Page 79 of Butcher

“What?” I asked, shocked. I knew my girl loved animals but this was ridiculous. “I’m bleeding-”

“Apologize,” she repeated.

Sighing, I looked around at the guys and they were all fighting back grins. Hellfire was struggling. It was his damn fault this was happening anyway because this all happened when we brought him here after he’d been shot during our raid of the cult. I glared over at Crash. “Sorry,” I muttered.

“Not to him.” She smacked my arm and jutted her chin at me stubbornly.

I glanced down at Gary. He was making his way over to Lockout now. My clothes weren’t tasty enough apparently. Shooting Isla a scowl, I looked over at the goat again. “Sorry for kicking you.”Even though it hadn’t been a kick, I added, but kept that as an inside thought.

“Good,” Isla said, then turned to Crash. “Now that that is settled, can we get him fixed up please?”

“Before he falls on his face,” Ricochet added. “Then we’ll have you take a look at Smoke, too.”

Smokehouse grinned. “No need to rush this. I’m enjoying seeing Butcher this way.”

“Fuck you,” I replied.

Crash glared at me for a long minute, then smiled. “I like her. Sure, let’s do this.” He placed the cigar back into his mouth and opened up his bag. He removed some gauze, bottles of what I assumed were antibiotics, though knowing the way he held grudges it could be bleach, and a needle. Handing a wad of gauze to me he gave me the plan, then said, “Alright I’m going to clean this shit up. See what we’re working with.”

“Maybe we should go inside,” Lock suggested. “Sit him down. Healready took one blow to the head. Don’t need him passing out and having it happen again.”

“I’m not going to pass out,” I replied, offended that he would even think that.

“Inside,” Crash said, waving at everyone to follow him.

By the time I was settled into a chair, cut and shirt off, I was resigned to the fact that this was happening. “Hey,” I snapped. “Careful.” Crash had slapped a cloth on my side so hard my ears were ringing. “Need to work on your bedside manner.”

“Quit tellin’ me what to do.” He looked at me like I was bothering him. When I glared at him, he eased up on cleaning the blood from my side. “Yeah, yeah, fine. Not like the big baby is in any real danger. Missed all his organs.” He cleaned the outer wound before sticking his finger in it. “But since you’re so insistent, I’ll feel around to make sure.”

“Could you at least put the cigar away? That can’t be good to have during an operation,” Toxic said.

Crash stopped dead and looked at the man. “Do I tell you how best to get warts on your dick fuck boy?”

“Oof,” Smoke chuckled.

Crash pointed at him. “You’re only slightly better. Shut it.”

Everyone fell quiet after that and let him work.

I gritted my teeth. “I swear to fuck if you don’t get your fingers out of me...” Closing my eyes, I breathed through the pain as he cleaned out my wound. He announced gleefully that it was just a flesh wound and the bullet had passed all the way through. “Told you I was fine,” I muttered. Then Toxic put a bottle of whiskey in my hand and it got better from there. It didn’t seem to take too long before Crash declared I’d live and I was able to put my shirt and cut back on.

“Now what do we say?” Lockout asked, shooting me a pointed look.

Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “Thanks Crash. No hard feelings?”

Crash pulled the cigar from his mouth and stuck the lit end into my leg. “None whatsoever. Now.”

“Fucker!” I snapped, yanking my leg away and patting at my jeans.The cigar hadn’t burned through, but I shot him a glare anyway. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Uh, some of us still need the help,” Smoke pointed out. “Had to wait for your whiny ass to get fixed up first.”

It took at least another hour, and my pants didn’t survive the curious goats. By the time Smoke was ready I’d lost my pants legs from the calf down. But finally we were able to pile into the SUVs and head toward home. I wanted to finish this bottle of whiskey, get into bed with my woman—preferably naked—and sleep away the pain. When I woke up I was going to talk to Lock about going after Randal.

CHAPTER 27

Butcher

Iwoke up and squinted toward the clock. It was two a.m. and I’d slept most of yesterday away. Vaguely I remembered getting back to the clubhouse and all the women cooing and clucking over me and Smoke, since we were the only two with real injuries. I pretended to be irritated by the attention, but really I didn’t mind much. My brothers had found themselves some pretty amazing women. So had I.

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