Alice James tried like hell to forget soul killing tragedy. Running from her gun runner father's murder and dark days with the Prairie Devils MC was pure survival. But escaping nightmares is never easy. Neither is erasing
him
from her memory
.

Lucas “Stinger” Spears can't forget the walking mystery with the killer body who shared his clubhouse for a few glorious weeks. Too bad Alice rebuffed his wild charms like no woman has, and nobody – nobody! – says no to the VP of the Devils Montana crew. Now, his own dark memories and raw passions are perfect fuel for a midnight ride to find his woman and stake a claim.

She can't remember what love's supposed to be. He can't live another second without her on his bike and between his sheets, screaming his name and wearing his brand. And neither of them knows a dead man's secrets are about to drive a terrifying wedge between their hearts, threatening their fragile love and the entire club...

Will Alice and Stinger's bitter love turn sweet – or will it become pure poison?

The Prairie Devils MC books are stand alone romance novels featuring unique lovers and happy endings. No cliffhangers allowed! This is Stinger and Alice's story.

I: Shades of Betrayal (Alice)

W
hen I felt the knife against my throat, I knew I'd fucked up bad.

Stinger wasn't coming to pull me feet from the fire either. Not this time, not when I'd run away from him and his club like the terrified girl I was.

He'd offered me the world, and I'd forsaken him. Now, I was going to pay the price.

“I'll ask you again, little bitch.
Where. Is. It?
” My interrogator's eyes were pitch black.

God, how many times had I seen eyes like that before? They were as black and dead as the last few months of this new life, lost to the world, abandoned in the deep cold darkness.

“I...I can't remember. I already told you that. I'm not lying!” I spat at the floor and looked up, trying not to shake.

My eyes passed over the patches on his cut: NERO, PRESIDENT, 1%, WRECKING CREW, SLINGERS MC. Skulls wearing cowboy hats and smoking pistols menaced their way out of the leather. Above it all, his black eyes devoured me, darkness set in a bald head and cheeks pocked with scars.

Sick irony twisted my stomach. I'd fled to Idaho to get away from biker gangs intruding on my life, only to have a truly feral MC threatening to make sure I never had to worry about intrusions ever again. And all because I couldn't give him something I didn't know I had, that fucking map my father hid before they murdered him.

“Bullshit!” Nero lowered the knife and gave me a good shove against the wall.

Behind him, another man laughed, giggling like a hyena while he scratched his arm. Nero's head whipped back and he gave the psycho an evil eye.

“Shut the fuck up, Hatter.” He drew in a heavy breath before turning back to me, bathing me in those inverted spotlights he had for eyes. “Your amnesia act's not pulling the fucking wool over my eyes, girl. Maybe it worked before, getting every fool from here to Missoula to swallow your shit, but I'm not biting. I know the Rams kept you for days in that shitty clubhouse after we killed your old man and ripped through his fucking truck. Don't tell me the Feds took it. I won't believe that shit for a second.”

I looked up at him, hatred swirling in my veins. My fiercest look didn't faze him. All it got me was the knife at my throat again, cold and threatening as ever.

“Who the fuck took it, slut? Did you bring it out here when you decided to move West and shake your pussy on stage? Should I rip apart this whole fucking house looking for it?” Nero looked up at his men and snapped his fingers.

His crew moved behind us, stomping into my tiny kitchen. Crashes blasted my ears as they turned over the table and started to open every drawer and cabinet they could find, hurling out the contents, killing the grim silence with a ferocious clatter.

Shit.
He knew damned well I wasn't hiding anything in plates and cups, didn't he?

Maybe it was a new, sick form of torture. I didn't give a damn that they were destroying what little I had. It was the noise that got to me, the thunderous explosion of dishes, silverware, glass, and food hitting every surface within striking distance.

The one called Hatter added his high, insane laugh to the chaos too, a soulless cackle that drummed into my bones.

“Okay! You fucking win! I'll tell you everything I know. Just please...make them
stop,
” I screamed, jumping in his arms, wishing I could get his gross hands away.

I nicked my neck on the knife while I was thrashing around. Nero tucked it away, satisfied with my surrender, but not before I felt a warm trickle of angry blood pooling in my cleavage. He blinked, his eyes wide, allowing me to hold one hand to the wound while he clapped his hands and yelled at his men.

“All right, boys! Keep your peckers down and stop ripping shit to kingdom come. Our little raven's gonna sing...”

He smiled, reaching up to run the back of his hand through my black hair. I twisted away, stopping just short of slapping his stupid hand. Jesus, it was tempting, but I knew I'd get pure hell if I laid a finger on him.

The crashing stopped, replaced with wintry silence. Hatter's sick laughter faded into their heavy, excited breaths. They came tromping back to their boss, surrounding us in a cruel circle that would've made the biggest badass in the world sweat bullets.

My memory gathered itself while I stared into Nero's cold eyes, collating all the terrible things I'd forgotten for months. Everything I'd tried to escape forever.

I was an idiot to think I could run from it. Evil things always caught up with me, no different than this pack of vicious murderers.

“I watched Dad die in their clubhouse. The Rams kept me prisoner,” I said, remembering the worst days of my life. “I couldn't have been there more than a few days...”

