Heart of Steel (Demon Riders MC Book 2)

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, events, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

Heart of Steel copyright @ 2015 by Evelyn Glass. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Book 2 of the
Demon Riders MC
trilogy

CHAPTER ONE

“Are you sure you’re going to be alright?  I don’t have to go out tonight.”  Jen gives her best friend a concerned look.

“Yes, you do.”  Elyse gives Jen a serious stare, which is only made mildly less effective by the redness of her eyes.  “I don’t expect you to babysit me every night.  It was a breakup, not a bereavement!”  Elyse tries a smile but, from the expression on Jen’s face, it doesn’t come off all that well.

“Don’t do that, ‘Lyse.  I’m the one who’s been sharing pizzas and passing you tissues for the better part of a week!  You don’t have to pretend around me.  I know it wasn’t
just
a breakup!”  Jen lays her hand over Elyse’s, surreptitiously moving her coffee mug out of reach at the same time, knowing that if Elyse has any more coffee, she’ll be up half the night obsessing over what happened between her and Dane.

Elyse looks up at the ceiling, sighing deeply and wrapping her terry cloth dressing gown around herself even tighter.  She was in the second stage of post-breakup mourning now and that mostly consisted of moping around the house and feeling sorry for herself.  So far so good.

“What do you want me to say, Jen?  That I cared about him?  That I hate how we left things?”  Elyse rubs at her eyes, surprised that she can even bring herself to cry anymore. Her tears should all be used up by now, surely.  “Sorry, I know you’re just trying to help.  But right now I think I just need to be alone.”  She lets her forehead drop down to the kitchen counter and starts banging her forehead against it.

“You know that if you keep doing that for much longer, you’ll be lucky if you have any brain cells left.”  Jen nudges Elyse back from the countertop and rolls her eyes at the expression on her friend’s face.  “How have you got yourself so worked up about a guy that you only just met?  I mean
I
haven’t even met him yet!”  Jen almost looks more annoyed about this than any other aspect of the situation.

“Sorry, Jen, you’re right. I should have waited until you’d given him the seal of approval before I screwed everything up.”  Elyse throws herself onto the couch with more force than necessary, taking up the same position she’s held the majority of the last few days.

“Exactly.” Jen’s response shows no sign of irony whatsoever.  She collapses into an armchair opposite Elyse, looking at her intently. 

“What?”  Elyse shifts uncomfortably under her friend’s intense stare.

“I’m just wondering when you’re going to be done beating yourself up about this.”  Jen shrugs, looking around the room as if she might find the answer somewhere—just lying around.

“Jen, we’ve been through this.”  Elyse groans, putting her head in her hands.  She can’t bear to have this conversation again.  “I lied to him; he found out in the worst possible way.  He didn’t give me a chance to explain, and I don’t know if he had if it would have made any difference.  I betrayed him, Jen, and this is a guy who takes trust pretty damn seriously.  I screwed up.  End of story.”  Elyse wonders if she sounds as miserable to her friend’s ears as she does to her own.

“You were doing a job, ‘Lyse.  A job that you’ve jeopardized to do the right thing by Dane and his buddies.”  Jen leans forward, as if she’s trying to get her friend to see sense purely with the power of her mind.  “That has to count for something.”

“Not enough apparently.”  Elyse shrugs, signaling she’s done with the conversation.

“It’s not like you knew you were going to fall in love with the guy when you agreed to write the article.  You couldn’t have planned for this, ‘Lyse.  You get that, right?”  Jen looks like she wants to shake Elyse into rational thought.

“I didn’t say I’d fallen in love with him.”  Elyse grumbles her response, knowing that she’s zeroed in on the only thing she can disagree with.

“No, you didn’t.”  Jen gives her a meaningful look, which Elyse dodges as best she can. 

The silence stretches between them, and Cat jumps up onto Elyse’s lap as if she senses that her mistress needs some comfort.  “So how’d it go with Max’s new girlfriend?  We never talked about it.”  Elyse’s attempt to change the direction of the conversation isn’t exactly elegant, but it gets the job done.  She’s fed up with talking about herself and about Dane and about the many ways in which she had screwed everything up.

