And Now, a Contest!

And here we are guys. HERE WE ARE! Tomorrow (or tonight at midnight, whenever midnight is for you) you will have Mad, Dylan, Scarlet and Jade in your hands. If you haven’t yet, you can pre-order the book on Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google & All Romance eBooks. And if you want to get started early…enjoy the first three chapters below!

 

From the time he was old enough to understand words, people had been assuring Mad that he was blessed. He was the cosseted grandson of the Prophet, a holy prince adored and anointed by God himself. Everything he wanted should fall into his open hand. It was his destiny to do great things.

For a blessed man, he had terrible timing.

He paused on the threshold of the garage as Scarlet scowled at the broken-down amplifier on the bench in front of her. Shitty timing or not, the sight of her still kicked him in the gut as she pulled the wires away from the circuit board to get a better look.

She was wearing beat up jeans and an even more battered tank top. Her newly blonde hair had a bluish tint and was twisted on top of her head in a messy ponytail. The cigarette dangling from her lips emphasized her frown, which did nothing to diminish her overall impact.

Scarlet was hot. Not in spite of her clothes and her attitude, but because of them. Because Scarlet was unapologetically herself.

And because of who she was—protective, dangerous, stubborn—she was going to be trouble.

He’d hoped to slip out of Sector Four without attracting attention. Dallas had always granted Mad a certain amount of autonomy, a choice driven by politics and cemented by trust, but tonight Mad was treading a line dangerously close to disobedience.

She pulled the cigarette from her mouth without looking up. “Hey.”

“Scarlet.” He pushed off the doorframe and headed for his bike. She sounded distracted, so maybe luck was with him after all. “You’re working late.”

“Amp’s got a short in it. The garage has the best tools, but you have to use them when some motherfucker’s not banging them on an engine.” The soft glow at the tip of her cigarette flared as she took another drag. “What about you?”

“I have an errand to run.” Close enough to the truth.

“Alone?” Scarlet rolled her stool away from the work bench and propped one solid boot on the shelf. Her brows came together in a severe slash over her clear blue eyes as she looked him over. “I thought O’Kane had rules about that these days.”

These days had started the moment Eden tortured one of Dallas’s operatives. Started—or returned. Mad could still remember the early years, when no O’Kane ever ventured out of the compound without a partner to guard his back. Success and relative safety had made them all cocky, careless.

Now wasn’t the time for cocky and careless. Even Mad wasn’t that stupid. “I’m just bending the rules, not breaking them. I’m meeting a friend in Three.”

“Uh-huh.” The corner of her mouth tipped up in a sly smile. “Sure, Saint Adrian.”

The nickname made him tense instinctively, though he preferred the faint mockery in her voice to hearing the words whispered in earnest. “You can’t become a saint until you’re dead, sweetheart. That’s not on my agenda.”

“I bet.” She rose and crossed the garage, passing within inches of him before circling his bike. The proximity sparked heat all over his skin, and her low, husky laugh was even hotter. “Be careful anyway. And if—if—you make it all the way into Sector Two, do me a favor?”

That was the sexiest thing about Scarlet—her clever brain. “It never hurts to ask for a favor.”

“Mmm. Avery Parrino.”

It shouldn’t have surprised him. Avery was Lex’s baby sister, but she was also an old acquaintance of Jade’s. “She’s worried about her?”

“Of course. They’re friends.”

Somehow, Mad thought Jade might worry even if they weren’t. She’d won her freedom from Sector Two, but she still carried the place inside her, the same way Mad carried Sector One. A duty and an obligation. A painful scar.

At least Jade had Scarlet. Protective, dangerous, stubborn Scarlet. Whatever crazy shit was going on with Two, Jade wouldn’t have to face it alone.

“That’s why I’m going,” he said, reaching for his helmet. “We all know there’s trouble over there, and it can blow back on too many of our people. We need to be ready.”

“Spoken like a good little soldier.”

There was the mockery again. It dug under his skin this time, scraping at wounded pride he didn’t want to acknowledge. He was a good soldier. Even damaged and worn down, he held the line for his brothers and got the job done. “You got a problem, Scarlet?”

“A problem? Nah.” She crushed her cigarette out on the sole of one boot and tossed the butt on the work bench. “Just seems like you talk a big game about teamwork and brotherhood, but when you get right down to it? You’re gonna do whatever the fuck you want. You always do.”

She was leaning against the bench again, just a few feet away. He crossed the garage in two long steps that brought him into her personal space. Their bodies almost touched as he leaned past her to jab the switch that opened the big bay door.

Her ponytail brushed his cheek. Her hair smelled like vanilla and cinnamon. Like Jade, and the reminder of their relationship was a distraction Mad couldn’t afford.

He pulled back far enough to get a good grasp on his sanity, then smiled. “I’m gonna do whatever the fuck needs doing. Count on it.”

“You’re offended.” It wasn’t an accusation, just a statement of fact. “I meant it as a compliment, you know. O’Kane doesn’t need a bunch of blind followers. He needs men who can think for themselves.” She brushed a lock of hair back from his cheek. “Men like you.”

Her fingertips were soft. So was her touch, gentle and easy and nothing like his fantasies. And she could not be touching him right now—not with where he had to go and what he had to do tonight.

He caught her wrist and eased it away. “I’ll ask my contacts for news about Avery.”

“Thanks.” She turned away, but he could hear the smile in her voice. “You’re a prince.”

She was back to poking him, but it was almost a relief. The poking and the scratching and even the mockery were easy, safer than soft touches that tempted him to want what he couldn’t have. “Since the day I was born.”

Scarlet ignored him as he swung a leg over his motorcycle. He returned the favor as he shoved his helmet into place and roared out of the garage—maybe faster than was advisable.

He told himself it wasn’t running away if you had someplace to be.

The sector was mostly dark. It only took a few minutes to shoot past the final line of street lamps, and then the only light came from his bike and the moon.

He could still tell when he crossed the invisible border between Four and Three. Sector Four was rough around the edges, but Three was a mess. It had been almost a year since Dallas claimed ownership, but even long hours and determination couldn’t roll back the clock on total destruction.

Once upon a time, Sector Three had been a thriving business hub. An industrial center full of bustling factories that turned out the electronics and technology desperately needed by a civilization trying to drag themselves back from the brink of annihilation. But with raw materials hard to come by, profits were narrow—even when you paid your workers a pittance. And when you stopped paying them at all…

Mad could remember his grandfather talking about the strikes. A noble cause, he’d proclaimed. The people rising up to demand their due. A cause sure to shake Eden to its very foundations.

His grandfather might have been the Prophet, but he had no gift for prophecy. Eden’s foundations had stayed intact. And all eight sectors learned the price of disobedience when the sky filled with fire and Eden’s drones turned Three into rubble.

It remained rubble for more than a decade. None of the petty leaders who had risen to power in the sector had bothered expending time and resources to make things better. When the O’Kanes finally took over, half the roads were still impassable, and some were straight-up death traps.

Progress didn’t happen overnight. It would take years to turn Three around completely and rebuild what had been lost. But for now, at least Mad had a clear path through the sector as he guided his bike north, toward the East Road that marked the boundary between Three and Two.

