Frozen Rain: Royal Bastards MC Anchorage Chapter Read online

  The giant hit his knees and held his hands out at his sides, his fingers curled into claws, and his mouth fell open. He was still wrapping his head around what had happened when he pitched forward and died.

  For the second time this afternoon, I spit on him. Then I pulled up my pants and fastened them.

  When I looked over at Palach and his guards, the boss man shrugged his shoulders. Then he laughed wholeheartedly. He bellowed with laughter. His guards stood and stared at Ivor’s lifeless body for a moment. They were utterly surprised. The largest of them, the one they all feared most, had been bested by a 5’7” brunette.

  With a fucking axe. You just killed their toughest guy with an axe.

  “Okay,” Palach said as he finally stopped laughing. “You have earned my respect for today. But for today only. You may go back to your friends. But know that tomorrow is a new day, and there will be a new Ivor.”

  And why aren’t you man enough to come after me yourself?

  I thought the words but didn’t dare say them. I’d lived through the day, and that gave me one more evening to hope Rain would come save me. Tomorrow there wouldn’t be an axe. If he didn’t come for me tonight, there wouldn’t be a tomorrow at all.

  22

  Rain

  The roar of the sleds was loud, and the wind was cold. My hands were so fucking numb through my gloves I couldn’t feel them at all. But we pressed on. The jovial conversations and all the jokes and tough-guy comments died down within an hour of the journey. Nobody was in a good mood now. The cold stole that away from us.

  Now, it was only about reaching our destination.

  Hours went by before we finally reached a sign of civilization. Kalishna was out there, far from the roads and far from prying wanderers. Nobody came this far west in this area. There was no reason to.

  Darkness was setting in, and the first sign of the town was the lights of some of the cabins.

  “Look!” BP yelled. “We’re almost there.”

  “Thank fuck!” Beezus called out. “I’m fu… fu… fuckin’ freezin’.”

  “Don’t be a bitch!” Slitz replied.

  “He’s not being one,” Oosik said. “I feel the same way, man. I think my cock done froze through.”

  “There’s gonna be a lot of sad women when they hear that,” Pipe yelled. “Rain, you all right, brother?”

  “I’m fine,” I lied. I couldn’t feel my feet. And that wasn’t a good sign. Frostbite was real, and it was no joke. I was only thanking God we’d found a place that might warm us up for a bit. We couldn’t storm any kind of compound in this position. We were all hurting too bad. We’d brought food and water, but we’d been too cold to stop and eat.

  Six MC brothers were fucking freezing to death on snowmobiles. The worst part was I knew they were all suffering for me. For Cassie. They’d gone off to war with me without fully understanding how difficult it would be. They would do it again, I knew that, but I wished like hell I didn’t have to see them all hurting the way they were now.

  We’d been lucky that the snowmobiles scared off the few animals we’d encountered. Bears worried me most, but travelling together like we were, no predator would ever approach a group of six loud machines leaping over snow hills and speeding across the icy plains like we were.

  The storm hadn’t hit. Not yet, but if Cracker was right about it hitting during our journey, this new wave of gusting wind was a sign that it was on its way. It would be a doozy. We needed to get indoors soon.

  When we finally pulled up to the first cabin in the village, we weren’t confident we’d reached Kalishna at all. We could have come upon another dwelling. I said a silent prayer as I stepped off my sled and approached the trail that served as a village street.

  Like so many towns in so many Wild West movies, buildings faced each other. One had a sign outside dangling from chains bolted into the wooden exterior. It read: Fred’s Tavern. I whistled and the others parked their snowmobiles and met me on foot.

  It was a small place. Cozy. Fred sat on a couch in what looked like a regular living room. He watched a movie on VHS. I only knew this because the word “tracking” flashed across the screen along with the familiar horizontal lines of a movie trying to adjust itself when in the face of wrinkled-film turbulence.

  Fred glanced over his shoulder when he heard us enter. He was an older man with a patch of white, cottony hair on each side of his head. The center was bald. He smoked a sweet-smelling pipe and clenched it between his teeth as he said, “Hmm. You fellas lost?”

  “Sorry to interrupt you, Sir,” I said, “but we may be.”

  “What are you lookin’ for?” he asked.

  “Right now?” BP stepped in. “Warmth. But ultimately a town called Kalishna.”

  “Town?” Fred laughed. “You’re in Kalishna, but I wouldn’t guess most people would consider us a town. Let me get you gentlemen something that’ll warm you up, and then maybe you can tell me what brought you all the way out here.”

  While the right side of the room was a regular living room setup, the left side looked like every other bar in all the other small towns. It had two round tables with four chairs positioned around each. The bar itself looked to have been cut down from one of the local trees and then sanded and slicked over with clear varnish. Three bar stools were pushed beneath it. On the other side was a wall with pictures of random people.

  “Friends of yours?” I asked as I sat at the bar.

  The old man looked behind him at the pictures. “Oh, yes. Most gone by now. Some still around. But all friends the same.”

  “There’s a storm brewin’ out there,” BP informed the old man.

  “You saw that on TV?” Fred asked.

  BP nodded and Fred laughed.

