Condemned and Chosen (2 page)

“And if I don’t? What are you going to do, Brittany Marshall? Up here in these mountains, your daddy isn’t king.”

“My father is the only reason we’re not halfway across the Indian Ocean by now.”

“Is that right?” Molly smirked. “A hero, is he?”

Yes he is. You’d better thank your lucky stars that he made nice with the MC. When you have a minute, you should pray to God. Then, you should silently thank my father because he not only saved those who needed saving, he looked out for those here who were destined to become notorious tramps, too.”

“Why you little bitch!” Molly jumped off the bike and rushed her.

Brittany stood her ground and squared her shoulders as the vroom of the bikes topped the ridge and bounded over the last hurdle, the final hill topping the crest where the clubhouse perched. Romy released a hearty sigh and wished she could take it back as the hot air fell from her lungs and painted the cold air with a frosty breath.

“Scared were you?” Molly laughed.

A stroke of bravery or perhaps just downright mischief provoked Romy’s actions. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and strutted by Molly, grabbing Natasha’s hand in passing.

“Come on, Nat. The guys are probably hungry.” She stopped then, convinced the devil made her do it. “And from what I understand, they have quite an appetite after a ride, but they rarely like to eat from a dish that’s already been passed around.”

Chapter Two

Molly wanted to fuck Romy. She wanted to lay her down and just screw her senseless.

She’d ride her with her fingers or tongue. It didn’t make a damn to her, but one way or another, she’d have her. She’d have Romy Nichole Hanson if she had to blackmail the club to get her.

Sucking in a ragged breath, Molly shook out her hair and stood a little taller before she fell in behind the guys, following the MC inside the clubhouse. Laurel had spent the better part of the day in the kitchen and a waft of home cooking filled the main hall.

Laurel, also known as Mama, had her faults, but when it came to whipping up a good meal, no one could top her Southern fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade biscuits, and fresh baked pies.

Older than the rescued gals, Laurel was in her mid-to-late thirties, but hadn’t aged gracefully. With crow’s feet around her eyes and defined lines above her lip, she’d lived hard.

Willing to service any of the MC members, Laurel stepped into the role of mother, sister, lover, or friend for all who resided there in Safe Mountain.

“What’s your hurry, gorgeous?” Chuck Hayes’ raspy voice always left Molly’s pulse racing. The Sins of Wolves President, Chuck had long since used Molly for his own personal pleasure. She was his play toy, his little thing on the side.

Rumor had it Chuck already knew which one of the young women belonged to him. Most said Rebecca Summers would soon become his mate. Still, he was a man, a hardcore Alpha male with a gigantic ego and insatiable needs. And poor little Rebecca seldom showed her face.

“I’m hungry, Chuck.” Molly’s stomach growled as she thought of the passing meal, the food she wouldn’t sit down and enjoy with the others.

Chuck’s heavy arm latched around her waist and he drew her against him. With his hot breath at her ear, he said, “You look hot as hell, Mol.”

“Mol?” She whipped around and faced him, aware of his hard member mashing against her belly.

Staring into his shimmering blue eyes, she saw a glimpse of her own. That same cold blue stared back at her. For a split second she put aside what she’d heard about Chuck as much as what she knew to be true.

Was he just another soulless creature who masked his lack of morals by parading around as the MC President? Did he wear his ability to save Sevier County’s innocent women like a badge, a medal won in a hard-fought battle, as a way to conceal more diabolical motives?

“I thought about you today.” He stared down the slender bridge of his nose as he grabbed her hips and slammed his lower body against hers.

Behind them, the MC fellows greeted their old ladies and she couldn’t help but notice the significant differences in couples. Those who were known as mates gravitated to one another.

Those who were body bumpers, fuck buddies, just sort of casually sought out their bed partners as if they didn’t have anything else better to do.

“It’s hard to make somethin’ outta nothin’, Chuck.”

“I don’t want
just
something, darlin’.” He rolled his hips against hers. “I want you.”

Seeing a chance and taking it, Molly ground out a slow erotic rhythm. “Well
darlin’
, tonight? A little bit of this and a little bit of that, is gonna cost ya.”

“What kind of
naughty
do you have on that dirty mind of yours?”

