Six

Realizing I was ogling the man, my eyes jerked up from where they’d been taking a leisurely stroll over the bulge beneath his jeans. However, I suddenly found myself sucking in a harsh breath, and taking a small step back when the man under my perusal murmured sarcastically, "So… This is your bitch, Rook?"

Twin flags of anger stained my cheeks red, and my eyes lit with the fire of death. The hell-fire his words lit within me roared into an inferno, and stiffening, my hands balled into fist at my side and I lunged forward. From behind me, Rook groaned, "Oh, shit!" then hastily swooping down, he grabbed me around my thighs, before lifting me off my feet, he regained a standing position.

Twisting me within his arms, he planted me firmly across his broad shoulder, before grabbing the doorknob, he jerked the door open, but not before the words, “What did you just call me,Beast?" spewed from my lips.

Following us inside the clubhouse, the man I had nicknamed Beast, laughed. "Oh, how sweet! Kitty has claws!"

From over Rook’s shoulder, I glared at the Beast, and snarled, "Damn straight she does, and given the chance to, I’ll fuck up that messed up face of yours even further!"

With a smirk curving up the side of his lips, Beast murmured, "Shaken’ in my boots, Kitten!"

I could feel Rook hesitate beneath me, then with a shrug and a small shake of his head, he slowly began lowering me to the floor. As my feet touched down, I swiveled in his loosened arms, and before he could get a good grip on me again, I lunged at the insufferable man before me. Neither of them had expected my sudden move, which allowed me to get the jump on Beast.

Forming a fist, I swung out, connecting it with his firm jaw-line, causing him to give a slight stumble back. However, before I could slam my fist into his face again, Rook grabbed my arms, dragging me away, as from behind us, I heard someone shout, "Whoa, Kitty got claws and balls! She just jacked the fuck out of Satan’s jaw!"

Legs kicking and arms swinging, I fought Rook to be free as he continued pulling me across the floor. I whipped my head around toward the motley crew of men and women sitting and standing around the bottle and glass strewn tables. Zeroing in on one man in particular, who was more than obvious to me to be the word jester of moments earlier, I snarled, "You want some?" Then, never lessening my fight with the arms pulling at me, I screeched at the smirking man who was now backing away, "Where you think you’re going you shriveled up shit-dick?"

The man merely raised his hands in the air: palms out, he began laughing his ass off.

Swearing loudly, Rook hissed at the man, "Jesus Christ, Jax, just shut the fuck up, will ya?" At the same time, he was trying to avoid being hit by my octopus arms and legs. After barely avoiding a wildly flung arm to the face and fist in the stomach, Rook hissed out, "Holy hell, Reader, calm down!"

Jerking around, I glared at Rook, snapping, "Well goddamn, am I supposed to just take their shit?"

Suddenly, I heard a long, drawn out, "Meeeow," quickly followed by a chorus of meows and hisses about the room, causing Rook to let out another aggravated groan and a muttered, "Oh, fuck, me!" However, I was no longer giving a shit about any of what was occurring around me, as giving an audible gasp, I turned my head toward the man I now knew to be my nemesis…Satan…the club’s VP. Staring in his direction, my imagination took flight, and my breath froze in my lungs as I cried silently. No, it can’t be! It’s not possible! It’s. Not. Possible— Is it?

Unable to pull my eyes from Satan, I swept his features again, my heart galloping as it begged for it to be true. Though the scarring on his face was horrendous, the inexplicable draw, and familiarity I’d felt since I’d first gazed at his features, suddenly made sense. Even with the scarring, his features were so strikingly similar to Torin’s, they made my heart hurt. Unable to help myself, I breathed achingly, “Torin?”

Wrapping his arms around the woman who had sidled up against him, Satan lowered his head; his lips captured the woman’s in a kiss, lingering on them a few seconds. Finally, his hands running down the length of her back and moving onto her ass, he cupped her cheeks, giving them a quick squeeze, before pulling back a little, he looked in my direction. Gaze hard and eyes impenetrable, he murmured, "Satan, Kitten! My name’s Satan."

Shoulders drooping, yet still continuing to gaze at him, I shook my head giving a stuttered whisper of, "I … it’s … you look—"

Words abruptly cutting off, I swallowed down the tightness in my throat, then with tears forming in my eyes, and a small muffled sob escaping my mouth, I tried my best to place a tourniquet around the profuse bleeding of my heart. After a few seconds, I softly breathed, "You just...look a lot like someone I loved and lost."

