Hunter's Girl

HUNTER’S GIRL DEVIL’S NIGHTMARE MC NEXT GENERATION BOOK 4 LENA BOURNE PROLOGUE About nine months ago Trixie The night is always darkest just before dawn, they say. But tonight, dawn is still very far away and this night has already been the blackest I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve been through some shit and then some. None of it compares to this night. It’s almost pitch black out here by the lake. There are no clouds, but also no moon. And the stars twinkling up there give off no light, because stars, pretty as they are, can’t. The rippling water of the lake somehow shines anyway. With a black light all its own. It’s a big lake, but you wouldn’t know it standing in this small secluded spot, bordered by rocks and boulders on one side and thick shrubs on the other. I suppose I should be wary of wild animals out here, alone in the dead of night, covered in blood. But animals never scared me. Only people. And there’s none of those near now. The rocks are sharp, cutting into my bare feet as I approach the water’s edge. The lake is cool, freezing almost. I don’t remember it being this cold when Hunter and I were here last. That was just a couple of weeks ago, actually, when the weather finally turned warm enough for swimming. It was never freezing on any other of the hundreds of times we were here before that. And the wind was never this cold either. Some of my very best memories are from this lake shore. All of my best memories are with Hunter. I can’t swim very well. Just well enough not to sink like a stone. Thanks to Hunter who patiently taught me how to swim one summer a very long time ago. So many things in my life, and definitely all the good things, big and small, I’ve had thanks to Hunter. Nothing will ever change that. I could just walk into the lake and never come out. I could just let myself sink like a stone. It would probably be for the best. For everyone. Except Hunter. So I won’t do that. I came here to wash Hunter’s blood off my body. Then I’m leaving. Getting in my car and driving away and never looking back. I’m leaving for good this time. Forever this time. If he dies tonight, I won’t outlive him by much. There’d be no point. And if he lives, I will let him live. It’s my only way of saying thanks for all that he’s given me. My way of giving him what he needs but can’t let himself have. A life without me in it. ONE Present day Hunter Most of the unhappiness in the world comes from doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I heard that once, and it pissed me off then just as bad as it still pisses me off now. Trixie’s gone. Lost to me. For now. Of the million and one times, or thereabouts, that those words applied, they were always followed by, But I’ll get her back. And I did get her back. Each and every time she left. Because she’s mine. Just never for long. Madness, not just unhappiness comes from doing the same thing over and over again and failing each time. I rode halfway across the country after she left me this time, went to the most pristinely beautiful place I’ve ever seen in my life, with nothing but soft summer grasses swaying in the breeze and the sky a pinkish pastel yellow all the way to the horizon. And still that madness followed, beating against the inside of my skull like a raging bull, or several of them. Everything in my life reminds me of her. So all I’ve found is the same thing I always find: the suffocating need to get her back. Just like I always do. All I found was the way back into the madness that is my love for Trixie and her hold on me. Her hold on my heart. The more I try to stay away the harder it becomes. The worse the madness grows. And the only thing that brings me any kind of peace is the thought of her in my arms. In my bed. In my life. Safe. But fuck all that! I’m fighting all that this time. Have been fighting it for almost nine months… which is the longest we’ve ever spent apart since we met ten years ago. But living without her is bound to get easier. It has to. Because it can’t get any worse. As long as I hold on to that hope, I should be fine. Things at home are normalizing. In as much as they can under the looming, ever-present threat of attack that can come from anywhere, anytime now. How much of that particular fear is still a reality and how much lingering PTSD from the attack that almost ended my life, I can’t say. But what I can say is that my father, Cross wants to keep me as far away from anything even resembling life—or—death action as he can. He hasn’t yet admitted this out loud, but neither has he taken me on any of the dangerous MC rides in this war. Our enemies are the friends and family of the men Devil’s Nightmare MC has put away over the years. They have banded together to get their revenge on us. I suppose I could be grateful that he’s spared me the embarrassment of actually saying he wants me to stay home where it’s safe. I’ve grown up knowing what Devil’s Nightmare MC—the club my father is president of—was. It was a gang of killers for hire often contracted to eradicate whole clubs, not just individuals. But those days were well behind them by the time I was old enough to understand what it really meant. But after