Free Spark (Black Legion MC Book 1) by Kathryn Thomas

pure.”
     
    “Not so pure,” Eric said as he flicked a smoke from his pack and struck a match on the heel of his boot. “Give you a play by play if you want?”
     
    Jax wanted nothing but to choke the life from his body. Maybe his mother had run; maybe… no. He hated her for taking the easy way out into the shadows, leaving him in the harsh glare of Eric’s eyes. Made her no kind of mother. But Jax wasn’t the one trapped as his spouse. Did she think her son would finally see him with his full stare and get wise so he could go on his own way? Take off and never look back? Maybe make her way back to his side?
     
    But then there was Lena. “Don’t you even ever think about touching her again,” Jax hissed. “Lena is off limits to you.”
     
    “Really?” Eric asked. “Don’t see her hanging on your heels right now. What if she’s settling some other debts without your knowing?”
     
    Jax wheeled his arm back and punched him hard. Eric crashed into the bar, and the bottle fell from his hand. Artie moved fast to help him, and Jax seized the chance to turn his back in search of his bike. Eric had it wrong; wherever she was, he pictured her sad and scared. And he had to get back to her side and show her, prove to her that there was nothing more to fear now that he knew the truth.
     
    Riding fast and hard, Jax tore through the streets of Deerfield. How had he not seen it? Something so dark was the only reason she would have run away without the smallest word. I should have protected her. I should have stopped her.
     
    Ready to race up the street to her uncle’s house, Jax started to slow when he glanced down the incline. There, pressed against the creek, sat a familiar figure, and even from the distance, a pair of eyes met his as he grinded the bike to a halt. At the fear that she would run and hide at the sight of him, Jax held his ground, and dismounted his bike.
     
    Lena made no move as he rushed towards her, looking like a deer in headlights as he charged forward. “Jax? What the hell is---?”
     
    He fell to her side and held onto her wrists as she tried to stand and push away from him.
     
    “We have nothing else to say to each other!” she said. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”
     
    “Not until you tell me why,” he demanded.
     
    “What are you talking about?”
     
    “Why didn’t you tell me what he did to you?”
     

 
     
    CHAPTER ELEVEN
     
    She had gone back to the creek. Needing to see it just one more time, wanting nothing more than to hold the place in her mind as it had always been, Lena crept past her uncle’s sleeping form and raced towards the water. No way he was coming back now. She would have to live on the memory and imagine what might have been.
     
    But now he was back.
     
    Lena’s heart turned to ice as soon as she saw the truth in his eyes. Silent or not, it was still her secret to tell, and now Eric had even taken that from her.
     
    “Son of a bitch!” Pushing Jax away, she fell to her knees and hugged her body close. Shaking around the memory, she felt his hand on her back and curled deeper into the grass as his voice hit her ear.
     
    “Why didn’t you come to me?” he pleaded. “I would have helped you. I never would have let it go that far.”
     
    Lena peered up at him through her fallen hair and sadly shook her head. “Had to help my uncle,” she confessed. “Someone has to have his back, too.”
     
    Jax clenched his fists and sighed heavily as he sat at her side. His hand was nearly at her face when she looked away and bit down on her lip.
     
    “It happened,” she said softly. “And I can’t change it.”
     
    He kept his hands to himself as he curled his fist into the dirt, his voice thick as he struggled to speak. “Tell me,” he started. “I need to know all of it.”
     
    “You need to?” A cold laugh passed through her lips, and Lena turned her eyes towards the sky. “It’s my shame,” she said. “Don’t you think that I