About that time, Romy passed them. As if he were seeing her for the first time, Chuck slowly turned and watched her. His entire body went rigid. His nostrils flared. His eyes widened before they nearly disappeared under heavily hooded lids.

To Molly’s surprise, not to mention her disappointment, Chuck released her and took a step back. His ragged breath fell in the room like a broken chime, and his skin color changed from a heated red to a pale shade of grey.

“Of all the damn women…” he whispered, clearly entranced.

Molly gripped his bicep and yanked him forward. Nipping at his ear, she hissed, “For the record, she’s
the naughty
. And I have all sorts of delicious ideas for the three of us.”

“Romy Nichole is off limits.”

“Romy Nichole?” Molly studied him. “Were Jack and Martha Hanson friends of yours?”

The wrinkles encasing Chuck’s eyes narrowed. He pushed Molly aside and stood in line waiting for chow like everyone else in the MC. As club president, he could’ve gone to the front and no one would’ve cared. The fact that he didn’t raised a few brows. The fact that he kept his eyes trained on Romy? Even more peculiar.

The mate transformation unfolded. She’d heard about it, even longed to witness it, but as Chuck became more distant and his eyes glazed over with this undeniable lustful expression, her heart clenched in agony, not because she had feelings for Chuck. Oh no, Chuck wasn’t the problem here. She zoomed in on Romy.

Analyzing her next play, Molly further taunted him by rubbing against him. “I thought you wanted to have a good time.” She smoothed her palms across his broad shoulders. “I was kind of looking forward to it. The two of us together could teach Romy Nichole a thing or—”

Before she knew what hit her, Chuck whipped around on his boots and grabbed her by the hair of the head. With his fist at the base of her nape, he flashed his incisors and bit out, “I told you she’s off limits!”

A demanding growl filled the room. Loud snarling sounds alerted her to the obvious danger of standing too close to a wolf-shifter during his transformation. The gnashing of teeth and shredding of clothes drove home a point—she’d provoked the animal living within him.

In the distance, chairs and tables toppled over. “Chuck!” The club president’s name echoed with tremendous force as some of the guys tried to stop a powerful shifter’s transition.

It was too late. Molly had crossed the line. In doing so, she’d called out the most dangerous of wolves.

****

After the commotion died down, Romy slipped away from the table. She turned and studied her childhood friends before she left the dining hall. Unlike some of the others there, Romy had friends from her old life, people she wanted to protect.

Since Natasha had arrived at Safe Mountain, Brittany and her younger sister had been inseparable and even though they always included Romy in their conversations, in recent weeks, she’d felt like a third wheel. She blamed her growing angst on an unsettling desire, one Brittany enjoyed with her mate, Max. They shared an electric chemistry, a true physical and psychological connection that even mere strangers would notice.

“Where you off to, gorgeous?” Brice, one of Max’s closest friends, grabbed Romy’s wrist before she trod down the Hall of Pleasure, a nickname given to the main bedroom wing.

She stalled long enough to concentrate. She waited, hoped even, that the electrical charge some of the mates had described would suddenly zip through her body and leave her totally and utterly committed and in love.

Her gaze met Brice’s.

As if he understood, he shot her a wink. “It’s not me, sunshine.”

“How’d you—”

“You think you’re the first female to wonder around here dazed and confused on the day of a claiming?” He laughed and his laughter was toxic rather than intoxicating.

Romy gasped then, trying to catch her breath and desperately in need of fresh air.

“There’s something wrong.” She flattened her hand against the carpet-covered upper wall.

“Brice, I need help.” Her throat constricted. Her head spun.

She stumbled a time or two, vaguely aware of Brice standing behind her, gripping her upper arms in an effort to steady her. A few club members passed. Their faces were in a haze, a fog so thick she couldn’t make out their expressions.

Were they making fun of her? Did she hear laughter in the distance? Why wasn’t someone stopping to help her?

As a frantic whirlwind of thoughts raced through her mind, Romy experienced what she’d heard described as a storm system of emotions. Her heart broke for the family she’d left behind. An only child, Romy had tried to reassure her father in the days leading up to her confirmation. Her father had told her she’d be marked if the doctors confirmed her innocence, but she’d never paid much attention to that heartache in his eyes. Now she felt his excruciating pain. She thought of her mother, of the emptiness she must’ve felt when she realized Romy hadn’t just left. The girl they’d raised was gone forever.

