Burn (16 page)

“Yes. No, wait. He’s not…he’s not what you think, Sloane.”

I can barely believe my own ears. He
has
brainwashed her. She has Stockholm’s or something. “So you weren’t kidnapped from outside college? And this guy didn’t force you to marry him?”

Alexis sighs, and then scrubs her hands over her face. The tears are falling now. “Yes, I was taken. But it wasn’t by him. He helped me,” she tells me though her hands. When she removes them, there’s a fierce set to her jaw. “And he didn’t force me to marry him, Sloane. You have to believe that.”

“Then why on earth did you marry the president of a bike gang? Because I’m really struggling to understand any of this.”

She sniffs, swatting the tears from her cheeks. “I married him because he’s the other half of me, Sloane. The slightly grumpy, slightly scary, and deeply wonderful other half of me. I married him because
I love him
.”

This is all just far too much for me to take. So it’s all true. She told Rebel that I didn’t care about her. That I couldn’t be bothered coming to her wedding. I need to know why, but right now I have a more pressing need, and that is to get away. After all this worrying, all of the nightmares about my poor baby sister being used and abused, she’s blissfully happy. And married. Fucking married. I can’t breathe. I need time to think. To process all of this properly.

I turn, and I walk away, and I don’t look back.

I make it down to the ground floor, back to where we were waiting earlier before—

“Hey, Sloane!”

It’s him, the tattooed bastard, following me down the corridor. I try to power-walk away from him, but he grabs hold of my arm. I spin on my heel, ready to lay into him again, but he lets go of me, holding his hands in the air.

“Don’t be mad at her, babe. She’s been through hell and back.”

“And was it you who put her through it?”

He clenches his jaw, eyes narrowing—I barely took notice before, but the color of his eyes is so blue that they look like flints of ice. “
No.
”

“Then how the hell did she end up with you?”

“Maybe that’s something she should tell you. I think you could probably hazard an educated guess, though.” Pulling on his leather jacket and wearing an infuriating smirk on his face, Rebel jerks his head down the hallway.

Toward Zeth.

He’s watching us; his silhouette is that of an imposing monolith, carved out of rock. Rebel breaks out in a grin. “You both have similar taste in men, after all, sweetheart. You both like us dark and dangerous.”

A

STANDALONE STORY

COMING SOON

About The Author

Callie Hart is a bagel eating, coffee drinking, romance addict. She can recite lines from the Notebook by heart. She lives on a ridiculously high floor in a way-too expensive building with her fiancé and their pet goldfish, Neptune. Burn is the third instalment in her Blood and Roses series. The next instalment, as yet untitled will be release in July 2014.

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Tell Me Your Favorite Bits!

Don’t forget! If you purchased Burn and loved it, then please do stop over to your online retailer of choice and let me know which were your favorite parts! Reading reviews is the highlight of any author’s day.

Burn is over, but you don’t need to be too sad. There are some amazing books on the horizon that will keep you plenty entertained until the fourth instalment in the Blood & Fire series comes out! Enjoy these teasers and check out authors such as Lili Saint Germain and Pepper Winters. I’m in love with their books.

I hope you will be, too!

Four Score Teaser

by Lili St Germain.

I take his car keys, slam the door shut behind me, and drive to the private hospital where I know Dornan’s been transferred.

I want to see his pain. I want to see just how close to death I brought him.

When I arrive at the hospital, I enter the large foyer and immediately recognize Dornan’s wife talking on her phone in the corner. I duck behind a large potted fern, praying she hasn’t seen me. Sure enough, she appears oblivious, ending her call and returning to the lifts nearby. I watch as she punches the button to go up. I wait patiently as she steps into the lift. The doors close quietly behind her. Above the doors, the numbers count upwards, pausing for a moment on five. Level five—that’s got to be it. A large board says that the ICU is on level five, which makes sense. I snicker to myself as I imagine Dornan hooked up to machines and breathing tubes.

Whatever damage he’s sustained? I hope it fucking hurts.

I jog to the stairwell, trying to stay out of sight. I don’t really care if any Gypsy Brothers see me—after all, I am the obsessive club whore who never leaves his side unless I have to. But I don’t exactly want Dornan’s bitch of a wife to see me and start a smack down.

Five flights of stairs later, I’m panting so hard, my chest is wheezing
. I used to be so fit
, I think to myself as I catch my breath in the stairwell. With sex my only exercise of late, it’s no wonder I’m woefully out of breath.

I let a few moments pass before I steel myself. I’m nervous, my stomach in knots, and I’m not entirely sure why.

Jase. Jimmy. There are two reasons right there. I wonder if anyone suspects me of anything yet.

I enter the hospital corridor, plastering a look on my face that’s aiming for concerned girlfriend.

I glance down at what I’m wearing, pleased that I had something Sammi-worthy to wear. A black T-shirt that clings in all the right places and dips to show off my cleavage, paired with dark denim jeans and plain ballet flats. It’s not as whorey as normal, but it’ll have to do.

As soon as I step into the corridor, I know which room is Dornan’s. Halfway up the long hall is a doorway flanked by three Gypsy Brothers, who look ridiculously out of place in a hospital. At the same time, they look like you wouldn’t want to mess with them. Which I suppose is the whole point.

