Cross Your Heart:Inked Angels MC(15)

The climb was long and steep. My breath came in short gasps by the time I saw the top. "Almost there, you bastard," I said to myself. "One foot in front of the other. Come on." My quads were on fire, but I forced myself to keep moving.



Finally, I broke out onto the top of Devil's Skillet. It took me a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sudden bright light after the shaded darkness of the trail. When they did, I saw Corinne. She was fastened to a rock on the far side of the circle, just twenty yards away from me. The rest of the clearing seemed to be empty. No signs of Ricardo.



I took two steps towards her. Her mouth was a wide-open O as a terrorized scream came pouring out into the stillness of the early morning. At first, I couldn't make out what she was saying, then I realized.



"Look out!" Corinne screamed.



I turned just in time to see a blur out of the corner of my right eye and a heavy rock come smashing down onto the side of my head. I fell to the ground as Ricardo hit me with his full weight. The knife went skittering from my hands.



He landed on top of me, knocking the breath from my lungs. Hot blood oozed from where he'd hit me with the rock in his hand. I looked up to see him cock the knife high above his head. His face was twisted into a feral snarl. He looked like a chained-up dog, or he would have, if his lips weren't frozen blue and his eyes weren't a hellfire red.



I couldn't spend long looking at his face, though, because just then, his knife reached its apex and all his muscles threw their force behind it as he brought the steely blade hurtling down towards my face.



My whole body was still aching from the gym, but now was not the time to be tired. I twisted my head to the side and the knife slammed into the ground right where it had just been. How the motherfucker missed, I would never know, but I couldn't wait and count my blessings. I needed to end the bastard's life. Now.



With a roar, I grabbed him by the sides of his shirt and hurled him off of me. He was lighter than I expected, as if the drugs had gobbled what was left of his bones and organs, leaving just skin and bones in their wake. He hit the dirt a yard away with an oomph, but he sprung upright immediately. I scrambled to my feet and crouched low into a fighting stance.   





 



He eyed me warily, teeth bared, and started to circle slowly counterclockwise. I paced with him, keeping the yard separating us. All sound died away - the whistling of the birds, the rustle of the wind in the trees, even Corinne's frightened whimpers. There was just me and this bastard. Only one of us would survive. I knew exactly who it was going to be.



Suddenly, Ricardo let loose a high-pitched banshee screech and pounced towards me. His fist was outstretched towards my chest. I leaned back, avoiding his knuckles, but as I did, he flicked his wrist oddly. In the quarter-second before I understood what was happening, I wondered what the hell he was doing.



Then the spring-loaded blade scythed out from where it was attached on the underside of his wrist. It extended a few inches past his knuckles, so that although I thought I'd leaned back far enough for the punch to miss, I ended up right in the path of the blade.



It tore across my bicep. Skin and muscle tissue ripped open; pain seared through me. Ricardo landed behind me with a savage grin as I stumbled away from him, pressing a wide palm against the open wound on my arm. The blood was coming fast and thick. He'd gotten me good.



I felt the sensation beginning to drain from my fingertips. I was losing an awful lot of blood in a short period of time. The strength started to dim in my hands and legs. Ricardo crouched down, coiling again like a snake as he got ready to dive at me once more.



I backed up, one weak step at a time. For every retreating step I made, he took one forward, until I was a foot away from the edge of the cliff and I couldn't go backwards anymore.



"You are one ugly son of a bitch," I said.



He scowled. "You, yes, want those to be your last words?" Another step closer. Two yards left between us. The blade on his wrist dripped with my lifeblood.



"Just saying it how it is," I responded. I felt dizzy, light-headed.



"She will die after you," he said, extending a finger to point at Corinne. Her eyes were wide open in fear.



"Don't worry, Corinne," I said to her with as much calm strength as I could muster. "I'm gonna lick this motherfucker, and then I'm gonna take you home. That's a promise. Cross my heart and hope to die."



Ricardo's eyes narrowed. He twisted his other wrist, and a blade sprung out from there, too. He took one more step. Just a yard remaining. Viciously sharp blades were pointed straight at me on each of his wrists.