The road wasn’t the only boundary. Even before the bombing, Sector Two had their wall. Ten feet high and running nearly a mile out, it encircled their paradise and did its best to keep out the undesirables on both sides.

It also did its best to keep girls like Lex’s sister—girls like Jade—inside.

The man waiting on an idling bike in the middle of the East Road was one of the ways those girls got out. Mad pulled to a stop next to him, rested his boots on the cracked pavement, and tugged off his helmet. “Deacon.”

“Mad.” The nickname still tripped clumsily off Deacon’s tongue, like a man speaking a language he’d learned to sound out but didn’t understand.

For good reason. Addressing a member of the Rios family casually approached blasphemy. Deacon might not have been the truest of true believers, but he was high up in the leadership of Sector One, the commander of the sector’s police force, and fiercely loyal to Mad’s cousin, Gideon. And this was why Mad hadn’t brought another O’Kane with him tonight. The way Gideon’s men looked at him—the way they treated him, with a hint of reverence and lingering deference—was too stark a reminder of all the things he’d fled.

But right now he needed Deacon and his connections.

“Another night might be better,” the man said slowly, squinting into the darkness surrounding them. “My friends in Two say security’s thin on the ground these days. Someone must have pissed off the MPs.”

Only one person could irritate Eden’s military police that much—the leader of Sector Two. “Cerys is usually more careful than that.”

“Guess she’s feeling the strain.”

They all were. But if Two had lost the support of the city, Dallas needed to know, and soon. “We can handle any trouble that comes our way.”

For a moment, Mad thought Deacon might argue. But he only bowed his head in submission.

Responsibility was a heavy weight. Sometimes he wasn’t sure how Dallas carried it every day. Mad felt it pressing down on him as they stashed their bikes and headed for the easiest place to slip over the wall.

Deacon went first, launching himself with a half-jump off the bottom of the wall to grip the top of the brick. He pulled himself up with no other leverage, then reached down from his perch atop the wall. Mad sighed and let Deacon haul him up.

They hit the ground on the other side together, their boots digging into the soft grass. The trees lining the river made this the best place to slip in undetected, but by the time they’d eased out of the sparse woods and into the shadows of one of the larger warehouses, Mad realized it didn’t matter.

Security wasn’t just thin. It was absent. So were the people who were usually going about their business, even at this late hour. He and Deacon made it two blocks without encountering anyone, and that was chilling enough to make Mad stop in a sheltered alley with his back against a brick building. “What the hell is going on?”

“No fucking clue.” It must have unnerved Deacon just as much, because he seized the opportunity to check the pistol tucked into his shoulder holster.

The shadows were deep, but Mad’s eyes had adjusted enough to pick out the tattoos winding down Deacon’s left arm. Every man who joined Gideon’s Riders was given the same initiation tattoo on his left shoulder—a sparse, leafless tree growing out of a skull. Deacon’s shirt sleeve hid most of it, but not the little black ravens spilling down toward his wrist, each one signifying a life taken in his quest to protect Sector One.

Gideon was tattooing his men long before O’Kane formed his gang. Maybe Dallas had even been inspired by the memorial tattoos—there was no denying the intimidating impact of a Rider with an arm full of ravens. But Mad preferred the promise of brotherhood inked around his wrists to the silent penance etched into Deacon’s skin.

Too many reminders of why he’d left. His shoulders tight, Mad checked his own pistol. “Let’s go see Lincoln so we can get the hell home.”

They made it only a few blocks before an unmistakable sound drifted out of the darkness—a blade clearing a leather sheath.

Mad spun, but his companion was faster. As the figure rushed from the shadows, Deacon surged in front of Mad. Silver glinted, but Deacon didn’t even grunt as the knife slashed across his chest. He gripped his attacker’s head, whispered something low and unintelligible, and snapped his neck with a vicious twist.

Just like that—in less than a heartbeat—it was over.

“Looks like Three.” Deacon kicked the knife away before kneeling beside the dead man. His jacket had fallen open, revealing a tangle of gold chain, credit sticks, and the occasional jewel. “Must have gotten cocky, with none of the fancy folks fighting back.”

He spoke so casually, as if he wasn’t bleeding from an entirely preventable wound. As if he wouldn’t be going back to Sector One to receive another little black raven tattoo, penance Mad owed for dragging him over the wall to begin with.

Mad retrieved the credit sticks and a couple of pieces of jewelry that looked easy to fence and shoved them in his pocket. Lincoln could use the credits to save a few more lives, to give a few more girls like Jade a chance at a future of their own choosing.

Triage. That was all it ever felt like. But he kept trying, even in the face of relentless hopelessness.

Maybe he was still a Rios at heart after all.

The only bad thing about his new place was how empty it was.

Dylan stood in the center of his new loft and surveyed it critically. It was essentially one giant room—only the bathroom was separate from the rest of the cavernous space. There were no half-walls delineating the kitchen or sleeping areas, just an endless, open room nearly the size of the entire floor.

It wasn’t fancy—nothing in Sector Four outside of Dallas O’Kane’s private bedroom was—but it was entirely livable. Nothing leaked, and only one of the numerous window panes had been broken and repaired with tape instead of replaced. It had endless possibilities. It would be good for entertaining. He could set up weight machines and mats, even a boxing ring, a whole gym right in his living room.

But somehow, as he paced in his bare feet over the scarred wood floor, all Dylan could think was how useful it would be as a morgue. There was plenty of room to lay out bodies, and everything more than six feet away from the fireplace was freezing cold. The only thing missing was the smell—chemicals and disinfectant. Death.

He fumbled with the tin in his pocket. The metal was warm from his body heat, comforting, but not as comforting as the tiny tablet he slipped under his tongue. A half dose, and he mentally tallied them up as the tab dissolved.

One before breakfast. Two after lunch. One just now—four. Only two doses in an entire day. A personal record.

He laughed.

“Dylan?”

The voice startled him. Not with fear, but with a shiver of heat down his spine. “Mad. I didn’t hear you come in.”

And it was no wonder. The man could move silently when he wished, which was often. He stood just inside the door, dark. So dark. Dressed in black, his motorcycle helmet dangling from one gloved hand.

Dark and haunted. His gaze was blank, but tension bracketed his eyes and showed in his stiff posture. “I know it’s late…”

“No. I’m glad you’re here.” He was just a man, one man, but he filled all the empty space somehow.

Mad crossed to the table and set his helmet down with exaggerated care. “I was in Sector Two tonight.”

That always upset him, but this was something more. Dylan reached for his jacket and eased it off his shoulders. “What happened?”

Underneath, Mad’s shirt stretched tight over tense muscles as he clenched his fists. “One of my cousin’s men was there with me.”

“Why?”

“We were meeting a contact.” Mad rolled his shoulders and didn’t turn. “It was necessary. There’s intel Dallas needs.”

“And you didn’t answer my question.” Dylan threw the jacket across the back of a chair and waited.

