Then I thought of that question. My name…
“Flame,” I said, pushing my other name far from my fucking mind, the name I couldn’t stand.
I froze as she dipped her eyes and smiled. My fingernails dug into my palm, so I could fucking try and stay calm at that smile. “You have my eternal gratitude, Flame. I am forever in your debt.”
The air blew out from my mouth as she turned and walked away, but I couldn’t stop staring at her.
My eyes dropped to my hands and I stared at my palm. I’d touched her. I’d fucking touched her and I hadn’t hurt her.
Then my stomach fell. Because the flames were still under my skin. I could feel them. And if I touched her again, I could hurt her.
“Fuck man, you alright?” AK stood in front of me blocking my path to the little black-haired bitch.
I held up my hands, palms up high. “I fucking touched her,” I whispered. “I fucking touched her.”
AK nodded. “I know, brother. You doing okay? You’re not gonna go psycho on her ass, right? No thoughts to slit her throat going through that head?”
Moving to the side, I looked over AK’s shoulder and asked, “What was her name? What the fuck did Mae say her name was?”
AK glanced back too and said, “Maddie, I think?” He took a deep breath. “Yeah, Maddie.”
Maddie, I thought, then whispered her name aloud on my lips. “Maddie…”
Within hours we returned to the compound and the brothers from out of state, along with most from our club, drank and fucked the night away. But I could only see Maddie. I could only see her in Styx’s apartment window where she’d taken up position. I didn’t drink, or smoke, instead I watched her sitting on the window ledge, watching me back.
I paced below her window until AK and Viking dragged me home to my cabin. But I couldn’t get her the fuck out of my mind. Kept seeing green eyes and long black hair in my head. Kept feeling her hands around my waist.
Grabbing my blades, I burst out of the door and ran all the fucking way to the compound. As I broke through the line of trees, I ran until I reached the window of Styx’s apartment… then stopped dead.
The window.
Sat at the fucking window was Maddie.
My heart kicked into a sprint as I stared at her.
Then she looked down and stared back at me.
I watched her mouth drop open.
I watched her green eyes widen.
I watched her hand press to the glass.
I watched her lips, as they mouthed, “Flame…”
Clutching my blades at my side, I stormed forward. I began pacing below her window. Because no one would fucking get near her again. No one would ever hurt her again. If they did, they would die.
Die under my motherfucking blades.
Because she was mine.
The little black-haired bitch called Maddie was mine.
Chapter One
Flame
Present day…
No. No. NO!
I raced down the graveled road to my cabin, unable to stop the fucking messed up thoughts filling in my head. They have her. They’ll hurt her.
I pushed my legs harder. They screamed in pain, still weak from all the motherfucking weeks spent strapped to a hospital bed, but I needed to get to Maddie. She needed me to stop them. She needed me to stop them from hurting her too.
I’d taken a bullet for her. When Lilah freaked after she’d been rescued from the commune, and accidently fired the gun in her hands—the gun aiming right at Maddie—I’d had to save her. I’d had to fucking save her life.
But it was all for nothing, now they had her in that church.
Reaching my cabin, I opened the door and I burst into the living room. Finding my bike’s keys on the countertop, I grabbed them in my hand and ran to my bike outside. Throwing myself onto the saddle, I turned the key and the engine roared to life. My heart boomed like fucking thunder as the bike vibrated beneath me.
Heeling up the kickstand, I saw Viking and AK running down the hill after me. They were screaming at me to stop, but I couldn’t. I needed to get to Maddie. I couldn’t fucking leave her there, with those people.
Not her.
Not Maddie.
Not my Maddie!
Back wheel skidding on the graveled drive, I launched like a fucking bat out of hell onto the dirt road. I caught the sound of a bike following me in the distance, but I didn’t stop, Ky’s bitch’s words fucking piercing my brain.
“Maddie is at Our Savior Church… She has been going there for a while now. We all have.”
I rode harder, not knowing if I was too late. But knowing if I didn’t get there, it could be too late. They’d make her scream. And I couldn’t hear her scream. I couldn’t bear the screaming. It boiled my blood. It ignited the flames under my flesh. It fucking haunted my brain.