The Hunters Rage Read online

  Silvie loved taking me shopping and worked cleaning offices. Marsha told me that Silvie lived in a hostel and attended school during the day. She never appeared until after nine o’clock at night, until one-night Drake dragged her into the clubhouse, furious. The old guy Silvie worked for had made advances on the stunning girl and Drake had caught him.

  After Drake taught him a lesson, Drake hired Silvie to work at the clubhouse and garage, cleaning for the MC where she’d be safe. Drake paid Silvie better than the old man. And with Drake, Fish and in the end, Apache and Slick, monitoring her, she became much safer. I saw Marsha give her money sometimes, even though Silvie tried to give it back.

  Drake got around a lot! He’d no interest in settling down with a woman. Drake was a horn dog to beat all horn dogs, Ace told me. Slick was a horndog too and Gid. When I asked why Ace wasn’t the same, I received a single word response, kitten!

  Ace’s answer at the time perplexed me, but I knew one thing, I was madly and completely in love with Ace. He was mine. Ace became my entire world and every minute I’d free, I spent with him. When I got home from school and Ace was available, he was my companion. Ace often fell asleep with me, him on the top of my quilt and covered up in his own duvet.

  I wasn’t naïve, far from it, I saw looks Apache gave us, I noticed the looks and whispered comments from Marsha and Fish. Fish would frown, look our way and then something gentle lit in his eyes and he’d turn to Marsha and tell her to stop fretting.

  I once heard Apache tell Slick that Ace had discovered his one and had to wait for me to grow up and become legal. I admit I was delighted thinking I was Ace’s one. Ace proved that when one day when at fourteen and walking home from school, four boys, who were older than me but who’d attended my school, cornered me. Fish had been unavailable and the next thing I knew I got yanked down an alley.

  The boys called me a biker skank and tramp, becoming free with their hands. One held a hand over my mouth so I couldn’t cry out. The next instant, they were pulled off me and Ace beat the shit out of them. Strong arms folded around me and I looked up to see Slick.

  I screamed, frightened that Ace would get injured. He did, after all, fight four assailants. Slick shook his head as Ace systematically took them apart. Finally, leaving them in a heap on the ground, Ace pulled me from Slick's arms and planted my ass on his bike and sped off. Ace rode to a hilltop, and we looked down across Rapid City.

  Then in Ace’s no messing tone, he told me explicitly what was what. I belonged to him, no one touched what was his, at sixteen I’d become his. Ace was waiting for me. No one could claim me apart from him. My eyes wide, I nodded and attempted to kiss him. Ace gently took me in his arms and explained that as much as I belonged to him, I was jailbait right now. We had to wait until I turned sixteen and legal. Ace planned to do right by me as no one else ever bothered to put in the effort.

  I bit my lip at that and Ace groaned and ran his fingers gently down my face. He told me I was killing him, but he’d be patient. Ace was eighteen to my fourteen, and he’d waited three years, he’d wait two more. At that moment, I learned my life had beauty, and that was Ace and Rage MC. Despite the ugliness Bulldog brought to the club, Rage still had beauty.

  Misty appeared a few weeks after that, a stunning but bitchy blond twenty-year-old, who set her cap at having Ace. Ace told her several times in brusque terms to take her skanky bitchy ass away from him, and so she tried targeting me. It happened once, and Ace went batshit at her, making her back away. But Misty didn’t cease trying to throw herself at Ace.

  So that brought me to the present day. Two months shy of seventeen and pregnant. I’d been with Rage MC for nearly six years. I’d gone to the club that Rage owned, called Hells Rage, in partnership with another biker club they owned it with. For months, we’d been hearing that Drake’s cousin Chance was struggling to take over Hellfire MC and get it clean. I’d heard rumours Drake was preparing the same moves with Rage and my people supported him.

  Drake made a real go of the club’s legit business’s, the shop which sold tee’s, riding gear and other biker accessories. The bike design and repair garage Drake owned the rights to, as his dad had owned the clubhouse land and left it to Drake. Drake established the garage despite Bulldogs objections. Drake also owned the shop, called Rage MC Shop. Unoriginal!

  Drake grinned and told Bulldog it was his land to build on and Bulldog couldn’t stop him. Snidely, he told Bulldog if he didn’t want part of the garage that was fine by him. Yeah, as if Bulldog would refuse money! Next, there was the parts store which again Drake forced to be legit. Bulldog seethed that Drake stood up to him. Whatever arguments Bulldog raised, Drake won.

