HUNTER (Forsaken Riders MC Romance Book 11) Read online

  Paige shook her head, completely in a trance with Faith’s story.

  “Jesus, how sheltered have you been?” Faith laughed.

  “Quite a bit,” Paige felt her face flush red. “I’ve spent the past several years working so hard and immersing myself in my job, I kinda forgot there was a world out there.”

  “Well, this world will rock yours, that’s for sure,” Faith smiled. “The men in The Forsaken are mad, bad and dangerous, but fuck are they sexy as hell.” Faith wafted her own face with the palm of her hand to cool herself down, and gave the girls a knowing look.

  “How do you know them?” Penny asked eagerly. “Do they come in this bar? Will they be in tonight?” Her eyes widened and she looked around as if she were trying to spot one, but Faith quickly shook her head and took another drag on her smoke.

  “No, they don’t come in here,” she said. “But they do own the place… Along with most of the other buildings along Main Street, the strip club and The Bleeding Bullet. There’s pretty much nowhere in town that hasn’t been touched by the Forsaken’s hands at some point over the course of history, as long as Slate Springs has been standing, anyway.”

  “The Bleeding what?” Paige found herself asking.

  “Oh come on,” Faith looked at them both as if they were crazy. “You’re not telling me you’ve never heard of or seen The Bleeding Bullet?”

  Paige looked at Penny and raised her eyebrows.

  “Well, I certainly haven’t,” Paige said timidly. “It sounds terrifying.”

  “Oh darling,” Faith whispered as she leaned in even closer. “It truly is… But you’ll fall in love with it, I promise you.”

  Paige looked over at Penny who was spinning on her stool and looking happy and excited as if she had just won a prize.

  “Oh my god, we have to go!” Penny said as she clapped her hands together and grinned from ear to ear. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this place! And here I was thinking all we could do tonight is go and sit in the crumby diner, drinking warm beer! We’re in a goddam jazz bar on Main Street and we’ve just been told about a big, dangerous biker gang who have an even more dangerous bar! We have to go Paige, come on, come on, come on!”

  Penny had turned drunk and childlike and Paige felt as if her head was spinning.

  “I’ll be heading over there after I get off,” Faith said. “I owe them this month’s rent, anyways.” She held out her hands as a suggestion for them all to go across together and Paige felt her heart begin to race.

  She was tipsy, but she didn’t think she was that tipsy.

  How could she go from not even really wanting to go out to hanging around in places where she could quite easily get spiked or murdered!

  “It sounds a little bit dangerous to me,” she said shyly, aware of how much of a buzzkill she was going to look and sound.

  “It’s not dangerous for us,” Faith said. “If you were a guy from out of town, a rival gang, or some disrespectful trucker, then maybe. But not for three lovely ladies who just want to go for a late drink and listen to some good music.” She paused. “And the eye candy… wow…” She nodded her head and stubbed out her cigarette.

  Penny was clinging to Paige’s arm and pulling on her so tightly it felt as if she could rip the skin clean from her bones. Paige looked down at her friend and wanted to tell her to get a grip, but she was also out having a good time and she didn’t want it to end or ruin it by not going with the flow.

  That had been her motto for the night, after all.

  “Umm,” she faltered. “Okay… One drink, though and then I’m leaving.”

  “Yes!” Penny squealed as she jumped up and threw her arms around Paige’s neck. “We’re going to have a blast! I promise!”

  4.

  It took several more drinks before Paige and Penny finally worked up the courage to head into the restroom and adjust their hair and makeup. Faith’s bar was just about empty and the last few customers were draining what was left in their glasses before heading out onto Main Street to make their way home, to Tanner’s strip club, or to the diner for a late night snack.

  As Paige looked at herself in the mirror and ran a comb through her hair, she couldn’t help but laugh at herself. Penny was right, she did look completely different. After a full night of having fun, her eyeliner was smudged down underneath her eyes, her hair was sticking up in odd directions and her lipstick had smeared over one cheek. She reached into her purse and pulled out a tissue before she cleaned herself up and applied some more cover-up and mascara.

  She instantly felt fresher and her eyes were glinting once more.

  “Honestly,” Penny said as she flushed the chain from a cubicle behind her. “I don’t know why you wear those damn glasses and blouses all the time. Look at you tonight, you’re smoking hot.”

  The door bounced open and Penny staggered out. She was slurring slightly and she seemed to bounce off the walls.

  “I’m starting to wonder the same thing myself,” Paige said as she yawned and took a sip of her water. “At least I know now I’ve still got it.” She laughed.

  “Please, you never lost it! You just decided to cover it up. Kind of like Clark Kent or something, when really, underneath, you’re Superman.”

  Paige shook her head and laughed.

  “I don’t know about that…” She zipped up her purse and slung it over her shoulder.

  “So come on then girls, we doing this or what?” Faith called from outside the restroom door.

  Paige and Penny looked at one another and Penny burst out laughing. Paige creased her brow and wanted so badly to back out, but there was also a part of her that was bursting with curiosity and longing for excitement.

  “It must be the booze talking,” Paige said. “But fuck yeah, let’s go!”

