CHAINS (Forsaken Riders MC Romance Book 18) Read online

  Table of Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  Collections

  Stonybrooke Shifters

  Bear Shifter Romance

  Billionaire Romance

  The Runes of Argyll Trilogy

  Dystopian Romance

  Wolf Shifter Romance

  Alien Romance

  Time Travel Romance

  MC Romance

  Dragon Shifter Romance

  CHAINS

  A Forsaken Riders Standalone MC Romance

  Book 18

  Samantha Leal

  Copyright ©2017 by Samantha Leal. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Introduction

  Thank you so much for purchasing my Novellete. All of my stories also contain bonus stories, so please take a look at the other stories I offer here. Don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter for updates and free books!

  The Forsaken Riders series is a collection of novelette length standalone Bad boy romances that fit together to tell the longer tale of the Forsaken Riders – and the woman they love - as they fight to dominate the town of Slate Springs. I have include the first 3 stories in the series here to add even greater value! Enjoy!

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  The Forsaken Riders are:

  King (Book 1)

  Lynx (Book 2)

  Steel (Book 3)

  Gunner (Book 4)

  Hawk (Book 5)

  Bull (Book 6)

  Stag (Book 7)

  Stick (Book 8)

  Decker (Book 9)

  Ax (Book 10)

  Hunter (Book 11)

  Rocket (Book 12)

  Diesel (Book 13)

  Breaker (Book 14)

  Flash (Book 15)

  Hammer (Book 16)

  Brick (Book 17)

  Also by Samantha…

  The Lost Creek Shifters

  The Lost Creek Shifters series is a collection of novelette length standalone Bad boy romances that fit together to tell the longer story of the ancient tale of the bear and wolf shifters in a small mountain town. Enjoy!

  ARLO (Book 1)

  SCAR (Book 2)

  BLU (Book 3)

  BODHI (Book 4)

  KODHI (Book 5)

  …and also from Totally Romance…

  STONYBROOKE SHIFTERS

  DADDY SHIFTER’S VIRGIN

  A SECRET BABY FOR THE SHIFTER

  THE SHIFTER’S MAIL ORDER VIRGIN

  DADDY SHIFTER’S FAKE FIANCE

  THE SEAL SHIFTER’S SECRET BABY

  CLAIMED BY THE ALPHA DADDY

  OAK MOUNTAIN SHIFTERS

  HER BILLIONAIRE SHIFTER BOSS

  And we would also love it if you would

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  Table of Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  Collections

  Stonybrooke Shifters

  Bear Shifter Romance

  Billionaire Romance

  The Runes of Argyll Trilogy

  Dystopian Romance

  Wolf Shifter Romance

  Alien Romance

  Time Travel Romance

  MC Romance

  Dragon Shifter Romance

  1.

  From the apartment below, Star could hear the bellowing of a raging argument pounding up through the floorboards. She rolled onto her side and covered her ears, squeezing her eyes tightly closed and just wishing they would shut the hell up.

  But she was completely out of luck.

  It seemed as if this couple was determined to keep going until one of them lost their voice, and it was only getting worse by the second.

  She looked at the clock on the nightstand and could see it was two pm. Even though it was the middle of the day, and she had no right to expect anyone to be quiet as mice, and with these paper-thin walls, this argument was so brutal it was almost driving her insane.

  She was exhausted, and she had to sleep.

  She had to get up and be prepared to work the long night shift at Tanner’s, the local strip club. She would usually be full of excitement and anticipation, but she was so tired all she could feel was creeping dread.

  “Please, just be quiet,” she groaned into her pillow, as she wrapped it around her ears and closed her eyes again.

  For a second, she could almost feel the silence enveloping her, but it was quickly shattered when a loud bang and crash made the whole building vibrate. She sat bolt upright in bed. It had been so loud and harsh, it was as if a bomb had just exploded beneath her.

  “You’re a crazy woman!” the man’s voice finally broke the eerie silence of the aftermath. “You could have killed me!”

  “Well maybe I wanted to,” she growled back. “I’m so sick of your shit!”

  Star rolled her eyes and flopped back down under the covers.

  Since she had moved into the building, she had done nothing but loathe it. Since the arrival of the world’s angriest couple, things had only gotten worse.

  It wasn’t the nicest area of Slate Springs, but since Star had arrived in town, she wasn’t exactly in a place to be picky when it came to putting a roof over her head. She had been lucky to tie somewhere down at all. She had done her best to make the place feel like home. This apartment block was old and weathered, and it was one of the only buildings in the town that wasn’t privately owned. It had been left to rot. Even though it was cheap, it felt as if she were living on another planet.