  Drake surrounded himself with select brothers. Brothers he’d recruited or trusted. Apache, Ace and Fish obviously. The rest of Drake’s circle included Slick, Gunner and Manny. Drake also brought Mac and Lex in. These brothers Ace trusted implicitly. Then there was Jacked, Gid, Texas and Axel. Drake was often heard saying the new brothers were the future of the club.

  Axel was a founder of the club and called the 1st Generation or 1st Gen as Rage shorted it to. Axel supported Drake and not Bulldog. A big booming man with nothing but kindness in his heart. I loved Axel to pieces.

  Texas was 2nd Generation, someone who’d been recruited by the founders. Axel and Texas were the two most respected brothers in the club. Jacked and Gid couldn’t decide whose side they were on. They kept flipping from on to the other. Bulldog had plenty on his side, Rage being that large.

  Ace by now at twenty was a full brother, and he’d made my sixteenth birthday a beautiful thing to remember. Drake treated Ace as his second in command to Bulldog’s fury. The writing was on the walls. Ace, Apache and Fish had a huge pull in the club, but I stayed out of it, as old ladies did. I bolstered my man and did what I had to, to provide him with what he needed.

  After the disturbing doctors’ consultation, I’d gone to the bar to wait. Ace was picking me up there as he’d a run to do. Sat at the bar, it stunned me, when Misty approached and informed me there’d been trouble. Ace had been knifed. I shot from my chair and followed her out without doubting for a minute my man needed me.

  Suddenly, I looked up from my musings and saw we’d left Rapid City and were heading into the Black Hills National Forest. Confused, I leant forward and tapped Misty on the shoulder.

  “Misty, what are we doing out here? Where’s Ace?” Misty turned to me, and the look of sheer hate on her face took my breath away.

  “Ace is precisely where he should be, at the clubhouse.” Misty bitched. Something bad sliced through me. My stomach clenched in dread.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. Thunder pulled up into a clearing and turned to me, and I visibly shuddered at the unholy light in his eyes. Thunder wasn’t likeable, but I’d never believed he’d hurt me until now.

  “Well bitch, what’s goin’ on is, we gonna play some ya know? Gonna get what’s been comin’ to ya.” I pushed back against the seat as Thunder got out. Opening my door, he seized my hair and dragged me out. I knew what Thunder planned, and I fought, clawed, scratched and punched.

  Thunder punched me in the face twice, and I slumped to the ground and seconds later he’d ripped my jeans off. To my horror, he forced himself on top and inside me. I screamed and attacked his eyes. Thunder punched me again as Misty stood laughing while he raped me and came. Thunder rose to his feet and smirked at Misty.

  “Bitch a shit lay.” He said. “Time to get inventive.” I crawled away as best as I could when he grabbed me and held me down. Misty spat on me. Then kneeling, she showed me a bat in her hands, and I screamed as Misty smashed it against my knees. My left knee shattered, and tears rolled down my face.

  I started begging and pleading as Thunder raped me again and then again. In between rapes, Misty took her time smashing the bat into my arms and hands and then she aimed for my stomach. With the limited strength I’d left, I twisted, and it slipped out I was pregnant.

  Quietly,
I prayed for the torment to end and to be left alone. Begged God and all the angels in the heavens to save me, while sheer evil hurt me over and over. I passed out several times, but it didn’t end. Thunder and Misty merely waited until I regained consciousness. The torture lasted hours.

  Misty stabbed a blade into my shoulder on top of my old scar and through a tattoo that Drake had designed for me. With Thunder holding me, she raped me with the bat. I couldn’t take any further suffering and allowed darkness to take me again. When I came too Misty raped me with the bat again, and once again I blacked out. A body can only take so much pain. Thunder beat me wherever his fists landed, and I was black and blue.

  This was worse than what happened to me nearly six years ago. This was carried out by Rage. My family. When I next came to, I found them standing over me. Thunder had a bottle in his hands and the way he was eyeing me, I knew I didn’t want to know.

  “Ace will kill you.” I muttered through spilt and swollen lips. Both laughed, and Thunder leant into my face.

  “Who do you think gave the order?” Thunder spat at me.