  Penny roared with laughter and pulled her friend into a hug before they both threw open the door and joined Faith outside.

  “I hope you’re going to look after us, Faith,” Paige said. “We’re biker bar virgins, after all.”

  “Don’t you worry,” Faith smiled. “There’s plenty of people over at The Bullet who’ll look after you two. I can imagine you’re going to go down very well as soon as you walk in.”

  “Oh Jesus,” Penny laughed as she covered her eyes. “Where the hell are you taking us!?”

  Faith winked and headed over to the front door. The last of the customers were gone and the bar had been cleared down. The place was deserted and as peaceful as it had been when they walked in, minus the music.

  “I think you’ve got a good thing going on here, Faith,” Paige said genuinely as she closed the door behind them and began to lock the building up with a big set of keys. “I hope it works out for you.”

  Even through her drunken haze, she wanted to make sure she told this new friend that she supported her new venture and she respected her for going out on her own. Slate Springs was one of those towns where everyone was so stuck in their ways it was refreshing to see someone unlikely taking a risk to try and shake things up a little.

  “Thank you,” Faith smiled. “That means a lot.”

  The women all linked arms and walked down the street. It was dark and the temperature had dramatically dropped, so much so that Paige wanted to hug her arms around herself as she shivered against the nip of the wind.

  “Taxi!” Penny hollered as a cab flew around the corner with a screech and pulled to a halt in front of them within a split second.

  “Good spot,” Faith grinned.

  Paige and Penny climbed into the back while Faith rode up front with the driver.

  “Okay then girls,” he asked. “Where we heading?”

  “The Bleeding Bullet,” Faith smiled as she lit a cigarette and slipped a leather jacket on over her shoulders.

  The drive looked over the top of his glasses at her as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.

  “The Bleeding Bullet?” he asked with a nervous laugh.

  “That’s the one,�
� Penny slurred from the backseat and Paige just wanted to bury her head in the sand. The driver looked nervous, and suddenly, she didn’t think this was such a good idea after all.

  “Well, all right then,” he said as he swerved back out onto Main Street and did a quick and easy U-Turn.

  He hit the gas so hard that Paige flew back against the seat and scrunched up her face.

  “Hell yeah,” Faith laughed. “That’s more like it!”

  The driver cocked his head to one side and laughed as they flew through the night and out toward the other side of town.

  The roads were unfamiliar, and Paige looked out the window and couldn’t help but feel sobered up by what she was seeing. The roads were dark and deserted. There were no houses or familiar faces, in fact, there was no one out at all. It was dark, the streetlights were smashed and broken, and the buildings were boarded up and forgotten. She swallowed hard and thought back to a horror movie she had seen not too long ago where a girl was driven out to a place just like this and murdered. She shuddered and looked down at Penny who was slouched in the seat and completely unaware of her surroundings.

  Even the air seemed different. She rolled down the window a crack to try and feel the breeze but it was as if it was thick and dense with smoke and the smell of gasoline.

  “Where are all the people?” she found herself asking no one in particular.

  Faith turned in her seat and looked over her shoulder.

  “Most people don’t come out on the street at night here,” Faith said. “There’s been trouble in the past.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Paige asked as they passed by a garbage can alight with flames and spewing smoke.

  “Oh my god,” she gasped.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Faith said. “It’s for effect more than anything. Keep the out of towners away.”

  “I can’t believe people from town come here at all,” Paige said with concern. “I mean… I had no idea all of this was even over here.”

  They passed by some tall, darkened warehouses with smashed in and boarded up windows. They were so tall and gigantic it made the streets feel darker and more claustrophobic, and as they rounded another corner, Paige was sure she could hear the sound of men shouting and fighting, and a distant siren.

  “Did you hear that?” she said almost in a whisper. But no one answered her.

  Suddenly, at the side of the road, she saw a police car and their flashing red lights.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, but Faith just looked up briefly and then shrugged.

  “There’s always something going on around here,” the driver said. “But I’m surprised the police are here. Normally, they just leave the bikers to it.”

  “Yep,” Faith agreed. “Must just be some dumb truckers causing trouble.”

  The driver slowed down and they turned another corner. Paige could feel a difference the second they straightened up, and she looked ahead, eager to see where they were.

  She felt her mouth drop slightly when she saw it for the first time. In front of the car, as they weaved slowly in and out of abandoned trucks, upturned trash cans, cop cars and big, beastly motorcycles, she could see the bar. It was tall and cavernous, as high as the warehouses that flanked it on either side, and it was brightly lit from the ground up by two massive, dark red spotlights.

  “Wow,” she whispered.

  The windows were all blacked out as if they had been painted over, and the stairs that led up to the main doors were crawling with women and bearded men. They lounged all over each other, smoking cigarettes and drinking straight from the bottle. Paige gasped as she saw a cop wrestling a man with a trucker’s cap to the ground and bundling him away to their car and slamming him into the backseat.

  “See, told you it would be a trucker causing trouble,” Faith smiled over her shoulder.

  The men on the steps all cheered and raised their fists into the air and the women laughed.

  “Is that them?” Penny asked squinting. “Is that the Forsaken whatever?” she hiccupped.

