MONSTER: Teutonic Knights MC, page 27
They stopped, and he turned her toward him, pulling his Teutonic Knights ring off. He lifted her hand and slid the ring onto the fourth finger of her left hand. The ring swallowed her finger, but that was okay. Once she knew, he could get her a proper ring.
Her heart nearly stopped as the giant ring slid onto her finger as he held her hand. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He looked into her eyes as hers filled with tears.
“Peyton Haase…” he said quietly. “Will you marry me?”
He held her hand, watching her eyes as they overflowed and tears began to crawl down her cheeks. She wanted to say yes, but she couldn’t speak, so she nodded then threw herself into his arms as the Knights began to clap and cheer.
THE END
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HER BEAST
Chapter 1
I got into my car and stretched, arching my back until it cracked. Sitting in front of the computer all day had gotten me into a nasty habit of hunching. I had to get one of those ergonomic chairs they kept advertising on TV. I had the money for that kind of luxury now and God knew the office wasn’t going to fork out cash for something like that. It wasn’t that upscale.
I sat in my car for a moment before starting the engine, just enjoying a different scenery from the two video-editing screens I watched all day. I loved my job as a film editor. I worked for a small, up-and-coming company which produced short films. I’d interned with them, and they’d liked me enough to take me on full time. It was my dream to work for a company like Dreamworks or Pixar one day. But for now, it was 60 plus hours a week at Houseworx.
The sky was a clear blue, the color you couldn’t get on a swatch, and the few clouds in the sky were like puffs of candy floss backgrounded every now and then by a seagull or two. I turned the key in the ignition once to open the window and breathed in. The smell of the ocean flooded into my car: it smelled like summer and hope.
Los Angeles was the kind of place people thought that you only went to when you wanted to make it big. I thought the same thing when I grew up in small town Arizona. Hollywood was a big deal around here, but aside from the glitz and the glam, LA was a city like any other, and there were people who worked here that just tried to make a living.
I twisted my long hair into a bun and stuck a pen in it to make the hair stick. I turned the ignition and my car purred to life, much better than the cough-and-splutter I’d heard until now. I’d been working in film for just over a year now and trading in my ancient Toyota for a brand new SUV had been a huge milestone. I was still getting used to my car, and my life, and the slow and steady improvement of my fortunes.
I put my phone in the dock and drove out of the parking lot. The road that led toward the big city was lined with palm trees, picturesque and romantic. The city stretched up in the near distance, with tall, silver buildings that reached for the sky.
Well, picturesque, at least. Romantic only came when you had someone to share it with. That was another part of my dream. I’d left a heartbroken high school sweetheart behind in Arizona with the excuse that I couldn’t be small-town forever. He’d wanted to come with me. I couldn’t imagine being stuck with him for the rest of my life. I’d come here hoping to find a future in my career and a man I could share it with.
The first part of my list was checked off and running smoothly. So far, I hadn’t met any men that knew how to treat a woman according to my high standards.
I lived on my own in a condo that looked out over a busy street that thrived at night. It was another of my recent upgrades. Cue the new life I was stepping into.
My phone rang over the Bluetooth radio set.
“Jayna?” My best friend Krista’s voice crackled over the speakers. “Are you done working yet?”
“Just got off,” I said. “What’s up?”
“I want to have a girls’ night tonight but everyone else pulled out. You’re up for it though, right? Please tell me you’re not going to say no.”
I sighed. I wasn’t in the mood for pumping music and a crowd that throbbed to the beat of the latest tune. All I wanted tonight was my bed and sitcom reruns.
“Can’t we just go out for dinner?” I asked. Compromise was the name of the game.
Krista groaned. “Everyone’s so damn grown up these days,” she said. “Fine. I’ll meet you at Cat’s Pajamas at seven.”
I hung up. Cat’s Pajamas was a nice place as far as restaurants went. Classy, the kind of place that saw a celebrity face once in a while – upbeat, but not a cocktail bar or a nightclub. And dinner wouldn’t finish late. Perfect.
I sneezed, the pollen in the summer air getting to me. God, I hated sneezing while I was driving. I sniffed and fished for the handbag I’d shoved behind my seat; I’d stuffed some tissues in there a few days ago. I still had to get around to filling the car up with the bare necessities. New cars were like new homes – sparkly and spectacular but not personalized yet.
I couldn’t find the bag. I turned as far as I could without letting go of the steering wheel and glanced over my shoulder. The bag was wedged underneath the seat like I’d jammed it in there. Which I hadn’t.
When I turned my eyes back to the road a black dog was in the middle of the street, mere feet from my bumper. I slammed on the breaks, my throat too locked up to scream.
Thank God for ABS. I felt the breaks catch and release as I skidded to a stop. I held my breath and waited for the thunk that would tell me I hit the dog, but it didn’t come. I watched the other side of the car, waiting for the dog to reappear. It didn’t.