  “No! Never!”

  “Ace is done darlin’. He wants a real woman, not a child.” Misty laughed in my face.

  “Brother gave us you to play with and make sure you got taught a lesson. A lesson I’m happy to provide.” Thunder grinned.

  “Ace knows you’re pregnant and he don’ want it. Ace don’ want you. He wants it and you gone.” I died then. Died inside. Thunder began rattling off MC brothers who were likewise in on it. Not Fish, Apache or Drake but Slick, Gid, Manny and several others. My body went limp as Thunder took the bottle and thrust it inside of me. I lay there, allowing pain to drift over me as Thunder broke the bottle inside and tore me up. I welcomed the pain as a distraction from my broken heart.

  “Ain’t fuckin’ no blood.” Thunder said to Misty and turned me over and raped me anally. And I’d thought the pain couldn’t get much worse. After several more hours, they finished, I was beyond screaming then. My body lay in the dirt, broken and bruised.

  My bones had been shattered, my skin slashed, anally and vaginally I was destroyed, raped with the bat, bottle and Thunders cock. Destroyed emotionally and mentally. Cruelly betrayed by a man I thought loved me, betrayed by a family I thought was mine. All that was left was the life I carried whose heart beat with mine.

  Misty leant over me and spat in my face. She took the knife she’d used to carve up my body and in the final insult sank it into my stomach and cut me open. Misty rummaged around as I screamed weakly and she dragged out the love I’d carried in my stomach.

  Misty lay it on top of me, and I heard a weak mew before silence. I was dead. I closed my eyes as Thunder aimed a final kick at me and I allowed darkness to sweep over me and I, Kayleigh Mitchell died.

  ◆◆◆

  The cop threw up in the bushes, far away from the crime scene. His stomach empty, he ambled back to the bodies. He had seen nothing too horrific in his career, which had been over ten years, until this morning. The officer called in to confirm the body and called the coroner. The girl had been cut to shreds and beaten brutally, there were boot marks on her body, and her stomach ripped open, and her insides spilled.

  Vehicles approached, and more cars pulled up. The girl’s body had been found just over the border from South Dakota and in Wyoming. A few feet to the right and she’d have been South Dakota’s problem. She was now his problem until a detective got there. He eyed the bodies lying on the ground again and wondered what piece of shit would cut up a pregnant young girl.

  The detective approached, and he gratefully handed over. The coroner arrived on scene alongside forensics, and the detective watched as they started doing their jobs. As the coroner crouched, he shouted as the girl’s hand twitched. Fuck! The detective raced towards them, shouting orders.

  Chapter One.

  September 2014

  I swung my car around the corner, hitting a slight drift and floored it. In front of me, the brown 1980 Buick skidded and then righted, I was on his ass, and the perp realised it. The dirty fucker was mine, and that’s what mattered. One of the best bounty hunters in the business, I never lost a target. I was well known in many states and often called in to find the mark.

  I hated the fact that Marco Strummin had run to Rapid City. I’d history with that city and truly hated the place. But Marco Strummin, known paedophile to the police, had bolted and ran here and so I gave chase. There was a two hundred-thousand-dollar bounty on his head, and it was mine to claim.

  My throat clenched as Strummin spun out of control and crashed his car straight into the wall surrounding Rage MC. Teeth gritted, I skidded to a halt and slammed out of my car, a black Ford SUV. I jogged toward Strummin, who’d got out of his car and was stumbling away. I caught his shoulder, and the asshole spun around, throwing a punch at my face.

  Yeah, I was small, dainty even, but all muscle, I worked out two hours each day, and I was a black belt in mixed martial arts and ju-jitsu. Add to that I kick boxed five times a week and was trained to handle guns and knives. Strummin’s weak assed punch was just that, weak. With minimal effort, I blocked the punch and threw one of my own, catching him on the jaw and then caught his right wrist. Without a care, I snapped it backwards as it flew towards me with a knife in hand. I felt it break, and Strummin screamed.

  I kicked him straight in his groin, and he hit the ground wheezing. A blow to the groin was the easiest way to take down a mark, and why waste energy? The knife fell from nerveless fingers, and he collapsed into a curled ball, cradling his dick. Without hesitation, I drew my gun and aimed. He looked up at me, his face red, and he sucked in his cheeks.