She stumbled to the end of the hall and had just started to turn back when two large hands landed on her shoulders. The touch not only helped her maintain some semblance of balance.

The touch centered her.

Romy’s entire body responded and she didn’t have to face him to know whose hands were caressing her, whose presence wrapped around her like a warm blanket, soothing and consoling her. She’d heard the other mated women describe how they’d felt when they first realized they belonged to one of the guys.

In some ways, she’d suspected from the moment he’d lurched forward and taken his wolf form right there in the middle of the dining hall. Chuck Hayes didn’t lose his cool. He was a dangerously calm man, but when she’d strutted by him, she’d noticed his body stiffen. His entire demeanor had changed.

Seconds later, chaos had erupted. As if it were the eve of pandemonium, the room had fallen quiet after the storm. Everyone in the room had focused on Romy as Molly had hurled her accusation to the crowd.

She’d yelled, “Don’t look at me like I caused this. He knows who his mate is!”

Blinking away thoughts of the previous moments in the dining hall, Romy pulled away from Chuck’s grip so she could look at him. “It’s me. I’m your mate.”

Chuck slipped his arm around her waist and brought her to him once more. “Are you disappointed?”

Her mouth dried. Her heart clamored away with uneven beats.

“How could I be?”
How indeed?
Chuck wasn’t just the MC’s president. He was an enormous man with god-like features. Strong and well defined, his limbs were as sturdy as trunks. His high cheekbones, long slender nose, and dimpled chin made him male-model perfect, but those natural dimples gave him a softer appeal, something she’d never noticed until then.

Itching to touch him, she combed her fingers through his dark brown hair, admiring the loose curls resting on the backs of her hands.

Chuck grabbed her wrists then. “I didn’t say you could touch me, Romy.”

Shuddering, Romy pulled free of his grip, careful to make sure her actions weren’t perceived as defiance. She’d watched the others with their more dominant men. Laurel had explained what some of them expected, particularly those with positions of power or authority within the MC.

Bowing her head, Romy kept her eyes downcast and whispered, “I’ll do whatever I can to please you.”

Chuck brought her knuckles to his lips. “That’s good to hear, because we have a little matter we need to resolve before you and I can be together.”

With complete understanding, she slowly lifted her gaze and caught the look of lust filling her future lover’s eyes. “You want me to seduce Molly.” They locked in a knowing exchange. “Is that what you want?”

Silence once again fell upon them like a gavel falling upon a solid surface. The impact of the deafening quiet was enough to provide an answer.

“I don’t like the idea, but it’s necessary.”

“Why?” Wasn’t it every man’s fantasy to have two women in their bed? If he really wanted to watch Molly with Romy, wouldn’t he say so with marked enthusiasm? Wouldn’t the Alpha come rolling to the fore with sharp and sure demands?

A bedroom door slammed in the near distance. Chuck didn’t flinch, and he never averted his gaze. Romy didn’t greet the newcomer. She already knew who stood behind her. She’d caught the other woman’s scent, a mix of floral fragrances like a summer bouquet of lilacs and daisies.

“Necessary or not,” Romy said slowly, “I’ll do it because it’s what you ask me to do.”

“You’ll
do me
because the very thought of me turns you on.” Molly’s voice was wrought with humor.

Chuck’s nostrils flared, but he remained stoic.

Remembering what her father had once told her about the MC’s sources, the men and women who often provided much needed information, Romy glanced over her shoulder. Forcing a smile and rapidly coming to terms with how she would soon lose her innocence, she said, “Yes, Molly.
That too
.”

Chapter Three

For the last ten years, Chuck had dreamt of meeting his mate. When he’d first summoned the Sins of Wolves to help him with his mission, he’d abandoned his romanticized ideas of finding a life partner and focused on helping others. Saving young women from the torrid future the new governing order had inflicted upon them had been more than just a common goal he shared with the MC. It had been his life’s purpose. By saving those girls, those young women, he’d developed strong objectives. He’d become very influential.