I hang around just outside the stairwell, waiting for one of them to notice me. Sure enough, within about thirty seconds, the shortest of the three heavily tattooed guys makes a beeline for me, his bald head shining under the artificial light.

I smile gratefully as he approaches me. “Hi.”

He smirks. “What are you doin’ here, darlin? Prez is still out cold.”

I nod, squeezing a tear out for effect. “I don’t know what to do,” I say desperately. “I’m so worried about him.”

The dude thinks on something for a moment and then glances at the room he’s just come from.

“Look,” he says. “It’s meant to be family only.”

“I know,” I say dejectedly. “I just—if he wakes up…I don’t want him to think I wasn’t here, worried about him, you know? But I don’t want to upset his family.” I put my hands to my face, acting upset. “Can you help me?”

I bat my fucking eyelashes for all I’m worth, and the guy buys it. Men are idiots sometimes. In this case, it’s to his detriment.

“Stay here, doll. I’ll let you know when his old lady leaves.”

I smile gratefully, watching him as he heads back to the room to stand sentry with the other two bikers. They’re all about Dornan’s age—all would have been in the club with my father when he died.

Traitorous bastards the lot of them. If it were up to me, if I had the energy and the resources, they’d all be dead as well.

My patience pays off. About thirty minutes later, I see Dornan’s wife head back to the elevator and disappear inside. Moments after that, baldy crooks a finger, beckoning me.

He gestures for me to enter the room, but as I pass him, he lays a hand on my shoulder. It takes everything within me not to throw it off and punch him in the face.

“He’s messed up pretty bad,” he says to me in a loud whisper. “You sure you wanna go in?”

I nod. I’m fucking
gagging
to see what’s become of him.

“Okay,” the guy says, taking his hand back. “Don’t say you weren’t warned.”

I nod, squeezing past him and entering the private room. Even here, in a coma, Dornan’s been afforded every luxury: a private suite that overlooks the Hollywood hills and a band of merry men to guard him from further attack.

I should’ve brought some kind of poison with me and finished off the job. Silly me for not thinking ahead.

I approach the bed at the far end of the large room quietly and with caution. I don’t know what to expect, only that it’s bad.

As I get closer, my eyes take in every detail of the horrors that have marred Dornan’s face, neck, arms, and hands. I assume the rest of him is similarly injured, but I’m not about to lift the sheets and find out. Not yet, anyway.

A few more steps and I’m close enough to reach out and take his hand, gently avoiding the deep cuts that litter his skin and the drip tube that’s embedded in the top of his hand.

I can’t help it. A satisfied smile spreads across my face as I see the damage the shrapnel from Elliot’s crudely fashioned bombs have wreaked upon the man I want to destroy. It’s not as good as if he was dead, but it’s pretty fucking great.

He’s hooked up to a morphine drip, the same kind as the one I had when I woke up from death six years ago. They’re impossible to overdose, which is unfortunate, with only a measured amount delivered intravenously every fifteen minutes.

Well, if I can’t kill him, I’ll make sure he feels every goddamn thing that’s happening to him. That works for me, too. I locate the needle underneath his skin and push back on it firmly, just enough that it stays underneath his skin, but out of his vein. With any luck, he’ll not only be in pain from the morphine not reaching his bloodstream, but the fluid will also collect under his skin, causing more discomfort.

I lift the sheets back and tuck him hand underneath, patting the blankets back over.

Before I leave, I plant a kiss on his lips.

Karma’s a fucking bitch sometimes.

Four Score is out May 26 2014! You can already enjoy the series by checking out book one, Seven Sons,
here
. Best of all, it’s FREE!

Destroyed

by Pepper Winters

Chapter One

Hazel

I
f I knew now what I suspected then, I’d like to think I would’ve done things differently. I would’ve planned better, worked harder, stressed out on more important things. But I was young, naïve, and woefully unprepared for the big, scary world of life.

Now, I looked back on the past with a strange fondness. While I lived it, it seemed hard but now it seemed so incredibly easy. Especially now when the present seemed impossible and the future dire and bleak.

That was...until I met him.

Then it got worse.

***

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Clue.” The gothic mansion rose from gravel and soil like a beacon of doom. Gargoyles decorated plinths and overhangs; huge pillars soared to at least six stories high. I didn’t know anything like this existed in Sydney, let alone in the rich and exclusive Eastern Suburbs.

My fingers hadn’t stopped twitching for my knife ever since we stepped off the bus and headed toward a residential suburb instead of the party district in town.

Losing ourselves in a rabbit warren of streets, my heart never settled sensing this might be one experience that would end up killing us.

“Stop being such a worrier. You said you’d come. I need my wing woman,” Clue said, her gentle voice edging to stern.

My mouth hung open, gawking at the intricate stonework, trying to see past the grandeur to unveil the tricks of such a place. It couldn’t be real? Could it?

It seemed misplaced—as if it’d been transplanted from a long past century. It sent chills down my spine, conjuring images of insane, broken women and psychotic, sadistic men.