Gaze still pinned on me, I watched a flicker of something come and go within the pale green depths of Satan’s eyes before in his low growl, he raised an eyebrow, asking, "So, you misplace things often, Kitten?

Everything in me deflated, and in a small broken voice, I whispered, "God, I wish I’d just misplaced him…but…he… he died."

Satan stood staring at me for a few more seconds, his face unreadable, then dropping his gaze, he turned and made his way over to the bar that ran almost the full length of the back wall of the room. Slipping behind the counter, he stood motionless for several seconds as he gazed almost absently at the fully stocked wall of alcohol in front of him. After a few seconds, he reached out, grabbing a bottle of JD and a glass from behind the counter, before making his way back around to the front of the long counter. Unscrewing the top off the bottle, he splashed a healthy amount of whiskey into the bottom of the glass, then, setting the bottle down on the surface of the bar, he turned to where he was once again facing me.

Leaning back against the scarred, rigid piece of wood behind him, legs crossed at the ankles, he swirled the glass of alcohol in front of him, staring down into its depths. Moments of silence ticked by before he finally breathed, "Yeah, seeing the ghost of someone you love and lost, can sure fuck a person up!" Afterward, downing the whiskey in the glass, he pushed away from the bar and walked out of the room.

**~SATAN~**

The explosion at the warehouse a year ago had torn me all to hell, but Burdock had drug my ass out of the debris, and afterward, with the help of the team, they'd somehow managed to get my ass back to the compound, where Doc had pulled off a miracle and stitched me back together.

I'd thought we'd been prepared. However, no matter how many hours, days and weeks of planning were done, something could always go wrong. That day, it had. As a result of the fuck up, I’d become a victim during our attempt to dismantle the gun-runners base, and the botched job, had damn near killed me.

For days after the explosion, I was in and out of consciousness, unaware of the world around me. Then, for weeks after I’d finally regained full consciousness, my mind had been like a cracked, chipped eggshell, fragile, and missing pieces. Slowly, my mind had healed and I’d begun putting the pieces back together, and when it was whole again, I’d remembered. I’d remembered everything. I remembered the confrontation with Marlowe’s dad, and the result. I remembered the agreement I’d made with Dillon about leaving the Sons Of Morning Star, of staying away from Marlowe. A giant void had opened up before me at the remembrance, and I’d fallen in, not giving a shit if I climbed back out or not. Afterward, my body had mended, improving with each passing day, however, my mental state hadn’t, and my anger at the world had touched everyone within the unit.

In fact, in the months that had followed, I’d wholeheartedly embraced the nickname of Satan. I’d become a twisted, mean motherfucker. As a result, I was barely hanging onto my position on the team, for I’d shrugged off all authoritative commands, and had gone into every situation with a chip on my shoulder and a bad attitude. Not the most ideal thing to be when you're a walking weapon, but I’d been gutted, my heart ripped out of my chest, and I’d gone into each assignment looking for trouble, and hoping to walk away from it with blood on my hands.

After I had left the MC, I’d gone into the military, and for awhile I had taken pride in being a member of a Special Operations Group, or ‘SOG’ but as the realization Marlowe was forever out of my life, I'd stopped giving a shit, and knew that my team members were beginning to look at me as a possible liability. The attitude I'd carried was a dangerous thing to have, when you needed to be able to trust that the person next to you had your back one hundred percent.

I was still teetering right on the edge of going over.

Burdock knew it, but as well, knew I needed my position within the team—the assignments. They were the only thing that kept me breathing, the only thing, which kept me going. That got my blood pumping—my adrenaline flowing. They were the only thing, which brought meaning to my life; the only thing, which got me through each day. Otherwise, during the down times…I was one of the walking dead.

Yet, this mean motherfucker had just been brought to his knees the moment I’d seen Marlowe. The sight of her had hit me hard, and I’d had no idea of how to react, and I'd become a sarcastic ass.

But when I’d heard the pain and anguish in her voice as she’d uttered my name, my world had tipped on its axis and still hadn’t found its way back to its normal rotation yet. My heart—the organ which had been missing from my chest for four years now—had slammed back into my body with such a violent force, I’d literally thought I wouldn’t survive it. The pain, which had wrenched through me when I’d seen Marlowe’s face at the flippant remark I’d made about her misplacing things, had damn near ripped me in half!

God help me, the devastation I’d read in her eyes when she’d replied to my comment, had shattered my soul. Now, anger at Burdock was running ripe and rich through me at the realization he’d brought her here on purpose, and with murder in my eyes, I stalked toward his office, ready to rip his goddamn balls off.