To Awaken a Monster (In the Arms of Monsters Book 1)

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2020 Sam Crescent

  ISBN: 978-0-3695-0129-5

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Karyn White

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  As always, to my readers.

  Thank you for your continued love and support.

  TO AWAKEN A MONSTER

  In the Arms of Monsters, 1 of 3

  Sam Crescent

  Copyright © 2020

  Chapter One

  “You know, I hate the scent of human rats, no matter the time of day or night.” Preacher ran his hand across the man’s head, feeling how sweaty and disgusting it was. “They don’t smell like actual vermin. No, actual vermin are easy to kill, and I don’t mind them. Not when they’re cleaning up the trash. You see, the thing about rats, their teeth are constantly growing. Needing to chew their way through things because the length of their teeth, it drives them crazy.” He chuckled.

  “Preacher, please.”

  “You know what I also love about actual rats? They can tell you when certain disasters are happening. They will literally run away from any sign of danger.” He didn’t know if this was accurate or not. He’d never taken the time to watch rats. If he saw them, he killed them, simple as that. Only rodents got an easier death than most human rats. He tutted. “You know what, Phillip? You are such a disappointment to me.”

  Phillip whimpered as Preacher ran the blade across the front of his mouth.

  “Stick out your tongue.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Stick out your fucking tongue.”

  Preacher didn’t need to ask a third time. Phillip, sobbing, stuck out his tongue, and without care, Preacher slid the blade across it, slicing it off in one sharp swipe. Screams filled the room, and Preacher stepped back as the blood began to soak down Phillip’s body. He stared at the single piece of flesh.

  “You should be thanking me for this. This right here, it got you in trouble, and I’ve dealt with it. You don’t ever have to worry about it again.”

  The screams continued to fill the abandoned garage station, and Preacher stuck the severed tongue into a bag. It would help serve as a lesson to others. Not that Phillip would ever be walking out of the garage alive. Nope.

  No rat had ever left Preacher’s company alive, unless he wanted to send a message, and then when their job was done, he took care of them in any of several different ways.

  Phillip was of no use to him. He wasn’t worth making the effort to send him out into the world. He was a piece of shit as far as the club was concerned. The moment he decided to go and help the other club, it had cemented Phillip’s death sentence. It was a good job Preacher had some people on the police force who’d happened to see him going into enemy territory.

  “You know, I hate to state the obvious, but this didn’t have to happen.”

  Staring into Phillip’s soon-to-be-dead eyes, Preacher waited as Phillip started to scream, but without his tongue it sounded more like a gurgle.

  He tutted. “Keep on screaming. Where you are right now, it’s abandoned. The place doesn’t even have a name. It’s nowhere. There was a time it was someplace. A small town, peaceful, idyllic. The kind of place people raise their kids. A small school. A library. There was even a garage and a gas station. A diner. You know, the usual things that help a town, but I believe this was home to, like, four hundred people, and when they built the highway to pass a few miles away from here, no one visited. The town dried up. People had no choice but to move away. No one cared about this world anymore. It sucked for way too many people.” He shrugged. “A good old ghost town. It’s what it is called now. Some people believe the old tales that it’s haunted by the dead residents.” Preacher burst out laughing. “If anything, it’s haunted by the people I’ve killed here. Believe me, there have been a few. It’s so easy to do. No one around to hear screams, and if anyone is lost and passing through, the rumors keep people running on their merry way out of the fucking town. Now, Phillip, you were a good little soldier for a while, but like many good little soldiers, you got way too greedy, and because of that, you’re heading into trouble. So much trouble. You do know you’re not leaving here alive. There’s no way I can let that happen.” Preacher sat back down on the chair, straddling it. “You went to the Slaves of the Beast MC, and I can’t have that. I don’t like the stories you told them. My plans. My club. Even the schedule of my boy. I’m not going to deny he’s a fucking idiot, and there are times I swear he is not my blood, but I got that fucker tested the moment the whore spat him out, and he is indeed mine. Now, I’m cleaning up your mess.”

  Phillip started to cry.

  Phillip’s wife and kid would be returning home to finding a nice large pile of cash, a note, and a chance at a life without being beaten black and blue every damn day.

  Preacher didn’t like leaving loose ends. In his fifteen years of being the Twisted Monsters’ MC President, he had learned many valuable life lessons. Never leave loose ends. Never show weakness, and never allow someone to believe you’ve got any morals.

  Morals.

  What the fuck were they?

  He didn’t have them, had long since gone without them.

  Lucky for Preacher, he didn’t miss them. They had all died away a long time ago. Long before he became club President.

  Holding the blade that he’d sliced Phillip’s tongue off with, Preacher stared at the man who had threatened the club and dared to hurt him. Without any feeling of guilt or remorse, he plunged the blade into the man’s neck and watched. He held Phillip’s head up by his hair, waiting, making sure with every passing second that he was dying.

