Page 23 of The Devil's Pair

No, he’d been thinking about his hand around her delicate throat, about that incredible shade of light blue that her lips had turned, about how powerful it had felt to throw her against the wall and then to the floor without a goddamn care. All with one hand.

It had been a good long time since Crusher had had a person’s throat in his bare hands, and he was getting itchy to do it for real and properly. Heneededto feel somebody’s larynx and trachea fracture in his hands,neededto hear the cartilage structures crunch and crumble,neededto see the horror and pain in his victim’s eyes, eyes that wereright there, inches away from Crusher’s own grinning face. Eyes in which the light and awareness just went out for good and forever, as he watched.

There was nothing better. Sex couldn’t even come close.

He needed something to show up over the horizon, and soon, because if he couldn’t find a rival or enemy to crush, he’d have to make do with one of the club sluts.

Again.

He’d get away with it, naturally. Everyone would just pretend once more that the girl had disappeared one night – maybe overdosed, maybe got on a bus back to wherever the fuck she came from, maybe stumbled drunk or high into a road and got hit by a truck – and there would be exactly zero questions asked or concerns raised. People would tiptoe around him even more than usual, the club whores would work double-time to keep him happy, thanking God the whole time that it hadn’t beenthemwho’d fallen victim to his fierce urges and diabolical needs.

Thattime.Nexttime, they might not be as lucky, and they might be way more dead.

The problem was that women were no challenge whatsoever for him. He was a six-foot-six Goliath of pure, bulging muscle, and he topped the scales at three hundred and ten pounds. He looked at Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and considered the man a goddamn pussy. Crusher knew that he could fuckthatman up and barely break a sweat – so what chance did a woman have to put up a fight?Anywoman?

Crusher stretched, ran his massive hands through his blond hair, scowled at himself in the mirror. He was just wondering what the fuck he was going to do to pass the next few hours, and toyed with the idea of taking the boys out on the bikes to look for trouble, the kind that he’d be able to finish the way that he craved. That was when there was a sharp knock at the office door that he recognized as his Vice-President’s distinctive, weirdly jaunty three-tap.

“Come in!” he shouted. “And this better be good, Viper!”

The door swung open and Viper Grant stood there, gazing at his Prez warily. Crusher had been even surlier and scarier than usual, and that was sure as hell saying something, and what it was saying wasnot good. Viper was no stranger to violence, but evenhewas starting to wonder what would happen if Crusher lost his shit out of sheer boredom and inactivity, and went completely off the deep end.

Well.Moreoff it than he already was. The man was a certified homicidal lunatic, and Viper didn’t allow himself to forget that for one goddamn second. He’d nevertrulyunderstood the term ‘bloodlust’ until he’d met Crusher Alcott. Oh, sure, Crusher was exactly the man to have on your side when the shit was hitting the fan and bullets were flying, but when life was calm and normal, he was a loose cannon wrapped in alcohol-soaked cotton with a tinderbox attached to a hairpin. He wasvolatile.

Viper sent up a quick prayer – and he wasn’t even a praying kind of man – that what had just wandered into the clubhouse bar wasn’t going to be the thing that shoved his President right off the edge of sanity. God knows, Crusher was teetering on it at the best of times.

“Yeah,” Viper said. “A guy has just shown up in the main room, says he knows you from back in the day.”

“Who?”

“Says you know him as Web.”

Crusher stared at his Veep. “Did you sayWeb?”

“Yep.” Viper couldn’t tell if this was good news or not. “Tall, dark-haired guy.”

Without a word, Crusher stalked out of the office. Viper trailed behind, wondering ifthiswas the day he was finally going to meet his Maker: the longer he hung around Crusher Alcott, the chances of it happening only increased exponentially.

Crusher stood in the doorway of the bar area, his head cocked to the side as he took in the man planted smack in the middle of the room. He looked exhausted and filthy, and on his still-impressive chest he was wearing a gold badge that looked like angel’s wings.

“Well, well, well,” Crusher said softly. “Darryl Webber, as I live and breathe. What the fuck happened up there at your magic garden?”

**

Right-Guardian Michael looked at his old high school buddy and felt nothing but relief and a sense of familiarity. The men hadn’t actually seen in other in almost two years, but that didn’t matter at all. That was how it was with true friends; friends who had had each other’s backs through thick and thin and all the crap in between.

Hal Alcott had always been a hulking motherfucker, and he’d quite appropriately gone to a major college on a full-ride football scholarship. His parents had died halfway through his first year, though, so right away and without any hesitation, Hal had started some lousy factory job and taken care of his kid sister Shay. He’d given up a lot to keep the two of them together, and from what Michael had seen first-hand, he’d done pretty damn well.

Then the canning factory has gone bust, and soon after that Hal had been recruited by The Highway Hellions; that was when he’d pretty much disappeared from Michael’s social circle. Oh, he’d run across Hal sometimes on the streets of Salt Lake City, back when Michael had been dealing drugs and pimping women. He’d even done a bit of side-business with the Hellions: providing whores for their MC parties, and stupid bitches to act as sacrificial mules on their riskier drug runs… and he’d once provided a much-needed alibi for the man in front of him.

After he’d done so, Hal –no,no, Crusher, remember– had promised him that if Michael ever needed anything, he was to come and ask and Crusher would make it happen, no matter what. It was a debt that was still outstanding, and Michael hadn’t wanted to waste it on something trifling.

But he was calling it in now. He was going to have Crusher make good on it now.

Of course his old friend knew all about him joining Gideon, and moving into the Garden. Crusher had teased him mercilessly about it, and when Michael had stubbornly insisted on starting a whole new life – a better life as Michael, a more righteous one which Gideon had promised him – Crusher had actually been more concerned than mocking.

“You watch your back in there, Web,” Crusher had told him. “If things go south, you call me, and I’ll fucking raze the place to the ground to get you out. No questions asked.”

Well, it turned out that his friend wasn’t the one to destroy the Garden… but hewasthe one who was going to help Michael get his revenge.

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