Paladin's Hell Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Cast List of Characters

  Colorado Chapter

  Arizona Chapter

  PALADIN’S HELL

  Next Book & Teasers

  Demon’s Angel

  Sharpening Blade

  Turning Wheels

  Other Works by Manda Mellett

  SDMC: Arizona Chapter

  SDMC: Colorado Chapter

  Blood Brothers

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  Stay In Touch

  About the Author

  Published 2018 by Trish Haill Associates

  Copyright © 2018 by Manda Mellett

  Edited by Maggie Kern

  Proof reading by Astronima’s On Pointe Proofreading

  Book and Cover Design by Lia Rees at Free Your Words

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  www.mandamellett.com

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Warning

  This book is dark in places and contains content of a sexual, abusive and violent nature. It is not suitable for persons under the age of 18.

  ISBN: 978-1-912288-33-5

  Author’s Note

  The Satan’s Devils are a fictional outlaw MC. Their mother chapter is based in Tucson, Arizona, and they have chapters elsewhere including California, Utah and Colorado.

  Paladin’s Hell is the first book following the exploits of the members of the Colorado Chapter, and is a standalone novel.

  If this is the first Satan’s Devils novel that you’ve picked up, you may like to know that the Arizona Chapter have their own series, which starts with Turning Wheels (Satan’s Devils MC #1). There is some crossover between the two series. The full story of how Jayden and her sister Ella come under the protection of the Satan’s Devils can be read in Slick Running (Satan’s Devils MC #3), and more background as to why Paladin and Jayden have to leave to come to Colorado is contained in Mouse Trapped (Satan’s Devils MC #9).

  There will be more books about the Colorado Chapter, as well as continuing the exploits of the Tucson chapter. In future, the other chapters may well have their own series too. You can stay up to date by joining my mailing list.

  If you’re new to MC books you may find there are terms that you haven’t heard before, so I’ve included a glossary at the end to help along the way.

  Cast List of Characters

  ***

  Road Name – Role/Status – Other Name

  Old Lady

  ***

  Hellfire – President – Carter Black

  Moira

  Demon – VP – Dave Black

  Buzzard – Treasurer/Secretary

  Sindy

  Thunder – Sergeant-at-arms

  Mace – Enforcer

  Sparky –Road Captain

  Blackie – Previous President

  Furnace – Previous VP

  Ingot – Previous Enforcer

  Bomber

  Jeannie

  Cad

  Dan – Prospect

  Ink

  Lizard

  Pyro

  Runt – Prospect

  Rusty – Stephen Bartlett

  Smithy – Failed Prospect

  Taser – Jesse Devin

  Wills – Prospect

  Bella, Breezy, Sheila, Titsy, Tulia – Sweet Butts

  ***

  ***

  Road Name – Role/Status – Other Name

  Old Lady – Children

  ***

  Drummer – President – Rick Felis

  Sam – Elijah (Eli)

  Wraith – VP – Scott Remington

  Sophie – Olivia

  Heart – Secretary – Dale Norman

  Marcia – Amy, Jacob, Isabel

  Dollar – Treasurer – Todd Bishop

  Peg – Sergeant-at-arms – Ronald Rinter

  Darcy – Noah

  Blade – Enforcer – Jack Sharples

  Joker – Road Captain – Josh Wilkinson

  Mouse – Computer expert – Tse Williamson

  Adam – deceased

  Beef

  Bullet

  Carmen

  Buster – deceased

  Dart – transferred – Colin Lowe

  Alex – Tyler

  Fergus – Prospect

  Hyde

  Jekyll

  Lady – Scott Flintstone

  Marvel

  Matt – Prospect

  Paladin – (was Marsh)

  Roadrunner

  Rock

  Becca

  Slick – Jeff Andrews

  Ella

  Shooter – (was Spider)

  Tongue – deceased

  Truck – Prospect

  Viper

  Sandy

  Prologue

  Two and a half years ago...

  Standing, with my back against the wall, I watch the girl lying on the bed. Observing the slight differences, changes in her breathing, little twitches of her muscles that signify she’s stirring, waking up. My gut clenches in sympathy, half wishing she could continue sleeping, knowing her nightmare is still to come.

  Jayden, Ella’s younger sister, who’d been groomed by much older men, members of the Herrera family who had forced themselves on her time and time again. I hadn’t been in the house when the Satan’s Devils had found her. As a dutiful prospect I’d been standing guard outside. My role began when I’d been called in to carry her out and take her back to the safety of the compound.

  I’d seen enough of what she’d been through from the state she was in. I’d gritted my teeth and stilled my hands to stop rushing in and gunning them down myself. Had to be satisfied with the knowledge that all her abusers would die. Once she was out of the way, they’d be killed at the hands of the men I hoped one day to call brothers.

  Even sleeping, she fills me with pity. As she wakes, I wish I could take all her pain, both physical and mental, away. What she’s gone through will stay with her for years, for all her life. Her pallor pale, her eyes sunken, there’s drool at the side of her mouth, but it doesn’t detract from her beauty. My stomach tightens again. Will, can, she ever recover?