  “Ain’t no need to watch the news when you live out here,” Fred replied. “Not that we get any reception anyway. Nope. I only got my videos. Anyway, it don’t matter much. Weather is weather when you been out here as long as I have. Storms come and go.”

  Fred set seven glasses up on the bar and poured golden whiskey into each. I helped him hand them out to my brothers, and then he joined us in a toast.

  “To making it this far,” he said.

  “To making it this far,” we all repeated.

  “And to killing some Russians,” I added.

  Fred’s lips turned from a half-smile to a straight line. His glass was raised to about chest level when he stopped mid-toast and glanced at each one of us.

  “Wha… what did you fellas say you were here in town to do?” he asked.

  “We didn’t say,” BP informed him, “but I think you caught the drift.”

  Fred went ahead and downed his glass. With a lick of his lips he said, “Well, all right. I suppose this was bound to happen someday.”

  “What’s all the fuss about out there, Freddy?” an old woman’s voice asked from somewhere at the back of the house.

  From the hallway that split the living room and the bar apart, an old lady with long grey hair and wearing a pajama gown stepped out.

  “We have company,” Fred told her.

  “Company,” she said, straight faced, as she surveyed our crew.

  Only BP and I were positioned at the bar. The others sat at the round tables.

  “Good evening, ma’am,” I said with a nod in her direction. She only stared back at me and didn’t say a word.

  “So,” Fred said, finally breaking the awkward silence. “Y’all are here to kill Russians.”

  “Sounds about right,” I replied.

  “I tried to tell ‘em,” he said, pouring himself another glass.

  I reached out with mine so he could pour me another while he was at it.

  “Tried to tell ‘em they were no good for our village,” Fred said.

  “Who’s they?” BP asked.

  “The council,” Fred replied. “Look, we’re a small village. Probably ain’t more than fifty of us here. Give or take a few. Ain’t nobody counting. Nobody coming or going ei
ther. We got nothing but this here bar, a small shop run by Anna and stocked by her bush pilot husband, Andy.”

  “Anna and Andy,” Beezus said from behind us.

  “You plannin’ to get that tattooed on your other arm, you ignorant asshole?” Oosik asked.

  “Nah, that arm’s reserved for a painting of your mama,” Beezus shot back.

  “Gentlemen,” BP called out. “Manners.”

  Oosik nodded to Fred’s wife and said, “Sorry, ma’am.” Beezus repeated the apology.

  “Don’t go stoppin’ your horseplay on my account,” the woman said as she headed back down the hall toward what I guessed was their bedroom. “I’ve got eight sons. I’ve heard every joke about mamas there is.”

  “Our sons are all grown. Only Fred Jr. still lives here. The others have all moved down south. Can’t say I blame ‘em. This is a rough place to live, let alone raise a family.”

  “I imagine,” I said.

  “But people do it,” Fred said. “Believe it or not, there are a few kids in the village. There’s a schoolhouse for them, and we have a post office, if you want to call it that. Clyde gives letters and packages to Andy to take to Anchorage and receives the letters and packages brought back.”

  I could never understand how people could live like this. I loved the outdoors as much as the next guy, but to live so off the beaten path, in a place where there were virtually no visitors, that seemed so archaic. It really was like a Wild West town.

  “Tell ‘em what you saw the other day, Fred,” the old woman called from her room at the back. “Might as well tell ‘em.”

  “I’ll handle it, woman!” Fred replied.

  He poured himself another two-fingers worth of whiskey and, in that silence, I wondered if she’d come barreling out of the room to give him a piece of her mind, but I doubted she would. They were old school. He was a cranky bastard, and she was the devoted wife who’d probably put up with so much of his shit over the years she no longer put forth the energy to argue.

  “We don’t bother nobody out here, but we also don’t have great resources in the winter to help us bring in funds,” Fred continued. “So, these Russians came along and rented out our old timber mill. They pay on time and we don’t ask questions.”

  “But you saw something,” I said.

  “Yes,” Fred replied. “I saw women. A lot of them being led inside the warehouse. They didn’t look so great. I wasn’t meaning to eavesdrop or spy or anything like that. I was coming back from a hunting trip when I saw them being unloaded from the plane. I tried to tell the council, but they said the Russians’ business was the Russians’ business, and we were better off not getting involved.”

  “Fred, listen,” I said. “We’re here to save those women. You were right to go to the council, and I suppose I can understand why they’re not wanting to get involved.”

  “Big money,” BP said, “and safety for the village. These guys are dangerous.”

  “They are,” I promised, “but we’re here to help. Can you show us how to get to that warehouse?”

  Fred’s eyes shifted back and forth between BP and me. He was nervous. I couldn’t blame him. This was his neighborhood, his turf, and we were asking him to disrupt it. Not only would this mean an end to the payment the village was receiving, it also might mean the taking of innocent lives once the bullets flew. It could even mean later retaliation from the Russians, but I supposed that would be more towards us than the village. It wouldn’t be like the townsfolk had chased them off with torches and pitchforks.

  “Well,” Fred began, “I suppose I oughta point ‘em out to you. But then, once you find ‘em, I’m running away.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “You fellas want to crash here on the floor until the morning then?” he asked.