“You gotta do better than that, little lamb. That shit's the first thing I learned through the Grizzlies grape vine, and it's fucking useless!” His last word exploded in my face like a bomb. “I want those fucking routes. I need your old man's map. Don't give a shit hearing about the Rams' escapades while you were chained down like a bitch.”

Don't shake. Don't cry. Don't give him anything except stark, bitter truth.

“The Prairie Devils picked me up. I was with them for...damn, it must've been several weeks. They held onto me while their drama with the Rams dragged on. This man, Stinger –“

It hurt to say his name.

Stinger repulsed me, fascinated me, and stirred more conflicting emotions than any man I'd ever met in my life. I couldn't handle him. I ran, as fast and as far as a bus ticket and a little cash could get me, hoping I'd never have to say his name again.

Nero held up a hand, hissing through his teeth. “I already told you, bitch, I don't need to hear all these little details. I don't give a fuck about hearing how many times they used your tight ass. If you don't spit out something useful in the next two minutes, Hatter and Wasp here are gonna use your holes instead. And I can guarantee they'll give you a pounding a whole lot harder than anything those Prairie Pussies gave you...” He turned the blade in his hands, bored beneath his rage.

I shouldn't have said his name. I'm not worthy to even think it.

My heart sank, thinking about the only man who gave a single crap about me since these demons killed Dad.

Stinger was a total angel, a guardian, handsome as he was strong, determined to keep the brutal world off my back. He protected me, the total opposite of what these idiots thought about the Devils, and I repaid him by fucking off without even saying goodbye.

“It doesn't matter,” I whispered, the worst lie I'd told all night. “I didn't see much. The Devils had their own crap going on – one of their brothers almost went to prison. They barely told me anything about their business. Just asked me a bunch of questions until the Rams hit them that night.”

“Yeah, yeah. Poison,” Nero grunted. “I know all about what those sloppy motherfuckers did. Didn't off a single Prairie Pussy, did they?”

I shook my head, remembering my last night with the club, nearly all the men laid up and suffering. The tainted whiskey did a number on their stomachs.

But it wasn't the club that mattered. It was
him,
and I was right by his side, holding his hand while he writhed in pain, then laying next to him – repaying the same favor he'd done me the first night I left hell.

Then there was the kiss the next morning, when he was still delirious...

I closed my eyes. It was too damned much.

I was an idiot, and the world didn't offer second chances.

“You're right. None of them died,” I said, reluctantly forcing my eyes open.

“Fucking amateurs,” Nero growled. “So, what, then? The Pussies cut a deal with the Feds, I know that much. How did the Rams die? That fucking thing had to be at their clubhouse. I know they fucked us over. And I know the Feds didn't tear them a new asshole. Their dicks are too limp these days for massacres and media spectacles. Who killed them?”

I swallowed the painful lump in my throat. Nero stepped closer again, catching the glint in my eye that told him I was holding back.

“You coming clean, or what? Fucking tell me, bitch! You got one chance, and you're losing it by the second.” He grabbed my shoulders and pressed me to the wall, hot breath spilling onto my face, carrying the faint and sickly stink of whiskey. “We're not gonna do this same old song and dance all night, girlie.”

My feet dangled off the floor as he lifted me higher, hanging my face just a few inches over his repulsive mug. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't look away, knowing if he wrung out the next bit, it would seriously fuck over the people who'd saved me.

And Stinger too – especially Stinger!

I'd already stabbed him in the back by running. I couldn't twist the knife by fucking over his club – could I?

“I get it.” His voice went cold, the anger doused to smoky rage. “Cutting up that pretty skin or having a dick inside you doesn't rustle your panties too much. Hell, you're probably already fucking guys in your off hours at the strip joint, yeah? You got a body worth a few dimes, bitch, and having us steal what you're selling doesn't get you in a fucking twist.”

I refused to answer. I had to keep my lips sealed, had to stay quiet. No, my memory wasn't perfect, but I'd be damned if I let it go.

“Let me tell you something.” He let my shoes drop to the floor with a shove. “You've never fucked the way we do. You see my bro, Hatter, over there?”

He grabbed my face and twisted it in the right direction. I was forced to look at the skinny, nasty freak behind him, the man who couldn't stop twitching and giggling like a lunatic.

“Show her your goods, brother!” Nero ordered.

Hatter laughed louder as he rolled his leather cut down his arms and pulled up his shirt. I gasped.

Crazy emblems lined his body like every biker, but they weren't tattoos. They were deep red scars, gouges in his skin. Several long lines of flame were deep red, nearly bleeding. The smoking gun on his chest was lined with thousands of little cuts designed to look like thorns.

The other two men laughed. I felt the blood draining from my face.

“This is what he does for fun,” Nero said. “Likes to carve shit up like it's Thanksgiving dinner three hundred and sixty five fuckin' days a year. Not just his own skin neither. Fuck, you oughta take a good look at his dick...this man's the only bastard I've known in all my years who takes razors to his pisser.”

The demon grinned and reached for his jeans, squeezing his crotch. Then he reached into the holsters near his waist and pulled out two matching daggers, holding them across the lump in his pants, giving me a smile straight from the darkest corner of hell.

Nero knew what he was doing. The bastard
knew
I'd take damage to keep my secrets, but not
this.
I couldn't fight the monster leering at me with his knives and manic evil, drool slipping down his chin.

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