"The more blood, the better," he said. Then he jumped.



I dropped onto my back the second his feet left the ground. Raising my legs straight up as he flew towards me, I shot my feet out into his chest. But instead of kicking him back in the direction from which he'd leaped, I used his momentum to carry him further forward.



I saw his eyes bug out as he passed over me. But there was no stopping. He went over the edge of the cliff.



I lumbered to my feet, wincing. The slice on my arm was ragged and ugly, and blood continued to leak from it. I peeled off my shirt and tied it like a tourniquet around the wound. The flow stopped, but I would need to get it taken care of soon.



Pivoting slowly, I peeked below. Ricardo's body was impaled on one of the pointed pillars I'd seen as I first drove up. The rock had torn straight through his stomach. His blood was an unnatural black, and even from here, I could still see the gleaming red in his eyes. As I watched, their glow dimmed and dimmed until there was no life left in them.





Chapter 14


Corinne



Croak walked over and picked up his knife from the ground where it had fallen when Ricardo attacked him. Returning to me, he used it to slice the ropes off of my body. I sat up, rubbing my wrists to return the circulation to my hands.



I looked at him, but I couldn't find any words that felt right. He was pale from the blood loss and clearly exhausted after the struggle that had just taken place, but his eyes were as calm and steady as ever. He gazed at me levelly.



"I … I don't know what to say," I whispered. My throat was aching from screaming.



Amazingly, he looked amused. "‘Thank you' wouldn't be a bad start," he joked.



In spite of everything - the bloodshed, the kidnapping, how close I'd coming to becoming a human sacrifice for a man driven insane by toxic drugs - Croak still made me laugh. It started as a tiny giggle, but it took hold of me and wouldn't let go. He smiled as I laughed and laughed until tears came out of my eyes, until I couldn't catch my breath and I had to lean my head against his chest to stop from falling off of my seat on the top of the rock that had almost become my deathbed. My laughter echoed off of the nature around us, doubling in on itself, until it was all I could do and all I could hear.   





 



After a long time, the laughing subsided, but I didn't move my head from where it rested on Croak's muscular chest. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed me close to him. "You've got a dark sense of humor if you think all this is funny," he remarked.



"You're one to talk," I retorted, though my voice was raspy and low.



"Momma always said I'd meet my death sounding like a wiseass."



"Did she really say that?"



"No, but it's still true."



I giggled again, then fell silent. Leaning back, I looked up into Croak's eyes. "I didn't think I'd see you again."



He was quiet for a while, but it didn't seem like he was thinking. He was just staring at me with those deep, impossible-to-read brown eyes of his. Considering something. "You knew you would," he said finally. "I knew it, too. I just didn't want to admit it."



"It was a bad idea to start this in the first place," I said pointedly.



He shrugged. "I'm full of bad ideas. Sometimes they pay off."



"Will this one?"



"I'm still waiting to find out."



I smiled as he leaned down to kiss me. His lips were rough with dirt and chapped from the wind, but I didn't care. I kissed him back, softly at first, and then deeper and deeper until my tongue and his were wrapped around each other, touching and healing.



His arm around my shoulder embraced me. I put my heels behind his legs to pull him closer to me, and gently rested my hands on either side of his torso. I felt the muscles slide smoothly under my touch. The fear I'd felt was gone, and there was only love for this man where it had been. I felt it everywhere I turned my attention to; it was in my heart, my hands, between my legs.



Suddenly, I felt the urge to be taken right here and now. I tried to ignore it - it was a crazy idea, after all; we were on top of a plateau, Croak had just fought a man to the death, and his arm was bleeding severely - but I couldn't fight it down and it grew stronger and stronger with every passing second.



"I need you," I whispered to him, fully aware of how ridiculous a suggestion it was.



But he took it in stride. He didn't blink or fidget. He just placed his fingers softly on the underside of my chin and kissed me again. It was a warm, perfect kiss. He molded his lips to mine exactly and with the other hand, slid down to unhook the button from the front of my shorts.