Jen gives her a long look, as if she’s deciding whether or not to let Elyse distract her.  “She was…fine.”  The way that Jen says it gives the impression that the new girlfriend was anything but that mediocre word.  “You know his type, all moony-eyed with less than two brain cells to rub together.  This one wanted to be an actress.” 

Elyse snorts at the thought, just imagining the scene between the two women.  “So what’s she doing in Portland?”

“She probably couldn’t find her way to LA.”  Jen’s tone is bitchy, but she knows it.

“Meow!  Saucer of milk for the blonde in the armchair!”  Elyse raises an eyebrow, and they both laugh.  It feels good; it’s the first time that Elyse has really laughed since her argument with Dane.  She feels the smile fade from her face and remembers how there is a reason she has decided not to think about him.  “Well, it’s not like you were going to actually
like
any of the girls that you saw with Max.”

Jen refrains from comment, but the wistful expression on her face says it all.

“Aren’t you supposed to be going on a date?  You’re going to be pretty late if you don’t leave now.”  Elyse gives her friend a pointed look, but Jen doesn’t move from her chair.  “Jen?”

Her glazed expression fades, and she seems to be rejuvenated with renewed purpose.  “I can’t leave you like this, looking all sad and heartbroken.  What sort of a best friend would I be if I dumped you for a dude?”  Jen shakes her head in consternation.

“Umm, the kind that actually has a life?”  Elyse looks at her friend a little more closely.  “You were looking forward to this up until about an hour ago.  What happened?” 

Jen rolls her eyes at the serious note in Elyse’s tone.  “I changed my mind, that’s all.  I’m just not in the mood for the all the first date getting-to-know-you crap.” 

Elyse frowns at her friend, knowing that Jen loves first dates.  It has been one of the running jokes between them: Jen would go on any number of first dates, she loved the fact that she could be whomever she wanted to be, that it was a blank page, full of possibilities.  It was the dates after that when she usually lost interest. 

Jen bites her bottom lip, looking cagey, and Elyse zeroes in on the action like a missile.  “Jen, fess up.”

Jen sighs theatrically.  “It’s no big deal.  He seems like a nice guy and all, but I just realized the real reason I agreed to go out with him at all.”

Elyse waits for the punch line, but Jen is silent, looking at her hands knotted in her lap.  Jen is the most outgoing, extroverted, full of fun person that Elyse has ever known, but the woman sitting in front of her doesn’t look like any of those things.  “Don’t make me drag it out of you, Jen.”  She gives what Jen refers to as her ‘Don’t fuck with me’ stare.

“He’s a friend of Max’s.”  Jen says the words so quietly that at first Elyse doesn’t think she’s heard right.  However, the embarrassment on Jen’s face makes it clear that Elyse hasn’t misinterpreted her whisper. 

“You agreed to go out with him because you knew that Max would find out and you were hoping it would bother him, make him jealous.”  There’s no judgment in Elyse’s voice—if anything she’s surprised that something like this hasn’t happened before. 

“I know, it’s pathetic.”  Jen barks a humorless laugh.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Elyse chides her.  “But Jen, don’t you think it’s time you just told him?”

Jen looks at her as if she’s just suggested that she jump out of a twenty-story window.  “Hell to the no.”  She shakes her head so hard that Elyse worries she might give herself whiplash.  “And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing…distracting me from your train wreck of a relationship to talk about my train wreck of a non-relationship.  I see your game, Powell.”

Elyse holds her hands up in surrender.  “You got me.  We’re equally pathetic.”  She wonders if that merits a high-five, probably not.  “So are you going to let this guy down easy or just stand him up?”  Jen shoots her a look, and Elyse makes an innocent face.  “Either is good with me, I’m just asking.  This is a judgment free zone!”

“I’ll text him and say that I’m not feeling well.”  Jen shrugs, as she heads to the kitchen and opens the refrigerator.

“Does that mean we’re moving on to the ‘Death by Chocolate’ faze of our men troubles?”  Elyse figures she could get excited about that particular part of the grieving process.

