separates as Adlet speaks up.
“Show yourself.”
When he walks forward, I swear the angels sing.
He is my salvation.
“You think you have what it takes, prospect? Show us what you got then, but if you lose, you won’t be forfeiting the woman. You will also forfeit your life.”
Terror settles inside of me.
Calloway, please come rescue me.
CHAPTER
ONE
ASPEN
My heart is racing as I sit up in bed.
It’s not real. You’re safe. It was a dream.
It wasn’t a dream, though. It’s the nightmare I keep reliving over and over again. I feel like a prisoner in my own mind sometimes.
I know Calloway and Maggie think therapy will help, but I don’t trust my therapist. How could I? She has some degree showing she completed classes that told her how to handle people like me, but she can’t truly understand what I went through. How can she when I don’t fully understand it myself?
So I go to therapy, and I try to talk, but it leaves me feeling more frustrated than I did going in. It doesn’t stop the nightmares. It doesn’t take away the pain.
I’m stuck in a cycle I cannot get out of.
Everyone keeps telling me it wasn’t my fault. That it’s okay for me to move on, but they are liars. I am the reason we were in that bar. I put myself and my best friend in danger. I not only ruined my own life, but I also ruined many others along the way. Maggie dropped out of college and is now playing den mother toall the brothers here in the Mountain River MC. If you ask her, I did her a favor. She found love with my brother, but what would her life be like if we hadn’t stopped? She might have still fallen in love with my brother and not have had to deal with the trauma of looking for me, wondering what happened to me.
I haven’t told her much. She doesn’t need to know the details. The horrors I lived through are mine alone. No one needs to know what I had to do in order to survive. No one but him.
Asher.
He knows what I did because he is yet another victim of mine. One who had his life upended because of something I did.
Shaking my head of my thoughts, I get out of bed and head toward the kitchen. It’s still early, but I put a pot of coffee on anyway. There’s no way I am going back to bed tonight. Once I have a cup made, I take it out onto the porch surrounding the clubhouse. I slide into one of the rocking chairs and stare at the sky.
It’s so peaceful here. I wish I had convinced Calloway to let me move here sooner. When I’m here, I don’t feel the need to run like I have most of my life. It feels safe. Comfy.
It feels like home.
Taking a deep breath, I let my eyes close as I listen to nature. It is calming in a way I never thought I would find. Out here, I can get my mind to forget the past for a moment as I live in the present.
I don’t know how long I sit on the porch before the sound of the door has my eyelids fluttering open. The sun has started to rise, painting the sky orange and pink.
“How long have you been up?” Maggie asks as she joins me.
“Long enough. Why are you up early?” I ask.
“Panther had business to attend to. I walked over to check on you.”
