STICK: MC ROMANCE NOVELLA (Forsaken Riders MC Romance Book 8) Read online

  Stick

  A Forsaken Riders Standalone MC Romance

  Book 8

  Samantha Leal

  Copyright ©2016 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.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  BONUS BOOKS

  My New Holiday Billionaire

  What the Outlaw Demands

  Into the Highlander’s Realm

  A Dragon to Watch Over Me

  Billionaire Yes Please

  Into The Duke’s Arms

  Love and Survival in the Time After

  Babies For the Bear

  The Highland Locket

  Finding Love in a Dark World: Book 1

  My Second Chance Billionaire

  Marked as the Alpha’s Mate

  A Mate for the Vampire

  Taken by the Alpha Alien

  My Holiday Protector

  Into the Highlander’s Arms

  DIRK: A Stepbrother Romance

  In the Time of the Caveman

  My Holiday Billionaire

  Beyond the Highland Gateway

  The Bear Wants Babies

  The Highland’s Call

  My New Billionaire Stepbrother

  Through the Gateway

  Saved by the Werewolf Billionaire

  What the Outlaw Keeps

  Introduction

  The Forsaken Riders:

  King (Book 1)

  Lynx (Book 2)

  Steel (Book 3)

  Gunner (Book 4)

  Hawk (Book 5)

  Bull (Book 6)

  Stag (Book 7)

  Stick (Book 8)

  Book 9…coming soon…

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  CHAPTER 1

  It was a wild night out in the desert, with the wind howling around the sides of the trucks as they all bounded over the bumpy ground and screeched to a halt outside of the gas station. Most of them weren’t stopping for fuel, but they all lined up opposite, just like they did every time they passed through, and turned off their engines. It was approaching midnight, one of the busiest times to be on the road, and the girls who worked the lot were all watching from their stoops with eagle eyes.

  The trucks and their cabs were dark and it could be assumed that most of the truckers were sleeping. They pulled over around that time to take the break that they were required to by law, and even though most of the rest area was quiet, you could still hear the odd moan and groan as one of the girls snaked her way into the cab in her high heels and collected twenty dollar bills for whatever she had to offer.

  King and Lynx, brothers in arms, sat waiting patiently on the other side of the lot, watching it all unfold with wry smirks on their faces.

  “Looks like we’re in the wrong gig,” Lynx laughed as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of smokes. He clamped one roughly between his teeth, lighting the end with a swift flick of a silver lighter.

  King laughed as well and nodded his head. From their vantage point of across the parking lot, they could see just how much action the truckers were getting and it was kind of awe inducing.

  “Imagine just pulling over and then, within seconds, getting pulled off…” King said almost with disbelief.

  “Yeah, but they’re paying for it,” Stick said as he leaned forward from the back of the cab and rested his arms on the seats between them. They had been waiting for over two hours now, and even though they should have been bored, they weren’t… Anticipation and excitement were running high.

  “You saying you wouldn’t pay for it, Stick?” Lynx joked as he jabbed him in the ribs and turned slyly toward him in the dark.

  “Of course I fucking wouldn’t,” he snorted as he leaned forward and ripped a cigarette from Lynx’s packet.

  “Got some attitude for new blood,” King said. “But I guess that’s why you’re here and the rest of the charter is back sleeping tight in their warm, cozy beds.”

  He was exaggerating, of course. Most of the others were out elsewhere, up to God knows what, but Stick liked the acknowledgement anyway. He could tell that he was already gaining respect from within The Forsaken Riders, one of the most revered motorcycle clubs in the desert, and it was the best feeling in the world. Stick may have been a little bit younger than the other members, but he more than made up for it. His blonde hair and striking green eyes only made for a lot of attention from the women who hung around the club house and the bars, hoping to hook a biker.

  “Attitude and fearlessness. You’re gonna go far,” King said as he wrapped his hands slowly around the steering wheel. “You’re the kind of kid we need around here for new blood.”

  Stick smiled but wanted to roll his eyes. He was hardly a kid. At twenty-two, he was bigger and meaner than half of the other guys he had met since he had joined The Forsaken Riders. And whereas, he may have been a little bit younger than the other members, he more than made up for it. As far as he was concerned, the age thing was irrelevant and he was determined not to let that get in his way. He knew deep down that it never would. He was going places. He was going to rise.

  “What’s that up ahead?” Lynx broke the silence as he leaned forward and squinted out into the darkness. Stick leaned in too, he was sure, for a moment, that he could see the long beams of a truck heading over the mountains and toward their direction from way ahead on the highway.

  In the two hours they had been sitting there, each time another truck had come up over the rise they had held their breath and gone silent. So far, each time, the truck had either carried on through or stopped and they had watched while a lot lizard had crawled her way in, licking her lips.