I let out my breath in a whoosh of air, hit the button for the hazards and opened the car door.
I hadn’t hit the dog, but the animal had collapsed right in front of the car. The dog was in a bad shape. It had gashes and tears all over its body like something had ripped into it. The dog was struggling to breathe, its sides heaving; it had blood around its muzzle, too. One leg looked like it had been crushed. No wonder the animal had collapsed.
Underneath all the blood, the dog looked both vicious and horribly treated. It was painfully thin, skin drawn tight over protruding ribs. Thickset like a male dog, with black fur and a white triangle on the chest. Pit bull. The ears were clipped into small triangles that stood straight up even when the dog wasn’t alert.
“Hey, boy,” I said in a soothing voice, trying not to make things worse than they already were. “I don’t want to hurt you.” I prayed the dog wouldn’t snap at me. Pit bulls had bad reputations for being ferocious. The terrible wheezing sound of his breathing made everything seem so much worse. I reached out a hand and touched the dog’s head. Instead of biting me, he whimpered like a puppy.
“Don’t touch him!” Someone shouted. Heavy footsteps came to me quickly. A man in a leather jacket and faded jeans dropped down next to me. His left hand went straight to the dog’s head while the right went to his shoulder.
“Oh, my god, Joker,” he said. His voice was tight. I had time to notice his pitch black hair, messy like he’d just woken up, and his eyes, the color of ice, before he snapped at me like I was the bad guy. “You hit him?” It took me a moment to realize he’d actually noticed me and was talking to me.
“No,” I said. “I stopped in time. He was crossing the road.”
“Dammit,” Mr. Leather-Clad swore under his breath. “We need to get him a vet. He’s in such bad shape. He may not make it.” He sounded so panicked it didn’t match the wild outfit and the look of defiance he had about him. My first thought when I looked at him was badass. The second was gorgeous. He interrupted me before I thought of a third.
“Come on, big boy,” he said and there was affection in his voice. “Hold on for me.” The dog whimpered again, not a promising sign.
“There’s a vet right next to where I work,” I said. I saw the sign every morning when I turned into the parking lot. I’d always thought it was strange to have the two next to each other. I’d always thought a vet was more like a suburban kind of place, not a commercial one.
“Good,” he said. “Take me there.”
He scooped the dog up into his arms like a child. The dog whimpered and the man made shushing sounds, marching to my car. I watched him for a moment before I got up and followed him. He opened the back seat and got into the car with the dog on his lap. He cradled the dog, talking to it softly. He didn’t really leave me much of a choice. I wasn’t going to kick him out of my car just because he was a stranger. His dog was dying, for God’s sake.
“Come on,” he said a moment later, looking at me. I was still staring at him. He really cared for this animal. The dog looked like hell and the owner didn’t look much better. This man with his leathers and his bad attitude was in my car, demanding that I take him to the vet. If it weren’t for the dog, I would have told him to get right back out of my car, but he was right. That dog needed a vet as soon as possible.
I nodded and got into the driver’s seat. I started the car, switched off the hazards and did a U-turn at the next set of traffic lights.
“I’m Jayna, by the way,” I said. I glanced at the stranger in my rearview mirror.
“Dax,” he said without looking at me. Dax? Really? Hadn’t that been a character in Star Trek? Still, if that was what he wanted me to call him, who was I to argue? This was LA after all. Honestly, I’d heard worse.
I drove toward the vets as fast as I could in the late afternoon traffic. The sun was sinking lower and lower on the horizon, stretching the palm tree shadows out over the road. I could have been home right now, kicking off my shoes and stretching my cramped body out in a warm bath. God, that sounded good. My head ached dully, throbbing between my temples. I stared at a screen too many hours on end. I’d stopped taking lunch breaks and ate in front of my computer, instead.
I had to kick that habit.
I pulled into the vet’s parking lot and read the times on the sign. Thank God, they were still open. I imagined Mr. Leather would have made me keep driving until we found one that was open.
Dax was out almost before I got the car to a standstill, hauling his dog inside. I glanced over my shoulder. There was blood on the backseat. The car was brand new. Thank God I’d opted for the leather seats – it would have been a bitch getting the stains out of fabric, and this would be hard enough. Small blessings.
I closed the backdoor that Dax had left open, closed my own door, and locked the car before going into the building. The receptionist looked up at me over her red-rimmed glasses. She was middle aged and looked comfortable surrounded by leashes and prescription pet food.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“I… I’m with the guy that just came in?”
She nodded toward the waiting area. Well, I shouldn’t have expected they would take me through to the vet’s office or anything. Besides, I didn’t even know the guy – just that his name was Dax, and he called his dog Joker. And that he respected his dog more than he respected women, apparently.