  Star found herself in Slate Springs after she fled her hometown to look for a better life. After growing up in a trailer park, she had seen her fair share of horror stories, and she had decided that it was no longer going to be the life for her. She had grown up surrounded by criminals and danger. When she found herself passing through Slate Springs, the place already kind of felt like home.

  She had fallen in love with its dusky charm; the desert landscape was both unforgiving and awe-inspiring. She arrived via the cab of a truck, after she had hitchhiked her way across the country. When she saw the way the town had been put together, she had actually clapped her hands together with glee.

  It was a quaint little place, but it clearly had a dark side. She wandered into Tanner’s on her first night in town. She knew she was going to work there and make herself a life.

  She still remembered how she felt when she realized the town was practically run by bikers. It had both terrified and excited her, but now it was just the norm. She saw the way business was conducted. She immersed herself with them and their ways, and she embraced it with open arms.

  She enjoyed her job, even if it did involve removing her clothes for cash. She loved the people she had met while she had been here. The only thing she despised, was her apartment and the vile people that occupied the rest of the building.

  “This is the third day in a row you’re not going to get any sleep,” she mumbled before she sighed and swung her feet over the side of the bed.

  She rubbed her eyes an
d stretched her arms high over her head to try and bring herself back into the land of the living. She hadn’t gotten home until seven am, after she had danced all night and worked a room full of truckers and bikers. Her muscles were sore, and her mind was weary. All she wanted to do was rest, but the couple below were obviously not going to let her.

  She pulled the blankets up on the bed and made it look as tidy as her tired mind could manage. And then she opened the door and slinked down the hallway to her front room.

  She flicked on the TV and raised the volume as high as it would go to drown out the noise of World War Three downstairs before she flopped down on the couch and kicked her feet up.

  “Some people,” she said as she stifled a yawn, “just have no manners or class.”

  She half watched the documentary that was flashing before her. It wasn’t long before her vision blurred, as her eyelids fell. The couple below were still screaming and causing the building to shake, but there on the comfort of the couch, with the presenter’s voice diluting the sounds of fury, Star finally felt herself begin to relax into sleep.

  She woke with a start when the TV clicked off on its timer, and the room was plunged into silence. Star sat up quickly and looked around, blinking and trying to make sense of where she was and what had happened. As her mind started to awaken and remember, she rolled her eyes and sank back into the comfy cushions of the couch.

  “I need to move,” she whispered to herself. “This isn’t a healthy environment.”

  She looked around the room at all she had done with the place since she had moved in. She had painted the battered and dirty walls to make them look fresh and bright. She had covered the old flooring with a large, plush rug. But below the décor, she still knew the place was a dive, and it was starting to grate on her.

  She earned good money working at Tanners, and she could easily afford somewhere better. She had arrived in town with barely ten dollars in her purse, and she had been afraid. After she managed to secure the apartment, she had decided to stay. But over six months had passed, and she knew now that it was time to move on.

  She reached for her laptop from the coffee table, opened it up and pressed the button to bring it to life. She rubbed her eyes. She hadn’t slept for long, maybe only three hours, but it would have to do.

  She pulled open a search engine, typed in Slate Springs Rentals and waited for the results to flood in front of her. A selection of bigger homes and other apartments closer to Main Street started to appear. She scanned them as she chewed her bottom lip and let her mind begin to wander.

  “Not much for you really,” she whispered. “You don’t exactly need a four-bedroom ranch.”

  She sighed and closed the laptop lid.

  “Ask around at work,” she told herself as she forced herself to her feet. “Those bikers own and know everything.”

  She dragged herself over to the kitchen counter and started to boil some water, as she looked out of the window at the bad side of town. When she had come to Slate Springs, she hadn’t a clue of where was good and where was worth staying away from. She had certainly wandered onto the wrong side of the tracks.

  Outside, burned out, skeletal cars lined the streets. She was sure she could see the shadow of a hobo hunched in the doorway of a derelict building.

  “Okay,” she told herself, “enough is enough.” She nodded her head confidently and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re going to be out of here before the end of next week,” she said sternly. “It’s time to find somewhere you’re not afraid to be at night, and can finally sleep undisturbed.”

  Even though she just promised herself, it already felt like a step in the right direction. It was a mantra she would keep repeating until it became a reality. She had made her decision, and she was going to make it happen. She wasn’t going to live somewhere she wasn’t happy anymore, she was going to get closer to the center of town, and she was going to enjoy setting up home in a new place.

  She felt a rush of excitement and a sense of achievement. It felt damned good to be in charge of her own life, with no one to tell her otherwise. She reached for a mug and made herself a strong coffee before she skipped back to her bedroom and threw open the closet doors.