Mad knelt down to jerk at the laces on his boots. Disheveled black hair fell across his forehead, hiding his eyes. “I got the job done. Without a fucking scratch on me, because a Rios never has to bleed or kill when there’s a Rider left standing.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not competitive.” Dylan gripped Mad’s forearm and hauled him to his feet. Their faces—their mouths—were only inches apart. “Self-loathing is my thing, not yours.”

Mad took an unsteady breath, and finally something beyond empty blankness sparked to life in his gaze. Heat and hunger and a deeper, darker need. “No, it’s mine,” he whispered hoarsely. “Yours is self-destruction.”

“An excellent point.” There were goose bumps on his arms, and Dylan traced them lightly. “Chilly?”

“Aren’t you?” Mad skated his fingers up Dylan’s arm, then curled them around the back of his neck in a rough grip. “Why do you keep it so fucking cold in here?”

Because he had to feel something, and the cold was safe, easy. He could endure it without having to reach for the tiny tablets of oblivion stashed in his pocket.

Dylan bit back the words. “I was waiting for you to come and warm me up.”

“Liar,” Mad rasped, before cutting off any chance of reply with a brutal kiss.

Some nights were soft and slow, full of long, helpless groans and warmth. Others were like this, sharp bites and indrawn breaths, hard and punishing. Desperate.

Dylan craved them all.

He opened his mouth, seeking the wet heat of Mad’s tongue as they moved toward the bed. No stumbling, because they both knew the way by now. It was second nature to cross the room blindly, too wrapped up in the pleasure of touch to break away.

Mad twisted both hands in Dylan’s T-shirt and jerked, tearing the fabric. Hard fingernails raked over his stomach, higher as Mad’s lips found his ear. “You’re just as bad as the Riders. You’d let me do anything to you.”

“Is that what you want? To ravage me?” He wound his fingers in Mad’s hair, clenched tight, and pulled his head back. “Or do you want to be ravaged? Pinned down and fucked until you forget everything else?”

Mad flexed his hands on Dylan’s shoulders. Still rough, still pushing, but the words that tore out of him were more plea than command. “I want your lips around my cock.”

It pulsed through him, heating his blood. Dylan stripped away his ruined T-shirt and reached for his belt, his gaze fixed on Mad. “Take off your clothes.”

He was as violent with his own clothes as he’d been with the T-shirt. His shirt ended up ripped and discarded. He kicked his boots off without breaking eye contact, then attacked his belt with clumsy hands.

He was shaking by the time he stripped off his pants. He stood there, naked and hungry, and Dylan watched, mesmerized by the play of golden skin and ink over muscle.

He stepped closer. Mad’s cock jutted out, hard and ready, and Dylan soothed him with a single firm stroke. Mad hissed in a breath, but he didn’t resist as Dylan pushed him back onto the bed.

The fireplace was close enough to the bed to cast flickering shadows over Mad’s skin, and Dylan stretched out beside him and gave in to the urge to trace the dancing shadows with his tongue.

“Dylan—” Mad twisted a hand in his hair—tense, as if he wasn’t sure whether to tug his head up or push it down.

“No.” Dylan arched away, relishing the zing of pain when Mad held tight. “You don’t control this. Not tonight.”

Mad closed his eyes and dug his head back against the sheets. “What am I? Self-loathing or self-destruction?”

“Neither.” He was a chance to escape both, if only for a little while, a truth Dylan realized with a jolt. Words wouldn’t do, so he tried to convey it through touch—a kiss to Mad’s collarbone, a slow, leisurely lick over his hip. His hand wrapped around the thick, rigid base of his cock.

Groaning, Mad thrust up into his hand. “Then stop torturing me.”

Torture seemed like a strong word, at least until Dylan squeezed tighter. Mad’s dick throbbed in his hand as a drop of moisture pearled at the tip. He licked it away, teasing more than soothing, and bit back his own groan when the man’s salty, musky flavor spread over his tongue.

“Yes.” Mad’s fingers tightened at the back of his head. “Harder.”

Dylan licked him again, from base to tip, then stopped with his lips only an inch away, so that Mad could feel his breath as he spoke. “I’ll give you what you want, but only if you tell me which one you’re thinking about.”

A snarl vibrated up out of Mad’s chest. “Fuck you, Dylan.”

Yes, fuck me. “Tell me, love.”

This time his groan was pure surrender. “Scarlet. I saw Scarlet tonight.”

Of course. Scarlet and her lover were sexy as hell, and both appealed to Mad—and, if he was being brutally honest with himself, to Dylan, as well. But Jade was softer, sweeter. Lusting after her, longing for her, never seemed to put this vicious edge on Mad’s hunger the way Scarlet did.

Dylan hummed encouragingly and sucked Mad’s dick into his mouth.

Mad’s hips jerked up, and he bit off a curse. “You’re an evil bastard.”

Dylan tightened his hand but lifted his head. “I guess you want me to stop, then.”

“God fucking damn—” The firelight clung lovingly to the muscles in Mad’s arms when he clenched his fists in the blankets. “She smelled like cinnamon and vanilla. She smelled like she’d just crawled out of Jade’s bed.”

The scent was as familiar to Dylan as Mad’s, or as his own. Thinking about it made his balls ache as he turned his attentions back to Mad’s dick and grazed his teeth lightly over the head. “And?”

“And she touched—fuck.” He was trembling already, need and guilt twisting him up so tight he was helpless as Dylan swallowed him deep. “She touched my face. I had her backed up against a bench. I could have fucked her on it.”

Could have—but didn’t. Between the denial and the guilt, no wonder he was so wound up, close to coming even though Dylan had barely touched him.

He didn’t have to prompt anymore. Mad knew this game, and only resisted it with the first touches. He was lost in it now, breathing heavily, his eyes clenched tight. “Fast. Fast and hard. She wouldn’t let me go slow the first time.”

Not a fucking chance. She did everything that way, wide open, and sex would be no exception. Dylan found himself sucking harder, matching the quick rhythm Scarlet would demand.

Mad lifted his hips, pushing deeper as his hand found the back of Dylan’s head again. “I want to hear the sounds she makes. I want to hear—”

Dylan pulled free, but kept his fist pumping over Mad’s cock. “She already has a lover.”

“I know.” Mad’s groan was desperate. “Just like I know her lover’s the one you want in your bed.”

Jade, with her endless curves and her sweet scent. Her haunted eyes. He’d found out by accident—with a murmured, offhand command while she was helping him tend to a patient. But something had flared in her then, a single moment of relief so bright and palpable that it had followed him for weeks.

He wondered if Scarlet ever gave her that subtle, quiet domination. If she even knew Jade needed it.

He leaned up and stared down at Mad, whose dark eyes were full of hesitation now as well as lust. “And Jade wants you. She must. Or don’t you know why Scarlet tries to tempt you?”

It was a line too far—or one temptation too many. Mad upended them in a surge of strong muscles and slammed Dylan back to the bed. He settled astride him, his hands rough and hurried as he dragged open his pants. “This is a twisted fucking game.”

“You get off on it.” Mad’s erection ground against his thigh, still slick from his mouth, and Dylan reached for it.