  “No, sweetheart,” Faith half laughed. “They don’t need an introduction. Trust me, you’ll know them the second you see them.”

  The taxi pulled away and left the three women outside of The Bleeding Bullet. Paige looked all around at the men and women on the outside of the bar, all of them clearly intoxicated with more than just drink. They were also drunk on lust. They wound themselves around one another, sucking on each other’s faces and running their hands into deep, dark crevices.

  Paige found herself tugging at her collar. She had never seen such a public display of affection before, and certainly never mind en-masse and from several couples, all at once. She felt herself blush and Penny and Faith both looked at her and smirked.

  “Come on, little one,” Faith said gently. “Let’s get you to that bar for a big drink before you lose your nerve. And remember, you’ve got nothing to fear here. It’s not what you think, everyone’s just out for a good time.”

  The three of them walked forward and Paige kept her eyes pointed down at the ground. She was so nervous about catching someone’s line of sight and finding herself challenged that she seemed to disappear in on herself, as if she were making herself invisible.

  They climbed the stairs two at a time and when they pushed the doors open and stepped inside, it was as if they were entering another world.

  “Oh my god,” Paige whispered as she felt the atmosphere hit her.

  The air was red hot, dense and full of smoke. It was like stepping into a sauna filled with whiskey and sex. The scents of illicit fun drifted over to her, it was an adult playground full of sin and debauchery and it made her toes curl. But in a good way. She couldn’t help but smile.

  Bodies slammed into her from every angle and she felt sweaty skin slipping against hers. The music was loud and heavy, and it vibrated underneath the floor into the soles of her feet and right up her spine. Penny wrapped her hand into hers and pulled her forward. The lights were flashing and she was disorientated, but luckily, they had Faith, and she was leading them right to where they needed to be.

  “This place is wild!” Penny shouted over her shoulder and into Paige’s ear.

  And Paige had to agree with her on that one. It was like nothing she had ever seen.

  The three women reached the bar and Paige pressed herself right up against it, as far out of the way from the pushing swarm of bodies as she possibly could. It was so busy and loud in there, it was almost comforting. She had half been expecting to walk into a half empty den of violence where everyone was hostile and would have stared them down. But Faith had been right. Everyone in The Bleeding Bullet was just having a damn good time.

  “This is awesome,” she said.

  And Faith raised her eyebrows with a wiggle and grinned.

  “How the fuck have we lived all these years in Slate Springs and never known about this place?” Penny demanded as she slammed her fist down on the bar. “I feel deprived! I could have been misspending every weekend here!”

  Paige rolled her eyes jokingly and leaned into the bar.

  “What we having?” she asked Penny and Faith.

  “In The Bullet, it’s gotta be a straight up whiskey,” Faith winked.

  Paige shrugged and smiled. She was happy to go with that suggestion.

  When in Rome…

  The barmaid served them quickly and Faith leaned in to chat with her. They seemed to know each other and Paige watched as they laughed and joked, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Penny was swaying next to her, sipping her drink and throwing her free hand up in the air to dance badly.

  Paige was smiling from ear to ear. She never, in a million years, would have imagined forty-eight hours before that she would ever find herself in a place like this. It was so unlike her, so completely bizarre and out of character. But she was loving every second of it.

  “I need to find some of the guys,” Faith said to them both. “I’ve got this envelope of ca
sh in my purse and it’s making me paranoid.”

  Paige nodded but Penny didn’t hear. She was still too busy shaking her hips and swigging her whiskey in a world of her own.

  “Wait here?” Faith asked.

  Paige nodded and smiled, even though she instantly felt exposed and vulnerable without Faith by their side. It was as if they had gone in there with her as some kind of protector. Faith was their guide and mentor in the world of biker bars, and now she had ditched them after barely being in there for ten minutes. Paige bit her lip nervously and brushed her hair over her shoulder and behind her ears.

  The crowd surged forward and slammed her and Penny closer to the bar. The music was louder and harder and the men behind them were throwing themselves around, dancing too forcefully and trying to form their own little pit where they could bash into each other and call it fun.

  “Oh man, I’m not sure I like this,” Paige said to Penny as the crowd surged again and pinned them even closer to the bar side.

  “If they move any closer, they’re going to crush us,” she tried to shout, but she could tell Penny couldn’t hear her and was too busy spinning around on the spot and gyrating up against a trucker.

  Paige screwed up her nose and ran her hand across the back of her neck. It was so hot in there it was making her dizzy and she felt a wave of nausea come over her.

  “Fuck, where is Faith…?” she said to herself.

  She tried to turn around and grab the bartender’s attention, but she was busy serving down at the other end of the counter. Paige reached out and tapped the man next to her, but he looked down at her as if she was just being a drunken nuisance and then turned his back on her and shoved back so the space between them was even smaller.

  “Hey,” she croaked. “Please, I need some water.”

  But there was no one to hear her. The music was too loud and the crowd was too heavy, every time she spoke, her small voice was lost in the crazy noise.

  Her head went light and her vision blurred. She slumped forward and held onto the bar as another man backed into her and crushed her further into the counter. Her rib cage was pressed right up against it and this time, she was struggling to breathe.