  But this time, they all knew it was different.

  “Didn’t they say they’d have a blue tinge to the lights?” King said as he stopped tapping the wheel and clenched his jaw.

  “Umm, hmm,” Lynx said as he threw his cigarette butt out of the window and exhaled a long trail of smoke over his shoulder. Stick felt the tension in his belly tighten. It had been a long time since he had felt such a buzz and he couldn’t wait to see what they were waiting for. This was one of the biggest deals in The Forsaken Riders’s history.

  “Okay,” King exhaled nervously. “Let’s just sit and wait. When they’ve parked, I’ll give one flash of the lights and then we can check it out before we switch.”

  Stick nodded and grinned from ear to ear. He took a drag of his cigarette, pulling the sweet nicotine tinged smoke deeply into his lungs. He did it again and again until he felt a wave of calm wash over him, but then, when he looked back up and the lights were growing closer, he couldn’t help but get jittery with excitement again.

  “Feels like it takes fucking forever for them to get from the rise to the parking lot,” he said.

  “Well, it’s about two miles,” Lynx said as he started to shift restlessly in his seat. “But I know, the suspense is killing me too.”

  The three men watched and waited. When the truck finally slowed down on the highway and made the wide turn into the dusty, desert parking lot, not one of them breathed. Stick squinted his eyes and tr
ied to focus on who was behind the wheel, not that that would matter… They didn’t expect to know the driver. All they knew was that the shipment had made it across the border and now they were about to be in possession of over a million dollars worth of illegal tobacco.

  The truck loitered up ahead, not committing to parking on any one side. King waited with baited breath for a split second before he reached down and flashed the lights once. It was so quick, if you hadn’t been looking for it, you probably would have missed it.

  The truck slowly crunched toward them and turned slowly before it began to back up into the space exactly to the side of where they were waiting. Stick looked out of the side window, behind Lynx’s head, as he got a clear view of the small, Hispanic man behind the wheel.

  He brought his hands out in front of him and cracked his knuckles.

  “Fuck’s sake,” Lynx hissed out of the corner of his mouth. “Do you have to do that shit?”

  Stick smirked, and then the men looked at each other.

  “Right,” King said as he clicked open the door of the cab and looked out into the night. “I’ll go and check that everything is in order, and once I give you the nod, come and join me over there.”

  Lynx and Stick agreed and when King jumped down onto the dusty ground, Stick climbed forward and sat where he had been.

  Lynx was fidgeting and Stick watched as his hands instinctively went to his pockets and reached for his smokes again. He checked his side mirror and watched as King greeted the guy driving the other truck and then they both made their way around the back to where the shipment was held in the container.

  “You nervous or something?” Stick asked as he took a cigarette from Lynx and held it to his lips.

  “Shit like this always makes me nervous,” Lynx said as he exhaled a plume of thick smoke up into the air between them. “But this time, I don’t know… Something feels off…”

  He clicked his teeth and looked around at the trucks ahead of them. All of the cabs were so quiet and dark. It was as if an eerie quiet had fallen over the parking lot and even when he looked toward the gas station, he could see that there was no one there. Stick looked in his mirrors and he could see the corner of King just as he disappeared behind the truck and out of sight. He sucked in on his cigarette and rubbed his temples. Maybe Lynx’s paranoia was rubbing off on him, or maybe he was just tired…

  Stick tapped the truck’s steering wheel and hummed along to the last tune that had played on the radio. He was getting bored. He wanted to be out there and involved. He just wanted to see exactly what they were going to have to hide back at the bar. They would have twenty-four hours to shift the majority of their haul, and then they would all have a pretty big sum of money to split. He smiled at the thought. His share of this money was going to be life changing.

  Lynx exhaled and when Stick looked at him, he could tell he was nervous.

  “Just relax,” Stick said. “You’re fucking with my head now…”

  Just as the words left his mouth, suddenly the truck beside them blared to life. The engine roared and it hammered forward, screeching out of the parking lot.

  “Fuck!” Lynx hissed as he swung open his door and dove out onto the ground, trying his best to chase the truck when all around him shots rang out.

  Stick was still inside the cab and he was frozen. He looked down to Lynx who was standing there as the truck and their haul of tobacco went disappearing off into the night. Its blue lights fading fast as it lit up the lonely road ahead.

  Lynx raised his arms above his head and kept his palms open. Inside the cab, Stick did the same. He was aware that he could see something in the rearview mirror. In the shadows, he could just make out the fallen shape of a man in the dirt, exactly where the back of the other truck would have been.

  King…

  Across the parking lot, hanging out of the doors of the other trucks were men in balaclavas, they were brandishing shot guns and pointing them in their direction.