  “Fucking bitch.” He wheezed. I cocked my head and kept my gun on him.

  “On your stomach, hands behind your back.” I ordered. Figures came out of the Rage clubhouse, and after a brief glance, I watched as Strummin followed my orders. I bent, putting a knee in his back and clasped a cuff around his wrist. Strummin yelped as I snapped it around his broken wrist.

  “What’s goin’ on?” A voice asked. My stomach tightened as Drake’s smooth, rich tones swept over me. I kept my knee in Strummin’s back and out of frustration, rapped his head on the ground. If only the idiot hadn’t run to Rapid City!

  “Don’t fucking move.” I snarled. I rose to my feet and gazed at Drake. The man wore tight faded jeans and a white tee with his cut over the top. President was sewn on to his cut high on his left-hand side. Drake hadn’t changed, he was as gorgeous as ever. A few more lines around his eyes, a few strands of grey in his dark hair, a hard, muscled body that would make a male model jealous. Drake was still Drake. And Drake had won the battle to take over Rage MC.

  “I’ll ask again, woman, what the fuck is goin’ on.”

  “Takedown, I’m a bounty hunter.” I snapped back. Riffling through Strummin’s pockets, I found the keys, which for a strange reason he’d taken from his car. Running from a bounty hunter and you stop to take the car keys? Yeah, that wasn’t fishy. I moved towards Strummins’s car, knowing he’d only have taken the keys to stop me from finding something. I opened the driver door and heaved at the smell that came from inside the car. Rubbish was strewn everywhere, and it stank of sweat.

  Not seeing anything, I opened the boot and felt my stomach clench again. Hidden under a dirty sheet was a wooden box and after taking photos on my phone, I put on gloves and opened it.

  “Motherfucker!” I swore out loud as I stared at the box contents. The bastard had found three more victims, there were dozens of photos of them. My stomach clenched and I swallowed bile, I’d seen and done a lot, but kids were off-limits. Sickened, I snapped more photos and carried it to my car.

  “Witness statement?” Drake asked.

  “What?” I said, walking away. I dragged Strummin to his feet and cursed again.

  “Great, you pissed yourself, just wonderful.” I growled. By now, other brothers of Rage appeared. They stood around in a semi-circle, and my gaze dr
ifted over them. With an effort, I controlled my features. Until that is, I spied that skank Misty standing in the crowd. Wasn’t able to stop myself from sending her a glare of pure loathing and disgust. Misty stumbled backwards at what must have appeared a murderous glare aimed at her.

  “Saw what you found, you removin’ it darlin’, may be a problem. Can give a witness statement to RCPD.”

  “Whatever.” I muttered as I dragged Strummin towards the back of my vehicle. I opened the tailgate and pulled a blanket around and lay it out. Disgusted, I shoved the dirty bastard hard, pushed him in and slammed the tailgate shut.

  I turned to get back in my car and saw Drake’s gaze on my shoulder. His body had frozen, and he gazed into my face. Drake’s eyes searched mine. He looked confused, shocked and horrified. I’d no idea why.

  “Get out of my way.” I growled, pushing Drake. I’d the advantage of surprise, and he stepped backwards. As I pushed past Drake, his body suddenly moved, and he caged me against my door with his arms. I stared up with a blank face.

  “Kayleigh?” Drake muttered disbelief in his voice. Curious eyes raked me, looking for something, anything that could link me to the name he’d just uttered. I frowned.

  “Who?”

  “Kayleigh.” Drake muttered again. I saw pain cross his face, and Drake looked at my shoulder and raised a finger to touch it. I grabbed his finger and forced it away.

  Drake’s brow furrowed as his gaze raked me again. I knew what he saw. Short cropped curly red hair, green eyes, a heart-shaped pixie face, full lips and straight white teeth. I was slender and muscled, a tiny frame.

  “It can’t be, you don’t look nothin’ like her but...” Drake’s gaze dropped back to my shoulder, and I cursed. The tussle with Strummin had torn my tee, and my tattoo was showing.

  “Name’s Artemis, you’ve heard of me being who Rage MC is.” I stated. Recognition crossed his face, I shoved at his chest, and he didn’t move an inch. Bloody Drake. “If you don’t mind, I wanna get that scum out of my car, before he stinks it up.” Drake gazed at me for a few more seconds before his eyes dropped back to my tattoo.