“Maybe I’m twisted, too.” Mad shifted out of reach, sliding down Dylan’s body, hauling his pants with him. He tossed them off the bed and crawled back up until his mouth hovered over Dylan’s aching cock. “Isn’t that what you like about this?”

“If it helps.” Dylan tangled his fingers in the other man’s hair. Sex was a way to pass the time. Games could be fun or frustrating. But Mad—he was beautiful. He burned with life and righteousness, burned so hot you could feel it even through the anguish and guilt.

Tonight he burned with something else, too. He was determined as he closed his mouth around the head of Dylan’s erection. No teasing, no patience. Just lips and tongue and sucking hard as he worked his way lower.

The drugs could numb Dylan to everything else, but not this. Not the sheer animal pleasure of Mad’s mouth, or the heat of his desire. He welcomed both, let the waves roll over him until he couldn’t stop himself from thrusting up, seeking more.

Mad moved up with him, staying tauntingly out of reach. “Tell me which one you’re thinking about.”

His answer tore free, uncensored. Raw. “You.”

With a groan, Mad surged up his body and claimed his mouth. Hot, deep, his teeth scraping Dylan’s lip as their tongues met, tangled. It was perfect, an intimacy even more gut-wrenching than the man’s mouth on his dick.

Dylan wrapped one arm around Mad’s flexing back, holding him close, and slipped his other hand between them. “Come with me,” he whispered.

Mad’s fingers joined his, warm and eager as they wrapped around Dylan’s shaft. They stroked together, faster and rougher until Mad stiffened and moaned into his mouth. His grip tightened almost painfully, and Dylan followed him into oblivion, coming all over Mad’s belly, his own, and their desperate, grasping hands.

“Fuck.” Panting, Mad pressed his forehead to Dylan’s. “Fucking hell.”

“Stay.” It came from that same raw place, the place where Dylan couldn’t close his eyes without hearing Mad’s quiet voice.

“I shouldn’t,” he replied, the words wrapped in reluctance. “Dallas needs to know what’s happening in Two.”

“Tomorrow.”

The fight went out of him, and that was how Dylan knew it was bad. Mad never stopped fighting. “Okay.”

“You deserve this.” Dylan caught his chin and forced him to meet his eyes in the dim light. “One night that’s just yours.”

The smile was slow to come, but it softened Mad’s expression and warmed his gaze. “Will you turn on the damn heat for me?”

“Mmm, for you.” He fumbled for the control on his nightstand and flicked the screen. It took only a few seconds to activate the heating system, and a handful more for the chill in the air to begin to dissipate.

Soon, the loft was as warm as the bed, and Dylan let it wrap around him, blocking out the rest of the world. There was no more suffering, no political maneuvering, just the steady, reassuring thump of Mad’s heart.

It was enough. More than enough. It was everything.

Lex was the only person in the meeting room when Jade arrived, carrying a basket of warm muffins and her tablet. “These are from Lili.” She set the food down in front of the tired looking queen of Sector Four. “She and Jared got in late last night.”

Lex didn’t look up from the map spread across the table—a perfect representation, drawn in Ace’s meticulous hand, of Sector Two. “Did you ever think you’d get out, and then have to spend this much time thinking about that fucking place?”

“No,” Jade admitted, because it was the truth. Getting out and never looking back had been the plan from the first day her mother had returned to Rose House, broken-hearted and slowly dying, with Jade’s tiny hand clutched in hers. Only seven years old, and Jade had already been too aware of how little security life in Sector Two offered.

Too aware, and still not aware enough.

“Eden wants something,” Lex murmured. “They’ve pressed Cerys before, but it’s never gone this far.”

Jade slipped into the chair beside Lex’s and reached for a muffin. “Two years ago was the worst,” she said as she carefully peeled the paper liner from her breakfast. Focusing on the small, meticulous details of the task gave her the distance to keep her voice flat. “Eden cut our network connection for two weeks, until Cerys agreed to…compromise on their request.”

“What did they want that time? More money, or more girls?”

It was always one or the other. “More girls. The second tier bureaucrats wanted the same quality of free companionship that the Council enjoyed.” They wanted her, or other girls like her. And Jade had been forced to watch, sick with dread, as girls without her emotional protections were marched into Eden like lambs sent to nothing as merciful as a quick slaughter.

“Of course they did.” Lex’s chair screeched over the floor as she pushed it back and rose. “Cerys managed to keep that quiet. The fact that we’re hearing so much shit now has me worried.”

“Cerys had more control two years ago.” The muffin smelled delicious, but Jade’s stomach was too unsettled to eat. She set it down and looked up at Lex instead. “How many girls have left now besides me, besides Mia? Cerys keeps her power because of the secrets her girls collect, and there are fewer left who can do the job than ever before.”

“Maybe. But Two’s real security has always run deeper.” Lex stabbed one deep red fingernail down on the map, right on the checkpoint coming out of the city. “It’s a little bit of Eden out in the sectors.”

“It was,” said a low voice from the door. Dallas stepped into the room, his expression grim, but it was the man behind him who made Jade’s pulse stutter.

Adrian Maddox was a beautiful man by the standards of almost any time period. Jade recognized that the same way she objectively recognized her own attractiveness. Classic bone structure, symmetry of features—meaningless things they’d both been born with. They even shared similar coloring—black hair, brown eyes, brown skin, though Mad’s was lighter than her own, and so much of it was covered in vivid, beautiful ink.

His beauty wasn’t what made her heart skip. It was the look in those deep brown eyes when their gazes clashed, the intensity that burned there, the hunger he tried to fight.

So much heat. Subjective. Personal.

After only a moment, he looked away, reminding her that his desire for her could never overcome the shame he felt for wanting her. It had been that way from the beginning, and it still had the same devastating impact on her.

Stiffening her spine, she shifted her attention to Dallas. He wasn’t classically beautiful, but he had the sort of presence you couldn’t teach, the kind that came from knowing your own power, owning your place in the world.

“Was?” Lex asked expectantly.

Dallas tilted his head toward Mad, who nodded slowly. “Security has been pulled from Sector Two. All of it.”

Ice filled Jade’s veins. “The military police are gone?”

“Seems like.” Dallas took a seat. “They’re squeezing Cerys hard. What would keep her fighting like this?”

Lex stared blindly, her hands on her hips, her expression torn between anger and amusement. “What else? Her own power.”

Raw truth. Jade’s own body was proof of that. Long months of recovery had returned her appetite, and the face she looked at in the mirror was almost hers again. Not starved and gaunt, not lined in pain. But the shadows were there, in her eyes and in the occasional hollow ache inside her. One mistake in judgment had almost killed her—the mistake of overestimating her value to Cerys.

Cerys would sacrifice anyone if the price was right. “She’d give them money or girls—”

Lex cut in viciously. “But she’ll never give them Sector Two.”

No, that was the twisted morality—or simple vanity—at Cerys’s core. She could have tolerated handing her empire over to Lex because she still harbored the delusion that she’d been responsible for the powerful woman Lex had become—and the even greater delusion that Lex would someday embrace her for it. But she’d never give it to a man.