  “Don’t move,” one of them shouted. All Stick could hear was the sound of his own breathing and the rise and fall of his chest.

  He looked down to Lynx and then back up to the rearview mirror.

  They had been ambushed and now they had been screwed over. Their shipment had gone. It was about to disappear over the rise and they knew that they were never going to see it again.

  “Fuckers,” Lynx spat.

  Stick watched as somewhere in the dark ahead of them a lone gunman raised his rifle and took one shot. It hit Lynx in the shin and he fell to the ground, groaning in agony. The men all disappeared back into their cabs and their trucks all started their engines. As Stick dove down onto the ground at Lynx’s side, he tore off a strip of his shirt and wrapped it around Lynx’s leg, they all screeched out of the parking lot and made their way back out across the desert.

  “Fuck,” Stick panted as he pulled the strip of fabric tight over Lynx’s leg. “I don’t fucking believe this…”

  But he was going to have to believe it. Every last bit of it…

  The Iron Riders had intercepted them and made off with over a million dollars worth of goods.

  This wasn’t a game anymore.

  It was war.

  CHAPTER 2

  Serena opened her eyes with a jolt as the coach jumped over the rough and bumpy ground of the desert road underneath. She looked around with bleary eyes and for a moment, she had no idea where she was. Until she let her gaze travel down to the large bag on the seat next to her, and she noticed the jostling of the other people that she had been crammed in there with, red hot and thirsty, for the past four hours.

  The Greyhound was heading deep into the desert and she stretched her arms up and looked over her shoulder. She could see that a window had been opened slightly in the roof and cooler air was drifting in, but she was too far forward to feel its benefit.

  Oh God, she thought as she yawned. How much longer?

  She was tired and hot and she was pretty sure that her legs had lost all feeling in them. She scratched her arm, more for something to do and for reassurance that she was actually awake and truly doing this than anything, but then she sank back into the seat and looked out the window.

  She had no idea how long she had dozed for, but by the looks of how high the sun was in the sky, it was noon. She turned to her right and looked at the woman and her child huddled together on the seat opposite and she felt herself smile in sympathy. She was having a miserable time travelling all on her own, and dealing with the heat, so she could only imagine what it must be like having a child with her. It had to be seriously hard work.

  A dark cloud seemed to fall over her as she thought back to her own childhood and of how her and her brother had been taken on similar journeys back before they had minds of their own, and she was jolted back into the present. Her heart raced a little as she thought of the reason why she was traveling across the country, pulling herself away from her home and quiet life, and then she felt guilty. When she had heard what had happened, she had felt so sorry for him. How could any of it have been his fault? But then she shook some sense into herself and toughened up. Of course it was his fault, he was the one who had made the choices in his life that had led him up to this point. Really, the only surprise was that it hadn’t happened sooner.

  Serena lowered her eyes and reached for her purse. She dug her hand around inside and pulled out the last photograph that she had of her and her brother. It was old and faded, and from a time long before, but she still clung to it and held it dear. They had always stayed in touch after he had left, and they had even seen each other plenty of times in the years in between, but nothing had ever been quite the same. She still had to live with the knowledge that her older brother was out there, living an entirely different life with different people, with no desire to be around her and her family.

  To be fair to him, though, if she had had the same opportunities, she would have left them behind too. She just never would admit it out loud.

&
nbsp; And now he was calling off their annual meeting, saying he was hurt and couldn’t travel, which made her even more worried about him. He had called her from the hospital, out of duty more than anything, he had said, but she knew deep down that it must have been because he was wavering. Even though they hadn’t seen each other in well over a year, they still had a sisterly-brotherly bond, and she wanted to be there for him. She wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone.

  “I’m not alone,” he’d laughed when she had told him. “Honestly, I have a brotherhood of my own here, don’t you go worrying about me.”

  And Serena had rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see it.

  “But I’m your sister,” she’d emphasized. “And I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Serena, I only called you to let you know because I know we normally see each other around now. And in case you’d been trying to get me on my cell and started to worry. I lost my phone in the…” He faltered for a moment and obviously changed what he was going to say. “In the…in the accident…” he finally concluded.

  “What happened, anyway? All you’ve said is that you’ve hurt your leg and can’t walk?” she demanded.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I just, you know, injured my leg…”

  “For God’s sake, Lynx,” she’d said with irritation. “I barely ever speak to you, but whenever I do, you’re so goddamn cryptic.”

  He’d sighed and she was quiet. She had no right to be busting his balls. Not really. They didn’t live in each other’s pockets.

  “Look, like I said, I just called to let you know out of courtesy,” he said sternly. “I’m fine. Everything is fine. Don’t worry and I’ll be in touch with you again as soon as I can, okay?”

  “Okay,” she’d said in defeat, hanging up the phone with more questions than ever before.