  For a girl who was running on barely ten hours sleep over two days, she felt remarkably chipper now that she had a goal and something to focus on. She grinned from ear to ear as she rifled through her outfits and pulled out some of her skimpiest bikinis and skirts, shoving them into her backpack to take to the club.

  “Today marks a turning point, Star,” she told herself. “Today is, as they say, the first day of the rest of your life.”

  She sipped her coffee and hugged an arm around herself.

  She was on her way, and nobody was going to stop her.

  2.

  Less than two hours later, Star was leaving the front door of her building, clutching the strap of her backpack tightly at her shoulder and looking around to make sure she wasn’t being followed.

  She had a routine every time she left the apartment, and it consisted of waiting in the entrance behind the closed door to ensure the coast was clear before she slipped out into the streets. She made her way as quickly as she could towards Main Street.

  She knew she was probably being overly cautious, but she had seen a lot of scary things and knew how depraved humanity could be. She saw how the homeless men loitered in the doorways of the derelict warehouses, and she knew they slept inside, forging little communities of their own. It frightened her, but she had done her best to ignore it. Now that she had made the decision to move, she felt so full of energy and positivity, it was almost as if she had already gone.

  She turned a corner and saw the beginnings of Main Street up ahead and felt herself relax. She slowed her pace slightly and looked out over the tops of the buildings to where she knew the mountains were catching the glow of the setting sun. The roads were busy, and cars flew past her, blaring their horns and playing music loudly. It was a Friday, and she knew she was going to be in for one hell of a shift. However, she was feeling so positive she welcomed it. She was reveling in the idea of conversing with as many people as possible and hustling some serious cash.

  The walk across town to Tanner’s had been something that had daunted her at first. She had resented not having a car when she first moved to town, but since she had settled and could long since afford it, she had made the decision to stick to using her feet. She spent so much time in the club and the rest of her days grabbing as much downtime as she could, it left her little room to hit the gym for exercise. It took her thirty-five minutes door to door and it kept her feeling pumped, her mind clear, and her heart racing in all the right ways. Some days, she would stick on her running shoes and race there, but that meant she would have to shower and get ready all over again once she arrived, and she usually found that as soon as she set foot inside the club, she was thrown straight into work, even if she was early.

  She passed through Main Street and waved to one of the old ladies who sat outside the bistro. Star had never learned her name, but she was always there in the same place every day, and she had begun waving to her whenever she saw her two weeks after she started working at Tanner’s. The old lady was someone who was constant, someone who made the place feel more like home. Seeing her sitting there every evening was almost reassuring, and it made her happy that she had found somewhere that had community at its heart.

  She wandered out of the other side of town and toward the highway. The sun was almost completely set, but the air was still warm, and it felt delightful on her bare skin. Her shorts were rolled up so they were just skimming her butt and her t-shirt was loose and flowing. After moving into the desert, she had learned the hard way about what you could and couldn’t wear in this environment, and she had spent many uncomfortable days walking to work and finding her way around town. It was all about loose and casual. She had thrown out almost all her trousers or anything heavy within the first few weeks, and had enjoye
d gathering together a new wardrobe.

  She saw the shining neon lights of the diner ahead and checked her watch. She still had half an hour before her shift. Still, she didn’t think she could face battling with the Friday night crowds in the diner for a cup of coffee and a pancake. She stifled a yawn and promised herself she would use the tiny kitchen at the club to make herself something, and then she would hit the tequila.

  She didn’t particularly want to drink, but for a Friday night with at least nine hours stretching out ahead of her, she was going to need something to perk her up a little, or she would be dragging in no time.

  The club rose out of the desert landscape dead ahead and she felt a warm sense of familiarity. Tanner’s had been somewhere she had really been grateful for when she had arrived in Slate Springs. She had never worked a job quite like it before, but she had found that she was a natural when it came to shaking her hips and flattering men. She still remembered her first shift and how terrified she had been. However, after her first dance, the first time she had commanded the stage, she realized how empowering it was to hold that much attention over an entire room. All eyes had been on her, and every man in there had wanted her. She had felt like the most powerful force out there in the desert that night, and it was addictive. Now she felt such a rush whenever she saw the stage, she couldn’t wait for it to happen again and again. It was always her most favorite part of the day, and something she would thrive on for years to come, if not for an entire lifetime.

  She checked out the parking lot as she got closer and could see there was already a fair amount of trucks lining up out the back, with a smattering of cars out front.

  “Yikes,” she breathed. “And it’s not even nine…”

  She hitched her backpack up higher onto her shoulder and braced herself before she continued walking. It was going to be one hell of a night, and she couldn’t wait to get in the middle of it.