Free Exiled (Anathema Book 2) by Lana Grayson Page B

risked
his life for mine. He raced to a safe place, paid twice what the room cost, and
waited until the doors were locked before he finally passed out. He saved my
ass and he left most of his on the road as a result.
    He
bled through his shirt. I dropped the purse on the floor.
    I’d
regret it. Sure as hell, five years from that moment, I’d be counting my
bruises and cursing my younger self for being such an idiot.
    The
bathroom only had two stiff washcloths, but I didn’t dare call for room
service. I filled the ice bucket with hot water and wished for better soap than
the dry bar. Noir hadn’t moved. I double-checked to make sure his chest still rose.
    There
was a lot of man under the leather, but, from where I stood, all of it had
pulled through. A small trickle of blood dried on his cheek, mixing with the
rough stubble. I had no idea where the blood came from, but there was more
hidden beneath the layers.
    Layers
that had to come off.
    I
edged closer, washcloth in hand. He didn’t respond to my nudge. Losing
consciousness was probably a sign to get him to a hospital, but I doubted he’d
let any doctors examine him or nurses poke into his history.
    “Noir?”
    Nothing,
and the cut on his forehead oozed blood and dirt from the road.
    It
wasn’t like I hadn’t stripped an unconscious man before. Goliath had a bad habit
of passing out in his clothes. Slipping him naked into bed sometimes tricked
him into thinking he had gotten laid.
    I
rolled Noir, pulling his jacket off. Even unconscious, he groaned when his
weight settled onto his left shoulder. His shirt came next, though I had to
bend his body up as I peeled the dirty, bloody material over his hardened
chest.
    The
shirt dropped to the floor.
    Jesus,
who the hell was this man?
    Hardened
muscle, scars, and ink. If I learned nothing else about Noir, his body told me he
was a man built by violence, toughened through battles, and decorated with
harrowing tattoos. Rows of jagged stripes, coiled tribal markings, and the
emblem of a terrifying demon riddled with scars and brandishing two crossed
swords marked his skin.
    Beneath
the demon, the darkened letters revealed the past he wanted to hide.
    Anathema .
    His
MC.
    He
had partially blackened the etched markings on his bicep. The ink only covered
a quarter of the tattoo. He hadn’t finished destroying his past. Hell, he
hardly started it. Whatever Anathema was, whoever Anathema was, he hadn’t the
courage to completely separate from its grip.
    No
wonder Red didn’t trust him. A man was his MC, especially when he got in
deep enough to etch his body with the markings of the brotherhood. He honored
his two prison sentences with tallies on his rib cage, and banded most of his arms
and chest with hard, tribal stripes.
    This
wasn’t a man who walked away because he met a lovely lady and settled down.
    Whatever
happened to him had been as brutal as the old, healing injury to his shoulder.
I recognized a bar top surgery when I saw one. The gunshot wound was stitched
by an unsteady hand, and judging by the jagged scarring and untended wound, I
guess he hadn’t received much mercy—from them or himself.
    “Who
are you?” I whispered.
    He
didn’t answer. His chest rose in shallow breaths. A bruise colored his side the
same shade of black and blue that decorated my body. He bled more than me. I
wet the washcloth and lowered a trembling hand to his skin.
    Muscle.
He was all muscle. Every last inch of him. I rinsed the bloodied cloth in the
bucket. The cuts along his skin stretched tight over his pecks. The drying crimson
matched the black letters of his club, the intimidating demon staring with
lidless eyes, and the echoes of his past injuries streaking his flesh with
white remembrance. I gently rubbed the old injury, and his abs tightened.
    So
did mine.
    Because that was a smart reaction after the bullets flew and the bikes chased.
It didn’t surprise me that I’d get tingly studying the body of a dangerous man.
He was