  “Marsh, could you leave us, please?”

  “Sorry, Ella. No can do. Slick told me to stay put so here’s where I’m stayin’.” Even if I hadn’t been given the instruction, I couldn’t move from this spot. Not bothering to analyse the reasons why, I just know I want, need, to stay close, to protect her, even if all I can do now is help save her from those thoughts in her head.

  “Can’t you stand outside the door? You can guard us from there just as well.”

  As I wonder how I can refuse Ella’s reasonable request, Jayden takes one of her sister’s hands in hers, and points the other toward me. “You. You were there. You rescued me.” Rather than immediately correct her assumption, I give her a smile and a quick nod. She looks at Ella and pleads, “Can he stay?”

  Unable to keep my distance, I walk to the bed, now admitting the truth. “I didn’t have much to do with it. I just carried you out. I didn’t think you’d remember.” She’d been drugged and out of it.

  Ella’s hovering as though she’s her mother, not her sister, but I ignore her. It’s me who passes Jayden the painkillers the doc had left. It’s me who carries her
into the bathroom and holds back her hair as she vomits. Something about her calls to me. Already, I care.

  I stay, listening to her story. Feeling my eyes water as she goes into the horrific details. How she’d been groomed, threatened, isolated. Forced to do things no fourteen-year-old—scrap that, no woman should ever have to do. Telling myself it might be hard hearing, but it had been devastating for her to live it. She’s the same age as my sister. Not that I have any contact with her, just know of her existence, we’d both been entered into the system after my mom had died. But she’s out there somewhere. I’d hate to think anything like this would happen to her.

  Jayden latches onto me. Although I’m almost five years older, I’m the closest to her age on the compound. It’s me she turns to, and I try to help heal her, showing I don’t give a damn what had happened. It hadn’t been her fault, she hadn’t done anything to attract the unwanted attention, been naïve perhaps, but that was because she was so young. She’d had sex, yes, but she had never been an active participant. Broken and shocked, she tries to find her own way to recover. Eventually I have to spell it out, letting her down gently when she tries to take our relationship further.

  I wouldn’t take advantage of a traumatised girl, even if Slick, Ella’s man or Drummer, my president, hadn’t read me the riot act. They’d seen where things were heading even then. I was to be hands off until she was of the age of consent which, in Arizona, is eighteen. I knew I’d wait for her. Watch over her, keep her safe, give my life for her if that’s what was needed.

  When I’d been patched in, she was the reason I was given my handle. Paladin. Jayden’s knight in black leather armour.

  Chapter 1

  Paladin

  “I don’t like this, Slick.” I grab a couple of beers from Paige, one of our sweet butts who’s minding the bar. Luckily now I’ve turned twenty-one no one can make snarky comments about underage drinking any longer. Yeah, while I’ve indulged in alcohol since I was a prospect, being the youngest member made me the butt of many jokes, brothers enjoying yanking my chain. Now there’s one less thing to tease me about. But it’s all good. It’s what family does.

  Taking one of the bottles from my hand, Slick’s eyes narrow. “You and me both, Brother. Thought the Herreras were long in our rear view. Or at least, where Jayden is concerned, that is.”

  Looking across the clubroom I see Slick’s old lady, Ella, and her sister Jayden, heads bowed talking together. Reckon they’ll be discussing baby shit. Ella’s pregnant after a couple of years of trying, and Jayden couldn’t be more excited at the prospect of being an auntie—she adores kids. The promise of soon having one that’s truly blood family seems to have gone to her head. Having got to the end of that apparently risky first trimester, Ella’s glowing and excited, and it seems she and Jayden talk of nothing else.

  Slick must be able to read my mind. “Hate for Ella to lose Jayden now. They’re both excited as fuck about the kid.”

  “As you are,” I smirk at him. Slick’s a real softie where his old lady’s concerned.

  He takes no offence. “As I am,” he confirms with a grin. Then his face grows serious. “You know, as well as anyone, Brother, what a hard time those girls have had. Everything that happened to Jayden that led to us being in this mess, Ella’s fuckin’ run-in with the Rock Demons, then thinking she wasn’t going to be able to have a baby of her own. Those girls need each other.”

  I grit my teeth. We’ve been through this often enough. I know what he’s saying, but the time’s approaching when I want to be the one Jayden leans on, the one she looks to instead of running to her sister all the time. Trouble is, according to the rules I’d been given, I’ve still got eighteen months to wait. Too fucking long.

  I raise my bottle, taking a long swallow, thoughts of when I first met Jayden coming back into my mind. I hadn’t been the one going into the house to find her about to be raped by a group of much older men, or one of the brothers who’d stopped them. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been the first time it had happened to her, girl had got caught in a trap. The fuckers had carefully groomed her, sucked her in, then kept her from telling her mom or her sister with a barrage of threats. Only fourteen and already abused on many occasions.

  My involvement began when I’d been called in from my guard keeping duties outside. It had been me who’d carried her drugged-up, almost lifeless body out of the way of the carnage that would be wreaked once she was gone. I’d been that man, a boy really, just turned nineteen myself. She’d woken up, luckily all she remembered was me carrying her.

