The Death Lords, Volumes 1-3: His Wild Desire, Her Secret Pleasure, Their Private Need by Ella Goode Page B

She’s untouchable.” I lift the hammer and raise it above my head. “You don’t speak of her.” I swing. He screams. “You don’t touch her.” The hammer hits home. “You don’t even think about her.” I swing again.
    The ringing of metal against metal is a gratifying sound. Not as great as hearing the crunch of his skull against the steel mallet would be, but good enough. I look down and Ellerby is crumpled into a ball, a slobbering whimpering mess. The scent of urine rises up. He’s pissed himself. Unsurprising.
    “This happen a lot?” I ask Michigan, pointing toward Ellerby’s piss-stained pants.
    “Now and then. Depends on who you’re dealing with. That’s why I mentioned the plastic.”
    I reach into the bag for my rope and swiftly tie it around Ellerby’s wrists. I loop the rope over the spike I’ve driven into the tree and start winching Ellerby up. Because I’m a nice guy, I turn his body so he’s facing the trunk, otherwise the position would rip his arms out of his sockets. “I’ll get a roll from the hardware store next time I’m in.”
    “You’re pretty good with the hammer,” Michigan observes.
    “Thanks.”
    Once Ellerby’s toes are just touching the ground, I stop and tie off the rope. “You can try to get down but I doubt you’ll be able to. I’m showing you a great deal of mercy here. Someone will show up in six or seven hours to start work and they’ll find you and let you down. If you’re smart, you’ll spend that time giving your arms a rest by climbing the tree with your legs. In the meantime, enjoy having the ants, bugs, spiders and possibly snakes crawl all over you tonight.”
    “You’re not going to hit me with that?” Ellerby’s head tips toward the hammer.
    I slap it against my hand. “Not tonight. But if I even see you standing within ten feet of my girl, next time I swing this, your head will be on the other end instead of the spike.”
    I gather my bag and nod to Michigan. We walk out leaving Ellerby hollering at us to let him go.
    “So you and Chelsea,” Michigan muses on our way home.
    “Got a problem with that?”
    He’s quiet for a moment and I want to turn around and hang him from a tree.
    “No,” he says finally. “Not everyone’s going to be okay with it. A lot of folks probably see you as brother and sister and forget that Judge isn’t her bio dad, so there’ll be censure and judgment. What’s Judge’s take on it?”
    “Haven’t talked to him about it. Chels is reluctant.”
    Everything depends on Judge. If he places his blessing on it, the club will back him up. If not, then Chels is probably right. I’m going to have to leave the club and home. Just when I returned.
    Michigan claps me on the shoulder. “If you two are okay with it, then fuck the rest of the world.”
    I drop Michigan off at the bar so he can pick up his bike. The house is dark when I get home. Dad’s sitting at the table waiting for me.
    “You get everything taken care of?”
    “Yup.”
    “Will there be blowback?”
    “As in will he run off to Chief Schmidt? I don’t think so. We went down to the gravel pit. That’s outside of Schmidt’s jurisdiction.”
    “What about the other thing?” He tips his head toward Chels’s closed bedroom door.
    “It’s not drugs, Dad.”
    He looks relieved. “Then what is it?”
    “I…I’ll tell you in the morning. I need to talk to Chels.” Halfway out of the kitchen, I turn back. “Why’d you hook up with Gwen?”
    I’d never asked him that. When he brought Chels’s mom home with him after hooking up with her for several years at the meet up down in Missouri hosted by a one percenter national club, I figured he wanted some convenient pussy instead of banging different club sweet butt. Since I was sixteen and nearly out of the house, it was none of my business.
    The real shock was how much I enjoyed having Chelsea around and then how my feelings transformed from friendly interest to lust to some stronger