Beast: Learning to Breathe (Devil's Blaze MC #5)

“Were you...were you part of the Dwellers?” she asks, and it’s then I notice her hands are trembling.

Suddenly, I’m clued into the fact that this is more than my being part of a motorcycle club. No, this has much more to do with the Shadow Dwellers in general. I gathered she used to be a hanger on or a plaything to the Dwellers. They’re a twisted fucking bunch that’s for sure, and I have to wonder how Hayden didn’t wind up one of the girls they sold. Now I’m starting to wonder exactly what Hayden’s full story is. I’m going to have to make her tell me. It’s not because I want to know more about her. No. I’m being logical. I need to protect the baby. That’s the only reason, I need to know. That’s all this is.

“I’d slit my own throat before I’d join any brotherhood with the Dwellers,” I tell her with frank honesty.

Her face jerks up and she looks at me, her steely eyes wide. She studies my face for a few minutes before she nods in agreement. Slowly, second by second, her body releases the tension that has gathered into it. She still looks unsure however, and for some reason I find myself wanting to reassure her. Which pisses me off. So, instead I go back to my food—ignoring her.

“Does that mean your...club was different than the Dwellers?”

“As night and day,” I confirm. I may not be a member of the Blaze anymore, but I don’t like my brothers being compared to a bunch of inbred ass-fucks.

“What was your club like?” she asks, and I don’t want to answer. If I answer, I have to think about my brothers and the life I had once. I shrug it off instead. Swallowing down my answer, I pretend interest in my food, which has suddenly become dry as sawdust. They were like a family. I want to tell her that.

I don’t.





30





Hayden





“I’m sorry. I get the feeling I offended you, I didn’t mean to. My views are jaded when it comes to bikers,” I tell him, hating that I caused him to withdraw. For a second, I felt panic threaten to overtake me when he mentioned he was part of a club. It was a crazy reaction considering I had already assumed at least in my head that Michael was a biker. It stands to reason that he belongs to a club...or according to him belonged to a club.

“You were Dwellers’ property,” he says matter-of-factly. So calm and quiet he says those words. He doesn’t have a clue to the misery and pain those simple words hold. He may not know, but they inflict enough pain that I want to get up and run out of the diner. Run and never turn back.

“I’m no one’s property,” I say in a soft whisper that I hate. I’d rather growl out my words with such strength that no one could ever see me as weak again.

I sneak a glance up at Michael to see how he takes my declaration. He’s not making fun of me or laughing, which I thought might be a distinct possibility. When I look up at him, he’s nodding in agreement. Something about that warms me as nothing else could. It’s an agreement, but more than that. It’s an agreement from a man I like, and I think...respect. Because of that it feels like there’s a healing inside of me. A warmth that coats over the jagged hurts that have been inflicted on my soul. He doesn’t know that. No, he would probably think I was insane if I told him. It’s there just the same.

I take a breath, wanting to push the conversation in a different direction—needing it to. “What did they call you?”

He stops mid-bite to look at me.

“Beast,” he says, putting his burger back down. I’m frozen for a second. Beast? I mean it could certainly fit. He’s so tall sometimes I get a crook in my neck staring up at him, and I’m not exactly short. He’s also broad, his body so impressive he could make three of me. He’s a beast of a man, so I can see it. Yet, for some reason it shocks me. The more I think about it, however, the more I want to giggle. He looks up at me and studies my face. I’m still unable to hide my amusement. “You find that funny?”

“I’m just wondering how many women volunteered to be Beauty,” I tell him, giving up my fight and giggling—especially when the shocked look of surprise covers his normally taciturn face.

“You’re a strange woman, Hayden,” he answers, shaking his head. This time however, there is no doubt. He’s smiling and that makes me feel good.

“I can’t call you Beast. I think I’ll stick with Michael. Maybe I’ll call you Mikey,” I tell him, grinning, then sneaking my fry into his mound of salty ketchup.

“You will not call me Mikey. No one has called me Mikey and lived to tell about it,” he says sternly, but his eyes are twinkling at me. “And put that fry down. That’s too much salt for you and Maggie.”

“Can I call you Mikey?” I ask, with a smile.

“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” he says—still unyielding, but his eyes are still twinkling in their dark depths.

“Then I’m keeping my fry,” I tell him with a shrug, popping it in my mouth. The salt explodes in my mouth. He didn’t just over salt the ketchup. No, he has what is equivalent to the largest salt mine in the United States. I cough, even though I try to suppress it. I cough again and again, gagging on the salty taste that overpowers everything. “How do you eat that?” I ask, in between coughing and spluttering. I reach for my glass and take a huge drink. It takes two more drinks before I’m able to stop coughing, but it doesn’t matter. I barely notice. All I notice in that moment is Michael is laughing. It’s not a loud laugh and it didn’t last particularly long. But he laughed.

He laughed.





31





Beast





“Hi,” Hayden calls out, drawing the word out as she climbs the stairs. I hold my head down, biting down the urge to tell her to leave.

I haven’t talked to her in two days, not since I brought her home after lunch at the diner. It’s a fucked-up thing, but I have been avoiding her. Being around her seems to make me feel better, and I don’t deserve that. After spending six years in Hell, that feeling could become addicting. The last thing in the world I need is to be addicted to Hayden Graham.

“Are you in here?” she asks, just as she pops up from the stairway. She looks up at me with a large smile. “There you are. I was wondering if you were busy?” I forbid myself to talk to her. I can’t encourage this...I can’t. “Well, I mean, if you are, it’s okay. I was making dinner, and I made too much really, and I was going to watch a movie. If you don’t have any plans and well, if you want to, you could come over. You don’t have to. So, please don’t feel like you do. I just thought that you have to eat, and I have to eat and maybe we could eat together. Maybe? Possibly? Okay. Well. Um…”

I watch as she rattles on crazily before breaking off to just stare at me. Her cheeks are red with embarrassment, and I should stop being an ass and just tell her I don’t want to have dinner with her. I should, and yet I don’t. I can’t seem to get those words out.

“You shouldn’t be climbing the stairs.”

“What?” she asks, confused.

“You could get hurt. You shouldn’t be climbing the stairs on your own.”