“You know it.  I’ll hit the store for supplies.”  Jen grabs her keys and pulls open the door brusquely to a buxom platinum blonde who looks as shocked as Jen does.

“I was just about to ring the bell.”  She motions towards the doorbell, as if trying to prove that she wasn’t just hanging outside their house with no intention of coming in.

“Okaaayyy.”  Jen gives her a dubious look, wondering who the hell this person is that’s turned up uninvited at their front door.

“I’m here to see Elyse.”  The blonde folds her arms over her impressive rack and gives Jen a look that would have wilted a lesser woman.

Jen blinks a few times and then puts two and two together, taking in Suzi’s dye job, her eyes flicking over the intricate designs on her nails.  “You must be Suzi.” 

“Suzi?”  Elyse squeaks the word out from the other room, scrambling to her feet and going to stand in the threshold of the living room.

Suzi takes in Elyse in her dressing gown and fuzzy pig slippers, rolling her eyes before she looks back at Jen.  “So can I come in?  It’s freezing out here.”

Jen steps back and Suzi takes that as enough of an invitation to walk inside, huffing about how cold it is outside.

CHAPTER TWO

“What are you doing here, Suzi?”  Elyse gives her a curious look and then looks past her, as if she’s expecting to see someone else. 

“He’s not with me.”  Suzi shakes her head, clearly reading Elyse’s mind.

Elyse nods sadly, as if that was more or less what she had been expecting.  The three women stand awkwardly, staring at each other.  “If you’re here to give me a hard time over the article, then you’re wasting your time.  I don’t need to hear all the reasons why I’m an asshole again.”  Elyse crosses her arms over her chest, wishing that she were wearing something a little more impressive than her pajamas. 

Suzi rolls her eyes again, as if her patience were wearing thin.  “You got anything to drink?”  She directs the question at Jen, as if Elyse hadn’t even spoken.

“Umm, sure.”  Jen shrugs, leading Suzi through to the kitchen. 
Traitor
, Elyse thinks to herself.

Once Suzi has popped the cap on her beer, she takes a deep drink and settles herself on a stool at the breakfast bar, making herself comfortable.  Jen gives Elyse a ‘What the hell is going on?’ look, but Elyse just shrugs, knowing that Suzi isn’t here on a social call.  Sure, they were getting along fine when things ended between her and Dane, but it wasn’t as if she and Suzi were best friends.  There is no reason for her to be here unless something has happened.  The thought makes Elyse’s blood run cold.  She knows that the kind of business that the Demons are in isn’t exactly the safest.

“Is Dane alright?”  The panic in her voice is plain for them all to hear, but she’s too worried to care about looking like a desperate ex-girlfriend.

Suzi’s eyes soften, as she looks at Elyse, reading the fear on her face.  “Physically he’s fine.”  Her tone is reassuring, and Elyse feels all the muscles in her body relax.  She hadn’t even realized she was so tense.

“Good.  That’s good.”  Elyse lets out a breath of relief, absently wondering how it was possible for her to care so much for someone who had blown her off so completely.  “So what are you doing here, Suzi?  If the Club has sent you to check that I’m not writing the article, you can tell them they don’t have anything to worry about.”

“The Club hasn’t sent me.  No one knows that I’m here.”  She looks pointedly at Elyse.  “I’m here because of you and Dane.”

Elyse laughs mirthlessly.  “Then, it looks like you missed the memo, because there is no me and Dane—not anymore.”

Jen watches them both, keeping far enough out of it to let them talk but close enough to weigh in if she needs to. 

Suzi raises her eyebrows and takes another swig of her beer.  “You’re both as stubborn as each other.”  She says the words under her breath but loud enough to be heard.

Elyse tries to clamp down her tongue, but she just can’t resist asking the worst possible question.  “How’s he doing?”  She aims for breezy, but she’s not naïve enough to believe that’s how it comes out.

Suzi gives her an appraising stare—from her fluffy slippers, flannel pajamas, and terry cloth dressing gown to her red-rimmed eyes and hair that she’s just piled on top of her head in a messy bun.  “About as well as you.”

Elyse flushes, wishing again that she didn’t look like she’d spent the past few days moping around the house—which was exactly what she’d been doing.