Chapter 2
Joker lay on the vet’s table, barely breathing, pissing blood everywhere and my heart was breaking. Breaking and rejoicing all at the same time.
My dog had disappeared two months ago. I’d honestly started to think I would never see him again.
“He’s in bad shape,” the vet said. He was an older man with a buzz cut that took away the gray and hid his true age. He touched Joker like he knew what he was doing and I was willing to put all my trust in this man to save my dog.
“He’s going to make it, right?” I asked. Joker had to make it. He was all I had left in this wretched world.
“He has a fighting chance, but he’s going to have to stay here for a while. I’m putting him on a drip and I’m worried about a lung collapsing. You have no idea where he was?”
I shook my head. He’d disappeared out of the small yard in front of the piece of shit house I lived in one morning. I’d bet someone had taken him, though I didn’t have proof. He looked like he’d been in a hell of a lot of fights. The gashes around his neck and chest were about the size of teeth.
Dog fighting was a problem in LA. Even without proof, I was pretty damn sure someone had taken him. I didn’t have papers, but Joker looked like he was almost a hundred percent pit bull. I’d found him tossed in the trash when he was just a puppy. People had offered me good money for him over the years, and I’d told them very politely, with as many words as I could think of, where to put that money.
“It’s going to be okay, boy,” I said. I put my hand on Joker’s head and he whimpered like it hurt. The sound cut through me. I’d seen blood and death a million times over so it wasn’t the gore that bothered me. But Joker hurting? He was my everything. His pain was mine.
“I’m going to have to stitch up these wounds,” the vet said, already removing needle and thread from a sterile package with gloved hands. He’d given Joker injections against the pain, and when he touched the injuries, Joker didn’t flinch.“And when I’m done, I’d like to move him to our intensive care unit.”
They had that for dogs? I was starting to like this place more and more. I tried not to think about the price tag that would come with care and a facility like this. I could worry about that later. If I really needed to make a plan there were a lot of ways I could go about it.
I hadn’t exactly been living high on the hog, but it was a living nevertheless. The upside was where morals were concerned I had no problem. I was a mercenary, a soldier of fortune. Money was the name of the game, not ethics.
The vet worked fast and with precision. Joker didn’t wince or complain too much. Whether it was because the vet was a whizz with his hands or because of the injections, I was grateful for it. Either way, Joker was getting better and that was all that mattered.
When he was stitched up and bandaged, the white bandages in stark contrast to his black, filthy coat, the vet carried him to the unit. He had to go in a cage, but it was a big one. Joker would be able to move around, and there was food and water.
“The staff spends time with the animals every day. He’ll be taken out twice as soon as he’s up to it,” the vet said when I closed the cage door. I didn’t want to think where the thieves had kept him until now, but I was willing to bet it wasn’t this kind of luxury.
“Thank you,” I said, holding out my hand to the vet. My voice caught in my throat. Damn emotions. I didn’t care that the vet saw I was getting all welled up about my dog – Joker was a hell of a companion to have – but getting choked up in general was a weakness I couldn’t afford.
“Please fill out the paperwork with the secretary,” the vet said. He handed me a card. “And take my personal number, in case you need to check in. I don’t usually give this to everyone, but I don’t often see cases this bad, or people as distraught about it.”
I took the card and tried to think about what he’d just said. Yes, I was emotional. As bad as deserving a personal number? I was grateful I could check in directly with him if I needed to. That was all that mattered.
The money was at the back of my mind, but it didn’t matter. I could make a plan. I didn’t want to sound like an idiot and ask what a facility like this was going to cost to leave Joker. I would spend more money on him than on me, anyway. He ate before I did. If you couldn’t take that kind of care of an animal, you didn’t deserve to have one.
When I walked back into the reception area, Janya sat on a plastic chair, picking at a thread on her jacket. She looked up at me when I closed the door behind me. She didn’t smile or frown – her face was carefully blank – but there was something about her that made me want to treat her better than I had before.
“Uh… I just need to fill out some forms,” I said. Smooth. I didn’t have a hell of a track record with her when it came to nice lines, but this wasn’t exactly the kind of situation I would have chosen if it was about picking up a dame.
The fact that my mind went in that direction when I looked at her – despite my circumstances – said something.
I turned around so that I wouldn’t just stand there, staring at her. I hadn’t noticed her looks when it had all been about Joker, but he was taken care of now. I stood with my back to her and marveled at the chance that someone like her could cross my path.
She had blond hair twisted up in a bun. Her eyes were big, liquid, drowning deep. She was stunning, the kind of raw beauty they had in movies and you looked away because you knew that it couldn’t exist in real life.
Turned out I was wrong.
I filled out the forms, forcing myself to pay attention. Where I checked ‘cash’ as my payment method. I would be able to do it. I didn’t have a shortage of money, it just flowed in and out of my life very quickly.