  Death was such a fascinating beauty to see. First there was the panic. The hope of getting away. The fear and need to escape, to get as far away as possible. The fight or flight response always fascinated him.

  Then of course, like all disappointing endings to a movie, there was the acceptance. The will ebbing out of the body, not allowing them to fight another moment. Their life draining away with no help or no will to stop it.

  Pulling the blade out, he wiped it on a cloth before walking over to the sink. His hands were covered in human rat blood, and it pissed him off.

  The water ran over his hands, and he watched it disappear down the drain. Once they were clean, he nodded at Grave to call the clean-up crew.

  “Tell them I want him burned and his ashes brought to me,” he said.

  His cell phone began to go off, but he wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone. Right after a kill the only thing he wanted was a soaking wet pussy wrapped around his dick, but he stepped out of the old garage into the eerily silent ghost town.

  “What the fuck could you possibly want from me, Billy?” he asked.

  Billy was one of the few cops he had in his pocket, and he was kind of a suck-up about it as well. He truly believed Billy wanted to be part of the Twisted Monsters MC, but Preacher wouldn’t have a fucking cop on his team. They were too easily bought, and well, he needed him in the thick of it to be able to call him when he needed to move shit from one place to another.

  For a
s many cops as he had on his books, willing to take his money, there were some who had a code and tried to bring him down constantly. It was cute, he couldn’t deny it. So far, they had only trashed his clubhouse, one of his homes, a couple of his workplaces, and for the pleasure, he’d gotten to see them all look like fucking assholes. Sure, he had to pay a great deal of money to move the drugs or guns, or whatever the fuck they were looking for, but he was more than happy to do it.

  “What has the little shit done now?”

  ****

  Bishop burst out laughing as he collapsed to the ground out in the open field. Robin Rose Riley, yep, that was her name, smiled at him.

  “You do know your dad is going to be pissed right?”

  “Oh, please, for what?”

  “You damaged school property, not to mention setting off the fire alarms, and setting fire to the gym. It was kind of a scary move.” She sat down beside her friend, tucking her long brown hair behind her ear.

  “You should have seen Principal Asshole’s face when he saw it was me. Especially when I pulled you through the broken window. How is your arm?” he asked.

  She held out her bandaged arm. She’d torn the bottom of her shirt and wrapped it around the wound. She didn’t have the heart to tell him it was hurting or that she believed there was a piece of glass inside of it as she felt some pressure within her arm.

  Instead, she let Bishop laugh. He liked to piss off the teachers at school. Being Preacher’s son, well, it gave him a lot of leeway to be a disruptive ass.

  “It’s fine.”

  “It’s not like they’re going to do anything, you know. I won’t get in trouble.”

  “Your dad will be pissed.” Robin didn’t want to think of the last and only time Preacher was angry, and that had been directed at her. While he’d made sure she knew the score, her own father had held her still, keeping her in place as he yelled in her face, dictating what she had to repeat back to him.

  Shaking off the memory, she tried not to think about it, ever. It was the only time her father had ever hurt her, and it had also brought the reality of what her parents were into crashing down. They were not normal parents with normal jobs. There was no way she’d ever see her mother, Rebecca, working in a library. Far from it. She’d be at the bar, smoking, or taunting some of the club women with their lack of status.

  “Yeah, daddy dearest will be pissed, but come on. What’s asshole really going to do? Complain that he can’t keep me in line?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m sick and tired of being PS. I’m one vowel away from being PMS!”

  Robin burst out laughing, quickly covering her mouth when she saw the glare on Bishop’s face. “You’d need a consonant to be PMS. M isn’t a vowel.”

  “Oh, yeah, of course I knew that. I’m not dumb.” Bishop put an arm across his face. She sat beside him.

  She glanced around the open field. There were so many trees, and she loved coming out here, being alone, listening to only her thoughts and the occasional song of a bird. Closing her eyes now, she tilted her head back and enjoyed the freedom she felt.

  “I totally forgot—do you want to stay in school? I know you hate it when I drag your ass out of there.”

  She laughed. “It’s a little late now to be worrying, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. You love it when I take you, though, right?”

  “Yeah, totally. It is right up there in stuff I want to do. Have my best friend kidnap me.”

  “I’m more than your best friend, and you know it.” He lifted up, grabbed the back of her head, and before she knew what was happening, he was kissing her, hard. It wasn’t a sweet kiss. Sure, they’d kissed more times than she could count, because, to the rest of the world, they acted like boyfriend and girlfriend, but she hadn’t wanted to take it to the next step. She didn’t know if she ever would, and a little part of her was afraid of giving in to Bishop.

  Sure, sex was just sex. Two people coming together, and it wasn’t like it was a big deal. Why would it be? Sex was everywhere, and she heard everyone talking about it. Half of their school year had already done it.