“The sector’s locked down.” Mad braced his fists on the table, his gaze riveted to the map. “A few opportunists jumped the wall from Three, and no one’s even bothering to chase them out.”

“Everyone with half a brain will be hiding in their safe rooms until this blows over.” Lex leaned over the table and frowned. “The city will have to give. Cerys won’t. Not this time.”

“They need Two.” Dallas traced his fingertip over the outlines of the buildings just inside the far edge of the wall. Warehouses, mostly, full of treasures from other cities. That was the lifeblood and necessity of Two—the willingness of its men to take risks and their skill at forging connections. As valuable as Jade had been to Cerys personally, the secrets she’d coaxed from a councilman were nothing compared to consistent trade.

“They want Two,” she corrected softly. “The Council’s weakness has always been their inability to make the distinction between need and want.”

Dallas acknowledged her words with a rough laugh. “They’ve never had to learn there is a distinction.”

Because no one had the power to teach them that harsh lesson. Not even Dallas. “Lex is right. Cerys would burn Two to the ground before handing them the keys.”

“I almost wish she would.” Lex sank back into her chair and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I know, darling.” Dallas dragged her closer and dropped an arm around her shoulders. His lips found her temple in a soft kiss so tenderly intimate, Jade averted her gaze.

She found Mad doing the same, and that only made it worse. She didn’t want to share someone else’s intimacy with him. She didn’t want to watch the fantasy come to life in his eyes, to know he was imagining holding her, touching her, kissing her—

Gently and softly. That’s what he’d expect—no, demand from her. A fragile, fractured creature who trembled and shook. A woman who was broken because bad people had hurt her. Who needed a savior, not a man.

Sometimes, she wondered what would be worse—giving in and playing the victim just for the chance to have him once…or watching him bolt when he discovered her spine had always been more steel than spun glass.

In her darkest moments, she didn’t care how much it would hurt to pretend.

She forced her attention back to Dallas and Lex. “Lili said Jared was going to meet up with you. Have they heard anything about the situation in Two?”

“Not a goddamn whisper.” Dallas eased away from Lex but kept his arm around her. “Even Markovic’s got nothing. Or if he does, he’s not sharing.”

“The silence goes both ways,” Lex agreed. “Cerys doesn’t want anyone to know she’s being pressured, and Eden doesn’t want anyone to know they can’t make her buckle.”

Dallas nodded. “Cerys is running short of friends on both sides of the wall. She relied too heavily on advantages she doesn’t have anymore.”

Mad flinched. Jade refused to. “You mean she relied too heavily on my ability to sway Gareth Woods.” She offered Lex a tight smile. “I hope you don’t mind that I got all the credit for his death.”

“As long as he’s dead, honey. That’s all I give a sun-toasted shit about.”

In that, Jade fervently agreed with her. For seven endless years, she’d played whatever games necessary to keep Councilman Gareth Woods addicted to her presence. One hundred and seventy-eight alternating weekends. She’d given him innocence and fear, she’d given him wide-eyed sexual awakening. Sometimes she’d given him pain—or had taken it in return.

One hundred and seventy-eight times—and for the first one hundred and sixty-five, she’d held him in the palm of her hand. Her eager, willing victim, blind to how deftly she coaxed free his secrets or nudged his opinions to align with Cerys’s best interests.

The most foolish thing Cerys had ever done was take away her control.

Remembering Gareth Woods didn’t hurt. Not as much as the memory of the drugs he’d given her, drugs that had shifted their balance of power. Even nearly dying while she shuddered through withdrawal was less painful to recall than the six horrifying months when her will had not been her own.

Just the thought constricted the room around her, and maybe her spine wasn’t steel after all. She reached for her tablet and rose. “I have to meet Scarlet. I’ll check in later to see if you need anything, Lex.”

“Thanks, Jade.”

She refused to look at the men as she turned and walked—walked, not fled—to the door. It didn’t help. She heard the soft footsteps behind her before she made it to the end of the hall, and she knew it was him. She felt him all along her skin, an unwelcome tingle when she needed peace.

“Jade, wait—”

Mad’s fingers closed on her shoulder, and she spun quickly enough to jerk away from his touch. He stood, frozen, his hand still in the air, and it was the look in those beautiful brown eyes that snapped her self-control.

Wary. Cautious. Like she was a skittish creature he was trying not to startle.

Jade stepped closer, into his personal space. So close that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes, and that was the point. To make him feel big, to make him feel dominant.

To make him feel guilty, because he was already imagining her sliding down the front of his body. And she did, running her fingers along the outsides of his legs as she sank gracefully to her knees. “Is this what you want, Mad?”

If lust had been the only thing filling his eyes, she might have eased open his pants and taken him between her lips right there. She could already taste him, salty and warm, could imagine the noises he’d make as she took him deep and made him come.

And then, with the taste of him on her tongue, she’d have to listen to his self-recrimination and apologies.

She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of his boot knife. And when he dragged her back to her feet, the denial already forming on his lips, she twisted her wrist and rested the tip against his balls.

His eyes went wide. “Jade—”

“No,” she said, letting the chill of anger fill her voice. “I’m done being treated like some broken toy you wish you didn’t want to play with.”

His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “I’m not—”

She pressed a little harder, and he stopped. Good, at least he wasn’t stupid.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said instead.

She hated the earnestness in his voice. It threatened to shake her resolve, because he meant so well. But his well-meaning solicitousness was killing her. “I spent seven years keeping a psychopath wrapped around my little finger. If you think you present a challenge after that, your ego is even bigger than your cock, and I’m happy to trim either for you.”

Mad’s chest heaved. Something dark flashed behind his eyes. He leaned in, even with the knife precariously close to his balls, and his warm breath danced over her lips. “I still don’t want to hurt you.”

“You can’t,” she lied.

He didn’t challenge her. No, he did something so much worse.

He kissed her.

It didn’t seem real at first. The softness of his mouth on hers, the sweetness of the contact. So careful, so restrained, but she couldn’t blame it on his reticence this time. Not when she was holding a knife to pieces of him he’d rather not lose.

It was his tongue that undid her. The tiniest lick across her lower lip, as if he was testing her, tasting her, and her hand trembled. She’d shown him her spine, steel and all, and she wasn’t prepared for his response.

She dropped her so she wouldn’t cut him, and he rewarded her by cradling the back of her head, his strong fingers splaying wide as he tried to deepen the kiss.

It was the memory of Scarlet that had her pressing her lips together and turning her face. His mouth ended up on her jaw instead, and that was even worse. His teeth teased over her skin in the faintest of nips, and pleasure tingled all the way to her toes.

“I have to go,” she whispered. “Scarlet is waiting for me.”

“I know.” Mad released her, letting his fingers slide through her hair before stepping back. “She asked me to check on Avery for you. Her patron’s house is locked down, but secure.”

To Mad or Scarlet, that might mean safe. Neither of them would understand that the greatest danger to Avery had always lived within the four walls of the estate—and within her own heart.

That, at least, was a vulnerability Jade never intended to share.

