Page 68 of StoryTeller's Tale

I can’t understand why I’m unhappy with that.

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

SHERI

My head hurts and I feel dizzy, and for some reason, I feel I’ve been kicked in the back. I start to come back to myself just in time to see Jake walking off with a load of men wearing similar leather or denim cuts, the only difference being where his says Arizona, theirs say Texas.

So much for him caring for me. He doesn’t seem to give a damn that I could have been killed. No wonder I fainted from the shock.

I start to stand, placing a hand on the dirty arm of the equally filthy couch where I’ve been abandoned, when a pretty woman, maybe a couple of years older than myself, approaches. She hurries her footsteps when she sees me trying to get upright, and by placing a gentle hand on my shoulder, encourages me to sit back down.

“Strider told me to watch out for you as you weren’t feeling well. I gather you took a bullet to the back.”

I gasp, and fruitlessly try to look behind me, placing my hand, worried about seeing blood.

“Oh no,” Jasmine cries out. “Not literally. It was stopped by your pack, but you’ve got a bruise you’re bound to feel.”

Indeed I have. While she’s been explaining, it’s all comes back, and the blood drains from my face again. I’d thought Jake had lost his mind. Turns out, he was trying to protect us.Someone shot at me.I shake my head in disbelief.This is not my life.

“Do you want a glass of water?” She glances toward the bar. “Or something stronger?”

I could really do with a shot of tequila but remember before the request leaves my mouth that I can’t drink now. And, unless I do something about my situation, won’t be able to for another six and a half months.At least.

“Water will be fine,” I request at last, needing something to take the remaining taste of vomit from my mouth.

After bringing me back a bottle with dew on the outside, indicating it’s fresh from the cooler, she sits beside me, showing she’s taking her babysitting duties seriously.

“So,” she starts, after I’ve taken a good few swallows of the cold refreshing water. “You came in pretty hot. Must have been pretty damn scary.”

I shudder, replaying it in my mind—from hanging on for dear life, not knowing why Jake was riding so erratically, to finding that bullet hole in my backpack. Nausea threatens me again as I realise if I hadn’t been wearing it, had the contents not been in the right alignment inside, I could be dead. For some reason, that makes the life I’m carrying seem precious.

I’m going to drive myself crazy thinking about it when I can’t talk it out. But Jake’s not around to ask whether it was really Knuckles who was after us and if so, how he could have found us. Nor whether it was me the bullet was intended for or if it was Jake he was trying to take out. Or, indeed, whether there’s another enemy gunning down members of his club.

“Where’s Jake gone?” I ask, hoping he’ll soon be back. At her puzzled look, I amend, “StoryTeller.”

“Oh, the men are in church. They’re discussing what happened to you.”

Church. The meeting Jake said he was unlikely to be invited to, but under the circumstances, I suppose it makes sense. It irks, though. It was me who had stopped a bullet, but I’m excluded from what’s considered the domain of men.

“Are you an old lady?” I ask, wanting to get my mind onto something else while I’m waiting to get answers. Getting annoyed when there’s no one to direct my anger to won’t help.

Jasmine gives a pretty little snort. “Nah. No one’s given me that title.”

“So, you’re a sweet butt?”

“Sweet butt?” Her eyebrows rise. For a second, I’m afraid I’ve offended her, but then she laughs. “It’s complicated, honey. I’m not one thing or another. But when I have sex, it’s always with Strider.”

“The prez?” I frown. “And it’s just a sexual relationship?”

She chuckles again, showing my questioning isn’t offending her. “I’m not in his bed for anything else. And won’t be unless he pulls his head out of the sand.”

“You want to be more?” In my books, sweet butts always want to become old ladies.

Her eyes go to the meeting room door where the men had disappeared. “Whether I do or not is part of why shit is so complicated.” She gives herself a little shake and turns sideways, hoisting her bent leg up on the couch so she can face me. “So, you and StoryTeller. Are you an item?”

Turning the tables on her, I reply, “It’s complicated.”

She flops back on the couch. “Isn’t it always? Tell me how you met him, and how long you’ve been together.”

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