~ BEAST ~
The party was in full swing, the club heaving with brothers from all over the country. Everyone had come out to welcome me back home. Brothers and families from all over had taken the time out to come and see me. People I hadn’t seen in years and people I’d ridden with every day before the attack…they were all there for me, yet I was sitting completely alone.
How did that work?
Being in a room full of people—friends and family—all of them celebrating me being alive and being home, yet I was completely alone. I’d been back a week and it had felt like this every single day and night. The sense of belonging I usually had there was gone, shattered into oblivion, and I didn’t know why.
I looked around at all the familiar faces—people I’d grown up with, ridden with, killed with. And yet all I could think was I wished I was back in the hospital, waiting for Belle to come in and spoon-feed me pudding. It was the pathetic truth of the matter that I would never admit to anyone. I missed the familiarity of her scent as she washed my body, and the sounds from the machines next to my bed. I missed the rituals Belle and I had gotten into and the fights that usually accompanied our meetings. I didn’t miss her though; prim little bitch that thought she was too good for me. No, fuck that; I just missed the familiarity of everything. This place, the clubhouse, felt foreign to me now.
It was a second home to me, and I’d always felt comfortable there, surrounded by those men and women, but right then all I could think about was going home—to my actual home. Because yeah, of course I fucking had more than just a room in a dilapidated clubhouse. I had a house with a white picket fence and three bedrooms, a bathroom, and even an overgrown garden with colorful flowers and shit in it. I just didn’t go there very often.
A group of sweetbutts had been slowly making their way around the room, servicing brothers and being the eye candy for the party. I’d seen Lola with them all, and every once in a while she’d look over at me and whisper to the little skanks she was with and then they’d all laugh between themselves. I wanted to shoot every fucking one of them, but decided to make a point of showing her that what had happened at the hospital was a one-time thing. I’d fuck her till she was bowlegged and then kick her skinny ass out of the club for good.
The more I watched her, the angrier I became. Her face mocking me from across the room. Laughing at me. My dick shriveled up in my jeans, refusing to come out no matter how many dirty thoughts I tried to think of to get it hard.
Lola had killed my dick—she was a dick killer. Fuck.
“You doin’ okay, brother?” asked Battle, one of the nomads, sitting down next to me.
He and Fighter, another nomad, had traveled across the country to come visit me at the hospital and were surprised that I was actually out. We’d ridden together a few years back, did a couple of hits on some fucks who had sticky fingers and thought they could make a mockery of the club name. We’d put them to ground and pissed on their graves afterwards before going out and getting so drunk we’d woken up naked in a different state. Loved those guys. They were as sick and as dark as I was.
He gestured over to Fighter, who made quick work of grabbing three bottles of beer before heading over to us.
“I’m alive, right?” I replied, taking a bottle from Fighter.
He sat down opposite, his cold eyes and hard expression on me as he nodded. I took a swig of beer, savoring the taste of it as it slid down my parched throat.
I was tired.
Bone fucking tired.
I’d barely slept since I’d been back, each night waking up to the stamping of hooves on the floor and the smell of fire in the air. The sizzle and pop of my hair and flesh melting away… The nightmares had eased off for a few months, but they were back with a vengeance since being back home.
“Don’t mean a whole lot though, does it? Being alive. Take a whole lot more to kill you, brother, but that don’t mean you’re alive where it matters,” Battle replied, taking a swig of his beer.
“Jesus, you’re like the Dalai Lama or some shit. Calm yourself, brother, I’m doing just fine,” I grumbled.
He snickered and popped the top off his beer, and I took another long pull from my own bottle. I shouldn’t really have been drinking, but it’d been too long since I’d tasted beer or whiskey and I’d been making up for all the lost alcohol while I was in hospital. Besides, it was my party after all. Last night, and the night before that, and the night before that…well, that was just catching up.
“Heard you had a thing with your nurse. She not here tonight?” he continued.
Belle.
Motherfucking Belle.
The memory of her was stalking me, haunting my every move.
I gritted my teeth at the thought of her, anger sparking to life inside of me. Hadn’t heard a damn thing since she’d walked off with that Lorenzo guy. Bitch hadn’t even thought to check on me. Like, she’d had my money and her job was done now.
“Fucked her, doesn’t mean there was anything else in it,” I drolled, my gaze moving around the room again until it landed on Lola once more. My dickstillrefused to cooperate and she wasstillwhispering between her friends and looking over. I was going to kill her if she kept that shit up.
Battle grinned. “That’s the Beast we know. Heard word that you were going soft on us, but it seems they were mistaken.”
My gaze flicked back to Battle and fury rose up in me like a phoenix from the ashes, the spark turning to a flame. I slammed my beer down on the wooden table in front of me and glared at him, watching as his expression changed from amusement to confusion before hardening.
“What the fuck did you just say to me?” I bit out.
“Calm down, brother,” he scowled, sensing my darkening mood. “What’s got into you?”