Preorder now: Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google & All Romance eBooks

Welcome, and join us as we count down the final 10 days before Beyond Ruin by revisiting some of our favorite Mad, Dylan, Scarlet & Jade moments from the past six books! We’ll be posting an image each day on social media, but here on the blog we’ll be doing a longer excerpt and maybe even a few notes about the scene.  🙂  And today is…

Dylan Is Actually Scarier Than Everyone Else
Beyond Addiction

Well, this is awkward. Nothing big, just the two heroes of our next book having a friendly chat about murdering the hero of a previous book.  Erm, yeah. Not Mad’s most shining moment, to be sure. But important, because this right here is the moment Mad started to care too much to be rational. Pre-emptive strikes and vengeance aren’t usually Mad’s style–especially not when they involve putting down an unconscious man one of his friends happens to be a little bit in love with–but Finn hurt Jade.

Dylan, on the other hand…whoa boy. Dylan might be the scariest person in Sector Four. Because he’s not afraid of Dallas. He’s not afraid of death. He doesn’t seem to be afraid of much of anything…except losing control.

We’ll see how that goes in Beyond Ruin.

* * *

The first thing Dr. Dylan Jordan did was fill a syringe with enough potassium chloride to stop a fucking elephant’s heart.

He didn’t use it, but it was there, within easy grasp, and its mere presence made him feel better about digging a bullet out of a man he’d much rather kill.

“Why are we saving him?”

Adrian Maddox could move silently when he wanted to, that much was certain. Dylan tilted his head without looking up. “Because he brought Trix back.”

Mad eased the door shut and crossed to the opposite side of the bed. “How do we know he didn’t take her in the first place?”

“You saw her,” Dylan answered absently as he reached for a pair of forceps. “Did she look like a woman who was scared of him?”

“No.” It came out grudgingly, and Mad crouched down to put himself on eye level with Dylan. “But we both know that doesn’t prove a damn thing. Just means it’ll hurt more when he betrays her.”

Such a clever, beautiful, vengeful man. “Someone else might buy that…but I’m not someone else,” he murmured. “You and I both know what this is really about.”

Of course Mad denied it. He would always deny it, because he wanted to be the sainted hero. “It’s about him posing a danger to the gang. It’s about the people he could hurt.”

It was about Jade, pure and simple, and the fact that Finn had been the one to hand her the drugs that had nearly killed her. Dylan embraced the knowledge, because owning it was the one thing that could keep him from lunging for that deadly syringe.

“Say we let him die,” he mused aloud. “What then?”

Mad’s gaze held a new edge, a darkness that had been there since the night he’d wound up trapped in that cave-in. “Then the people we care about are safer.”

“Are they, Adrian? Or would it just make you feel good?”

“They’re safer,” Mad insisted, but after another heartbeat he squeezed his eyes shut with a whispered curse. “And I want him dead. I want him dead before he has a chance to hurt Trix. I want him dead before Jade has to look at him and remember what happened to her every time he drugged her. I want him dead.”

Satisfied, Dylan confessed, “So do I.”

“Then why?” Mad rose abruptly and paced away. “Why save him?”

The answer was simple, visceral. All-consuming. “Control.”

“Control? Of what?”

“Of myself.” Dylan stripped off his gloves and picked up the syringe. “Potassium chloride. A high enough dose results in hyperkalemia and disrupts cardiac muscle function, resulting in fatal arrhythmia. I’m told it burns like a motherfucker going in, too. Real bad way to go.” He set it down again, closer than before. “I have it here to remind myself—I could use it, but I won’t. Control.”

Mad’s gaze locked on the syringe, his brow furrowing. “You already had the needle ready.”

Dylan allowed himself a small smile. “It isn’t much of a test of my self-control otherwise, is it?”

“No.” Mad resumed his pacing, prowling like a wild creature trapped in a too-small pen. “You care. I wasn’t sure before, but you wouldn’t be this pissed if you didn’t…care.”

He cared too much. It had dragged him to the very edge of darkness, left him staring into an abyss so deep and hopeless that sometimes he thought death was the only escape. But he couldn’t seem to stop, so he’d embraced that, too.

Control.

He put on a fresh pair of gloves and nudged the box toward Mad. “Help me dig this goddamn bullet out of him, and we’ll continue the conversation over drinks. O’Kane’s best, perhaps? I think he owes me.”

Mad caught his wrist, strong fingers burning against his skin. “And if he gets out of that bed and hurts the people we care about?”

“Then we’ll deal with it.” He kept his voice low, a soothing, secret whisper just for Mad. “Trust me.”

“Okay.” Mad’s thumb slid in a slow circle, the calloused pad scraping the inside of Dylan’s wrist. “I do. I have. You know that.”

The tiny touch sparked more than heat—warmth, curling low and spreading up to make his chest ache. Mad had always been tough, tough enough to survive, but there was a vulnerability in him, as well. Nothing as prosaic and delicate as fragility, but an openness. Holes in his armor, places where things touched him so deeply they could shatter him from the inside out.

Dylan almost shuddered, but he locked it down—just like everything else. “Put on the gloves and help me,” he said quietly. “Then we’ll go get that drink.”

* * *

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Welcome, and join us as we count down the final 10 days before Beyond Ruin by revisiting some of our favorite Mad, Dylan, Scarlet & Jade moments from the past six books! We’ll be posting an image each day on social media, but here on the blog we’ll be doing a longer excerpt and maybe even a few notes about the scene.  🙂  And today is…

Mad & Rachel Talk About Being Broken
Beyond Pain

Oh, Mad. I believe this was his first POV section, and of course it’s taking care of someone. Because that’s Mad, from start to finish–he just wants to take care of people. From the beginning of writing him I knew he was going to be a little different from some of the other heroes. Sure, he can throw down with the best of them. He can fight, he can kick ass, and he won’t hesitate to kill someone who has it coming. But Mad’s a protector. As hard as he’s tried to run from some of the uglier sides of his family’s political and religious legacy, he’s never hesitated to embrace the good parts–loving hard, fighting for what’s right, and protecting the  people who need it. All of the people.

The end of this scene was always meant as a little bit of a hint, too... another person? Maybe not. But people…

Yeah, we knew where this book was headed a long time ago.

* * *

Rachel had slid into Sector Four so smoothly it was like she’d always been an O’Kane, but Mad could have watched her for thirty seconds and known she wasn’t sector-born.

She didn’t know how to hide her pain. Everyone who grew up in the sectors learned to sooner or later—it was your only defense against bullies, not to mention the cruelty of a world that favored strength over compassion. Not everyone grew up to be a good actor, but you stood a better chance of growing up at all if you refused to let anyone see when you were hurting.

Rachel sucked at hiding. As he approached, he watched her slam more dirty glasses on the counter, her movements so rough she snagged a fingernail under the edge of the plastic tray and snapped it off.

“Perfect,” she muttered in a defeated voice that pinched at his heart.

Blood pearled on her fingertip. Mad reached for her wrist, ignoring her start of surprise as he lifted her hand to examine the damage. Not too bad, but it had to sting like a bitch. “Bad day, darling?”

Her hand twitched, as if she’d barely stopped herself from jerking away. “I broke a nail, that’s all.”