  She put a hand on his chest.

  “Damn, I want you,” he said. He grabbed her hand, pressing it against his hard cock. After everything she’d witnessed and heard, she didn’t think it was possible to be embarrassed, but sure enough, she felt her cheeks starting to heat up at his bluntness. “I know you want to wait, but I can promise you, Robin, I can make you feel so, so good.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  Bishop ran his hand down from her neck going to her chest, and she captured his hand as he went to touch her breast. She knew what he wanted, but she wasn’t ready. Bishop didn’t know when to stop, and he was always talking about her tits, ass, and how her body was made to be fucked. Yep, he was that colorful with everything. She didn’t mind her body. Being a curvy girl, she had learned to own it. She loved her body, even if her mother would tell her repeatedly that no one wanted a fat girl. At school, no one would dare comment about her weight. During their early school years, Bishop had beaten up plenty of guys for calling her fat. The girls all wanted Bishop, so they left her alone. She could handle herself no matter what.

  “Ugh, fine. Fine. You know you can’t wait forever though, right? One day you’re going to have to give up your V-card.”

  “I know you don’t like me … being this way. I’m not trying to hurt you.”

  “Do you know what this does to a man? It makes it hurt. I could explode if I don’t fuck, Robin. I mean, seriously, you need to stop being so afraid. Nothing bad will happen. The complete opposite in fact.”

  “Wow, you certainly know how to charm a girl, don’t you?” Every single time she said no to him, he always tried to guilt her and sometimes she did give in to the guilt, but not today.

  When she was ready, she would have sex. There was no law that stated she had to have sex as soon as possible.

  “Look, I’m sorry.”

  “You know, you could help me along.” He started to unbuckle his pants, and she knew what was coming and hated it. What was more, she didn’t tell him no, even though it made her really uncomfortable to do what he wanted.

  She liked his kisses, even if they weren’t the best, a little wet and sloppy, his hands always getting on the grabby side, which made any kiss a little uncomfortable.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, what could this be?” He pulled out his cell phone.

  She took note it was the latest make and model. She hated phones, but her dad required her to have one in case she was ever in any trouble. He’d also advised her he’d put a GPS in her phone so he knew where she was at all times. It was a little detail she hadn’t told Bishop about. He liked to think when he stole her away, they were completely alone. “What?”

  “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”

  She tried not to wince when she heard Preacher on the other end of the call. It wasn’t good if he was already pissed as it was. Bishop didn’t even have it on speakerphone and she heard him clearly.

  “Dad—”

  “Yeah, your dad. You remember, the guy who has to deal with all your fucking shit while you prance around wearing my badge like it’s a fucking get out of jail free card. Is Robin with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. I’ve got Bear here, and he wants to fucking beat the living crap out of you. Get back here, now.”

  “Here being?”

  “Do you want me to shove my boot up your ass?”

  The line went dead, and she waited for Bishop to explode. Every other time he would completely blow up over his father instructing him on what he was to do and not to do.

  Pressing her lips together, she waited.

  Nothing happened.

  Being the kids of two MC members since birth, they both knew the life, and the club always took priority no matter the day.

  Bishop shook his head. “Fuck!”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,
I’m fucking okay. It wasn’t how I wanted to spend my day.”

  He got to his feet and grabbed her arm. She let out a little whimper as pain shot right through her body, but Bishop didn’t seem to notice.

  Whenever he got like this, there really was no talking any sense into him. He would do whatever the hell he wanted to do without care for anyone else.

  They made it to his car, which was an old, beaten-up red truck. Climbing into the passenger side, she only just shut the door as he slammed on the gas, taking them back toward where he lived for the most part.

  Preacher had a house in Knight’s Bridge main town, but his clubhouse was out on a dirty road. It was an old garage with a huge dump at the back. No one dared enter as it had an eight-foot-tall metal fence, barbed wire, vicious dogs, and of course, some of the meanest bikers anyone could ever meet. They were not the friendly kind to do good deeds.

  She had long accepted her father wasn’t the kind of dad who’d take her to go and sit on Santa’s lap, or even pretend he existed. She never got the Christmas treats growing up. Her parents spent most of their time arguing. Her mother hated Bear with a passion. Of course, it didn’t help that Bear was in fact a really good dad as well. He always made sure she was provided for, and in his own way, he cared for her.

  Bishop didn’t speak. He didn’t even put the radio on to fill the truck with noise. He liked heavy metal music that was a bunch of noise and yelling, or at least to her it sounded like it. She was very much a ballad and pop girl herself.

  Why are you thinking about pop music?

  Holding onto the car door handle, she waited for the time to pass. Bishop, when he wasn’t being an ass, could drive really well; however, he was traveling toward the clubhouse erratically.

  “Do you want me to drive?” she asked.

  “Shut up.”