  “No, Fred, I’m afraid this has to be taken care of tonight,” I said.

  “Right,” the old man said as he walked toward the hallway to his room. “All right, then let me get dressed.

  “Drink up,” BP told all the guys. “Get warm. ‘Cause we’re about to get this shit show underway.”

  “You don’t think we should rest a little first?” Beezus asked.

  “Do you think any of them women inside that warehouse right now would appreciate you getting a good night’s sleep while they’re in there crying their eyes out?” BP asked. “Wondering if anyone will show up to help ‘em?”

  “Nah,” Beezus replied.

  “What if we take a little nap and that plane shows up and hauls all these ladies off to the good ol’ USSR?” BP added.

  “Let’s go get ‘em,” Oosik said.

  “We came out here for a reason,” Slitz agreed.

  “What’s the plan?” Pipe asked.

  “We’re headed back into the cold,” I said. “It’s time to go Russian huntin’.”

  23

  Cassie

  My head throbbed. Swelling had overcome my left eye. My chin was tender where it had gotten scraped against the hard snow. The stuff isn’t always as soft as you might believe. Blood had caked at the corner of my mouth and one side of my lip pulsated in time with my heartbeat. An ache had settled in over my entire body.

  Now, I lay curled up in a ball, on my side, on Pamela’s bed, staring in a daze at the sleeping forms around me.

  Ivor kicked my ass.

  He almost fucked your ass, too. You were only seconds away from getting raped.

  All those bastards had only watched. Artur wasn’t there. He’d remained inside with the women, I’d guessed. It wasn’t like he would have said anything to save me. Nobody would stand up to these assholes. Only Rain could do that, but it was looking more and more like he might not show up. In the morning, we’d all be on a plane to Russia, and then it would be over. As much as I didn’t want to allow myself to lose hope, I knew once we boarded that plane, my mind would break. I’d become like so many of these other women, so far from home and outside my country.

  Ivor had gotten so close, and these assholes would have let him do it. Nausea came over me as I remembered the weight of his cock against my lower back, sliding toward me, ready to rip me open. I could hear his growls, grunts, and the jeering of his comrades egging him on. They were monsters. All of them, and they deserved to die. Each and every single one of them could burn in hell. I would be lying in the snow right now, bloody, broken, and probably left for dead. If not for the axe.

  The axe saved my life.

  Your axe throwing ability saved your life.

  The moment the guards dragged me into the room and threw me onto the floor, Pamela and Nia had rushed to my side and dragged me back to our safe corner. Pamela insisted I stay in her bed, and Nia sat on it with her legs crossed. She cradled my head in her lap while she stroked my hair and hummed a tune from her youth.

  How the roles had reversed. I’d gone from trying to save her to being the shattered soul lying in her lap.

  That was how I fell asleep.

  When I woke, the room was dark. Most of the women were asleep.

  It was whispering that pulled me from my nightmare of wandering across a snowy field where I’d been walking for what felt like forever. It might have gone on that long if I hadn’t heard the hushed tones of a woman on the bottom bunk, in the next aisle, speaking to one of the guards. It was the man who’d been playing cards with Artur earlier.

  “I like you,” the woman said.

  “Please,” the guard brushed off her bullshit and was about to stand when she touched his hand.

  Neither noticed me watching from my sideways position on the bunk.

  “What is the matter?” she asked. “You don’t like me? I am a dancer.” She was a brunette, with what would have been beautiful, natural curls if it wasn’t matted with dirt. “You don’t like dancers?”

  “I like dancers,” the man admitted.

  “Have you ever gotten a lap dance?”

  The guard nodded.

  “I have been told I have the best pussy in my
town,” she whispered. “Do you like pussy?”

  The guard grinned and nodded again.

  “Take me into the bathroom. You can have me any way you like if you help me get out of here.”

  She was dumb. She couldn’t be naïve enough to believe this nobody of a guard was going to allow her to escape. Had she not seen or even heard what happened to me? Nobody lifted a finger. They were all scared or fascinated by the thought of a woman being beaten and raped. Yet, she thought this guy was going to help her? Had she not seen what it looked like outside? Had she not thought about where we were located? Where was she planning to go?

  “Come,” the guard said as he led her quietly out of the bed and toward the bathroom.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This chick really believed he was going to help her escape. She believed it enough to give her body to him. Then again, to some women, especially those who had been giving their bodies to men their entire life, sex meant nothing. It was only a transaction. It helped them get things, do things, and go places.

  Like out there in the cold? That ignorant idiot.

  As they disappeared out of sight, I sat up on the bunk and peered out farther. The guard who’d taken the girl into the bathroom was the only one on shift tonight. He’d abandoned his post to get some ass. When I saw some of the other women slink through the shadows, I realized what was going on. She didn’t expect anything from this man. It was only a diversion tactic.

  At least four other women were making their way to the door. One checked the table where they’d played cards earlier. Another tried to open the door softly. The remaining two inspected the rest of the room near where the guards usually hung out. They seemed to be frustrated, coming up empty. The one testing the door was able to pull it open, but the thud of boots outside scared her enough to close the door and rush back to her bed. The others scattered too.