Liar. Calling her on it wouldn’t help, so he rubbed his thumb over her palm and tilted his head toward the remains of the party. “You don’t have to clean this all up tonight, you know. Plenty of people’ll be around to help you tomorrow, if you want.”

“It’s got to be done.” The words were brittle. Pained. “May as well get it over with.”

Alone. It seethed under the words, and Mad would have had to be blind and stupid not to know why. With Jasper stepping up into a leadership role, Ace had been left without a partner. Cruz was the perfect replacement, a steady straight man to play off Ace’s lazily deceptive charm.

It had proven a killer combination in the past, and everyone had expected them to put aside their shit and get the job done. No one had expected them to hit it off—least of all the woman they’d been fighting over.

He gave her hand a final squeeze before releasing it to see to the tray. “Well, if you’re determined to do it now, you’ll have to put up with me helping. Besides, I don’t get to see much of you these days. Dallas has kept me busy.”

She joined him in unloading the tray. “Maybe we can rustle up another regular poker game. Think Jas wants to teach Noelle how to play?”

From what he’d seen of Noelle and Jas lately, any poker game with the two of them would involve betting clothing and eventually sexual favors. Fun as hell, but Rachel was still holding on to too much of that sweet Eden innocence that Noelle had been throwing away with both hands.

“Better off asking Flash and Amira,” he suggested instead. “She’s going crazy, waiting for that baby to join us. Or maybe Flash is the one driving her there.”

Rachel blew her bangs out of her face and sighed. “He’s worried about her, that’s all. Just scared.”

“I know. Hell, we’re all a little worried. Babies aren’t much of a thing out here.”

“Yeah.” Rachel picked up a dishcloth and twisted it between her fingers.

He watched her wrench it into knots, her grip white-knuckled, before closing his hand over hers. “What’s weighing so heavy on you, honey?”

She didn’t answer at first. Emotion played across her face—anger, hurt, bewilderment—and she whispered, “There’s nothing more important than the brotherhood, is there?”

Ace and Cruz, then. It must seem like that from the outside, like they’d fallen together and left her behind, and the guys would close ranks behind them. Which was true.

To a point.

Cruz was new, but Ace had been around long enough to know what would happen if the O’Kane women decided he’d done Rachel wrong. “You’re forgetting sisterhood.”

“Touché.” She swallowed hard and looked up at him, her gaze bordering on pleading. “What would you do?”

There was no answer he could give that would fix things, and that hurt most of all. “I always do the same thing. Love everyone who crosses my path. Love ’em as much as I can, for as long as they need.” He brushed his thumb over her cheek and tucked a lock of hair back from her face. “You’re not me, honey.”

She leaned in to his touch. “I could be. Is it easier?”

“It’s the easiest thing in the world.” He curled an arm around her and tugged her against his side, a little comfort to soften the truth to come. “But it won’t heal what’s hurting you.”

Rachel poked him. “It’s not so bad. I’m not brooding, or anything. Much,” she added ruefully.

He poked back, throwing in a tickle to make her smile. “Nah, you’re just smashing around and ripping your fingernails off.”

“What do I care, anyway?” Rachel hid her face against his shoulder, belying the defiance of her words. “I’m free. I can do whatever the hell I want.”

“Sure you can. Lord knows it’s a pleasure I’ve enjoyed to its fullest.” He rubbed her back, sliding his fingers along her spine in long, soothing strokes. “You’ve never done that, have you?”

“What? Thrown myself into affairs?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Maybe.” She tilted her head back and met his gaze. “I’m tired of doing things my way. It’s not working.”

The moment was so delicate, and the familiar temptation rose. Rachel was sweet-natured with a delicious edge of sass, and he was as fond of her as he was of all the O’Kane girls. There was an invitation in her eyes, whether she knew it or not, one it would be no hardship to accept.

He knew how to play a good hero. Sweep in and rock her world, and it wouldn’t have to be anything more than the same easy pleasure he’d shared with Trix already that night. Two friends getting each other off.

But she was right. Brotherhood mattered, and Ace was still in love with her.

Smiling, he rubbed his thumb along her jaw. “You’re dancing. That’s new. Have you got anything else you’ve always wanted to try?”

She blinked, the moment dissipating like smoke. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Mad laughed—and put some space between them, just in case. “Well, there’s your first step. Put that big brain to work on figuring it out.”

“Right.” Glass clinked as she lifted another tray and then put it down again. “Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt him somehow? I don’t—” She dug her teeth into her lower lip with a wince. “No, forget it.”

He couldn’t leave that unanswered, brotherhood or no, so he caught her chin. “People always think the broody bastards like Bren are the broken ones, but being tough is how you survive in the sectors. It’s the easygoing ones you have to watch out for, because they’re the ones so scarred up on the inside that they can’t feel, or they’re so far past broken they just don’t care.”

Rachel exhaled on a shaky sigh and reached for him. “Mad…”

He’d revealed too much. He’d only meant to reassure her, but now she was giving him that look, the one he was so desperate to avoid that he’d sworn Dallas and his cousin and every damn person who knew his history to secrecy.

“Uh-uh,” he said lightly, intercepting her hands. “You’ve already got one busted old sector bastard on your plate. Don’t get greedy, love. I’m someone else’s project.”

“It’s not funny.”

It was for him. It had to be. “I know, but laughing at inappropriate things is what I do.”

She relented with a soft smile that quickly turned wicked. “Is that why Trix kicked you out of her bed early?”

“Who says I ever got there?” Relieved that they’d skirted dangerous territory, he threw her a rakish wink before turning to gather up stray liquor bottles. “You’re not the only one who likes to put on a show.”

“Tease.”

“Always.”

She laughed, and Mad relaxed, safe in the knowledge that maybe he’d helped a little, and he’d only lied once.

Ace might still have a chance, but Mad had promised himself long ago not to let any woman make him her project. Some scars were too deep for another person to heal, no matter how much they loved you.

He was an O’Kane. That was enough.

* * *

Sign up for the release day announcement list to find out when Beyond Ruin is available!

 

Welcome, and join us as we count down the final 10 days before Beyond Ruin by revisiting some of our favorite Mad, Dylan, Scarlet & Jade moments from the past six books! We’ll be posting an image each day on social media, but here on the blog we’ll be doing a longer excerpt and maybe even a few notes about the scene.  🙂  And today is…

Scarlet Sings in Sector Three
Beyond Innocence

Remember Day 7 when Jade said she knows the difference between a man seeing something he wants and something he needs? This scene is Mad, seeing both. Maybe for the first time.  And I would say this, more than anything else, is the moment that changed everything for our four would-be lovers.

* * *

Mad had seen more of the sectors and beyond than most people knew existed. He’d visited pre-Flare cities left abandoned and gutted, every useful thing stripped away and buildings left like skeletons to decay and die alone. He’d seen miracles of human ingenuity and things that could only be the hand of a higher power—the vastness of the ocean, the beauty of the Grand Canyon.

He’d seen Scarlet a hundred times. He’d seen her laughing and angry, had seen her capacity for violence when she fought for her people, and her protectiveness in the way she handled Jade.