  That she wanted more from me than a girl her age should was clear, as were her reasons. To wipe away all that had happened to her, she wanted to replace her ordeal by making fresh memories with a man she had chosen herself, instead of living with those that haunted her.

  God knows I was tempted. But I couldn’t go there. She pushed, tried to make me show my interest. Fuck, was I interested. But Drummer put a stop to that. He forbade me to touch her for three and a half years, until she was legal in the eyes of Arizona.

  Jayden had felt slighted, but even then, I knew Drummer was right. Let her have what remained of her childhood, a time to regroup, to recover from her ordeal before pushing her into becoming a woman too soon.

  You’re still a virgin, I’d told her. To me, you are. You’ve never had a first time the way it should have been.

  I’ve been waiting over two years, still more than a year to go. In all that time, I’ve thrown myself into being there as her friend, have dedicated myself to watching out for her.

  But things are changing. Word on the street is that the Herreras might be coming for her again. In their eyes, she was the one who got away, the one who caused multiple deaths in their family. When the rumours had been raised in church, Drummer went as far as to suggest I should take her some place safe, away from Tucson, away from her brother-in-law and sister. After we’d left the meeting, he said he’d give Hellfire, the prez of the Colorado chapter, a shout to see if he’d be on board with the idea of us relocating to their base in Pueblo. Hellfire being chosen because he was a family man.

  Drummer’s suggestion was a step too far for Slick and his old lady. Knowing the danger threatening Jayden, though, they’d left their home in Tucson, and had moved back to the compound, taking two adjacent suites that were made empty for them. It wasn’t an ideal situation, not with a baby coming along. But for now, living amongst the Satan’s Devils was the most we could do to ensure Jayden was kept out of danger.

  Breaking free from my reverie, I return to the conversation, reassuring the man seated opposite me. “Slick, both you and I have Jayden’s best interest at heart.”

  “I think there’s another part of you more involved than your heart, Brother.” Slick sneers. “I can read you like a fuckin’ book. Moving to Colorado would hold attraction for you. You’re thinking it brings the end of your waitin’ time forward a year. Not happy about that, Brother, not happy at all.”

  I can hardly remind him she lost her innocence a long time ago. Ella and Slick have never treated her as anything other than virgin and pure, as I’ve done myself. Fuck, I’ve not taken such liberty as to kiss her, not touched her except for a brotherly hug. Sometimes I wonder whether she still wants me that way, or if she’s changed her mind over the past couple of years. Once the boundaries had been established between us, they were never referred to again. I’ve acted as her friend. Nothing else.

  My feelings for her haven’t dulled in the interim. Like I told her that long-ago night, I’d wait for her. And I have. She’s filled out, looks like a young woman now. A woman I’d be proud to have on the back of my bike.

  As if our conversation has in some way summoned her, Jayden gets up, says something to her sister and then crosses the room. Reaching us, she plops herself down on the couch beside Slick, leaning in when he holds out his arm to place around her. If you didn’t know different, you’d think she was his daughter. Sometimes I get scared when she looks at me,
she views me only as something akin to a brother.

  “What are you two old women gossiping about?” she asks cheekily, her brow raised toward me.

  “Just shootin’ the shit,” I tell her. Noticing the pool table’s free, I nod that way. “Want to play?”

  “You’ve been talking about me,” she says firmly. As I wonder whether she knew from her female intuition, she adds, “One or the other of you kept looking my way.”

  “Ella,” Slick says firmly. “We were talking about Ella and the baby. But there is something else I want to talk to Paladin about. Go get the balls set up, will you?” I tilt my head slightly as she gets up and goes. Slick’s lips press together, then he nods. “Ella and I have been talkin’. You and Jayden? No idea where that’s going to go. Most girls her age by now would be going to the movies with a boyfriend, a walk in the park holding hands. Innocent stuff, but maybe the basis of a relationship in the future. If she had a normal life, she’d be playing the field.”

  I can’t suppress the growl that comes out of my throat at the thought of her with another boy.

  He barks a laugh; it sounds a bit strangled. “Reckon Drummer and I might have tied your hands too much. Perhaps we should cut you some slack. Start slow though, maybe we should allow you to take her on dates. Think we could trust you enough not to take advantage. Proved yourself, Brother.”

  I raise my chin at the compliment. My heart rate speeds up as I consider what he’s offering, but then I shake my head, pointing out the problem. “Now’s not a good time, not with the Herreras about.”

  “Yeah, been doing some thinking. You take her anywhere, she needs to have brothers around her.” Rolling my eyes, I glare at him. Sure. Sounds like a great date. “Nah,” there’s a twinkle in his eye as he continues, “also thought about that. Why not take her to the Wheel Inn? Treat her to a decent meal?”

  It’s a thought. More than I’ve been allowed up to now. It’s a decent restaurant in Tucson, and one which is owned and run by the club. Sufficient culinary reputation that any young girl would be excited to go there for a dinner date, and with the benefit that a couple of members are normally there in the background. If they’re loosening the reins a little, who am I to object?