He’d seen so much of her, but before tonight he’d never seen her sing. And when she was singing, she was the most transcendent damn thing he’d ever laid eyes on.

It seemed like half the residents of Sectors Three and Four agreed with him. The crowd spilled out into the street, where speakers kept them from rioting and a makeshift bar kept them drinking, but the place closest to the stage had been reserved for the O’Kanes, giving Mad an unobstructed view of Scarlet as she cradled the microphone.

She was a rough-and-tumble woman, pierced and tattooed and often packing almost as many weapons as Mad himself. He’d expected her music to be the same—angry, sharp edges, loud and brash and unapologetically aggressive.

Not this. Not low and sweet, sliding over him like warm honey. Not so sensual his body stirred with the first notes and throbbed when she met his eyes from beneath her blonde bangs.

The first time, he thought it was a trick of the light. But her gaze returned, seizing his and daring him to look away.

He couldn’t.

The lyrics blurred together, leaving her sultry voice and the steady, suggestive drumline. The music curled around him, tugged at him. Found an echoing darkness inside him, a pain too vast and old for anything to touch—and stroked it.

I understand, whispered the song, as Scarlet sang breathlessly about loss and need, a craving so deep it could swallow the world. I know your pain. I know your heart. I know you. I see you. You are not alone.

It was the lie behind music. You looked into it and saw what your heart desired, as if every note, every syllable, had been written just for you, instead of being the solitary work of some narcissistic creator who didn’t care about the wounds on your soul.

A lie, and yet still truth. Scarlet might not give two shits about most of the people crushed in front of the stage, but—for the length of a song, a set—they felt less alone. Believing the lie was enough. Hope healed in tiny increments, but it still healed.

Even him.

Scarlet’s eyes drilled into his. Her body swayed in a hypnotic rhythm, one he’d seen before. Then, she’d had her hands on Jade’s body, her hips rolling in a way that had left him uncomfortably hard. He’d blamed it on her dance partner at the time—Jade, who was made of mouthwatering curves, whose every movement was graceful to the point of absentminded seduction.

Softness, that had always been Mad’s weakness. Sweet women who just needed a little tenderness to wake them up. Making them feel good made him feel good, and everyone walked away with fond, pleasant memories and mild feelings.

Mild wasn’t always satisfying, but intensity was complicated.

Scarlet wasn’t soft or sweet, and she didn’t do mild. She could eye-fuck him from the stage all night, but if the two of them ever ended up locked in a room together, it wouldn’t be warm honey and slow swaying.

They’d fight for the top. She’d play rough, fight hard. Fuck, she’d probably win. Not because he couldn’t, but because the stakes were too damn high. It was one thing to shore up vulnerabilities that were already there, but when you made someone vulnerable, when you demanded their surrender—

You had to be worthy of it.

No, not just worthy. You had to be strong. Whole. You had to be unshakable, hard enough to protect them in their vulnerability, not be the one likely to shatter apart.

You had to be a fucking hero. And that was the one thing Mad had promised himself he’d never try to be again.

* * *

Sign up for the release day announcement list to find out when Beyond Ruin is available!

 

Welcome, and join us as we count down the final 10 days before Beyond Ruin by revisiting some of our favorite Mad, Dylan, Scarlet & Jade moments from the past six books! We’ll be posting an image each day on social media, but here on the blog we’ll be doing a longer excerpt and maybe even a few notes about the scene.  🙂  And today is…

Dylan Gives Zero Fucks
Beyond Control

Wow, this is a flashback. Lex and Dallas are so 100% in sync in Beyond Ruin, it’s like whiplash to go back to this second book and remember how hard it was for them to come together. But this scene is important, because Dylan’s history of giving zero fucks is pretty unique in Sector Four. Dylan is pretty unique. Not a lot of people can mouth off to Dallas and hope to survive it–but whether or not Dylan is hoping to survive has always been the real question.  (Fortunately (?) for him–he’s too fucking useful to kill.)

***

The door popped open, and Dylan Jordan strolled into his office. “Good evening to you too, O’Kane.”

“Doc.” A chill shivered down Dallas’s spine as he studied the doctor—whose presence usually meant bad shit had gone down. “You here on business?”

“Sort of.” The man dropped into a chair on the other side of the desk and tried to smooth his dark hair into some semblance of order. It didn’t work. “I came by to see what the hell’s going on around here.”

Christ. If the whispers had turned to grumbles that were rippling beyond the gang already, he really was in deep shit. “Who’s been shooting off their mouth?”

Doc arched an eyebrow. “Lex sent me a message.”

The chill turned to ice. “Saying?”

“She asked me what the process would be for removing her tattoos.”

“What?”

“Her cuffs.” The man said it like he was talking about the weather. About nothing. “And something about a new one. A name.”

The name hurt like a knife in the gut, but even that had nothing on the cuffs. Lex was O’Kane. She’d helped shape what they had become, had helped touch the life of every person wearing O’Kane marks. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

Doc snorted. “I told her I wouldn’t touch the ink unless you said so, but a wise man would make sure she didn’t ask me again. I don’t know if I’ll say no next time.”

If it had been anyone else, Dallas would have snarled. He still wanted to, but threats and intimidation were wasted on Dylan Jordan. No matter how many women threw themselves at him, desperate to save him, the man was as self-destructive an asshole as Dallas had ever met. Sometimes he thought Doc pitted himself against dangerous men in the hopes that one would eventually put him out of his enduring misery.

Dallas didn’t plan on it. The man was too damn useful to kill. Of course, telling Lex he wouldn’t remove the ink without Dallas’s permission was damn near suicidal on its own. “You must not have told her no in person, because I don’t see any stab wounds.”

For a long moment, all the man did was stare at him. “You’re pretty goddamn despicable, aren’t you?”

“I run a gang of bootleggers,” he replied, fighting to keep his temper and his panic on a tight leash. Pretty damn difficult when he could feel his perfect fucking life crumbling beneath him. “I am what I am.”

“Yeah? Well, what you are is an ass.” Doc rose, shaking his head. “Lex didn’t try to cut me when I told her. She just cried.”

A knife in the gut? A pinprick compared to how those three words felt. She just cried. Lex, indomitable, unbreakable Lex. He’d coaxed her into trust, shoved and pushed until she let down all those cold, hard walls—

And then he’d crushed her.

Christ.

“Uh-huh.” The man dragged a tin from his pocket and popped a small white tablet into his mouth. “Fix it, would you? I don’t like it when you kids fight.”

Kids, as if Jordan was some kind of fucking sage elder instead of three or four years older than him. Dallas didn’t know whether to laugh or strangle the motherfucker. “Gee, Doc, I was having a great fucking time, but if you insist.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you nearly as well as you think, O’Kane.”

“I save my heartfelt confessions for the people wearing my ink.” He said it without thinking and damn near winced. Nobody wearing ink wanted to hear his heartfelt confessions. They didn’t even want to look at him. He’d always stood slightly apart, but this feeling of standing alone was new. And miserable.

And if Lex was crying, he deserved it.

* * *

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