“Has he asked about me?”  Elyse tries not to sound too hopeful, but it’s an impossible task.

“Not really.”  Suzi’s words are to the point. 

“Yowch, let her down gently, why don’t you?”  Jen shakes her head at Suzi’s lack of subtlety.

But Elyse knows better.  Suzi is blunt and to the point, and Elyse knows it’s nothing personal, it’s just the way she is.  “It’s fine, Jen.”  She makes a calming gesture to her friend.  The last thing she needs right now is a face-off between Jen and Suzi.  They are both feisty, and Elyse wouldn’t like to have to bet on one over the other.  “It’s not like I really expected a different answer.  When he left here, he said he couldn’t stand the sight of me.  I’m pretty sure that hasn’t changed.”

Suzi sighs deeply, like she’s explaining something patiently to a four year old.  “Dane has a quick temper. He says things in the heat of the moment that he doesn’t mean.”

“Is that what he told you?  That he didn’t mean it?”  Elyse’s eyes flash, as she starts to lose a grip on her own patience.  “You didn’t see the way he looked at me!”

“No, but I’ve seen the way he’s been moping around for the past few days.”  Suzi looks nonplussed at Elyse’s outburst.

“If that’s true, then why hasn’t he called?  It’s not like he doesn’t know how to find me!”  Elyse throws her hands up in exasperation.

“Umm, because he’s a guy.”  Suzi gives Elyse a look as if to say, ‘Don’t you know anything about men?’  “And not only that, he’s a biker.  He’s proud—and he’s not all that good at admitting it when he’s wrong.”

“He doesn’t want to see me, Suzi.  He made that pretty clear the night that he left here.”  Elyse looks down at her feet, not wanting to remember the way he’d looked at her as if he didn’t even know her.  She’d never known what it was like to utterly disappoint someone until she’d seen it in his eyes.  She doesn’t have any plans for a repeat performance.

“Oh for Christ’s sake!”  Suzi slams the bottle of beer that was halfway to her mouth back down onto the counter, making both Elyse and Jen jump.  “Dane has been round the block a few times.  I mean, he’s been with a lot of girls.  A lot.”

“And you’re supposed to be the one helping here?”  Jen looks at Suzi as if she has grown two heads.

Suzi ignores her, focusing on Elyse, which just makes Jen more frustrated with her.  “He’s been with a lot of girls.  But I’ve never seen him act like he does around you.  As soon as you turned up on the scene, he seemed happier, like the black cloud that seems to follow him around all the time had gone.”

“Nice save.”  Jen’s commentary is muttered, but there’s grudging understanding in it.

“Since your little argument or breakup or whatever the hell it was, the cloud is back, and that is never a good thing—not for Dane, not for the people that care about him, and not for the club.”  Suzi takes a sip of her beer, as if she’s all talked out. 

“Why?  What’s with the cloud?”  Jen voices the question that Elyse can’t quite manage to articulate. There are too many thoughts and emotions spinning around her head. 

Suzi ignores the question, focusing on Elyse.  “The Club doesn’t know about the article.”

Elyse frowns in confusion.  “Dane didn’t tell them?”

“No, the only ones who know about it are Dane, Rick, and me.”  She fiddles with the label of her beer.

“Why?  Why didn’t he tell them all?”  Elyse’s voice wavers, as she realizes how relieved she is that not all the Riders know about her betrayal.  “I thought there weren’t any secrets between them; that was part of the whole brotherhood deal.”

“What do you think, Elyse?”  Suzi levels her with a no nonsense glare, and Elyse swallows hard.  “He knows what the club does to people who cross them.  I don’t think he wants to see you get hurt.”

Elyse lifts her chin.  “If that’s all that he’s worried about, then you can tell him that I can handle myself.  I don’t need his protection.” 

Suzi looks at her, and Elyse sees a little admiration creep into her eyes before Suzi shakes it off.  Clearly, she’s not finished.  “The club has always been the most important thing to him, at least until you showed up.”  Suzi doesn’t quite manage to keep the bitterness out of her voice at that, but she at least tries.  “Him not telling the club about you being a reporter—that’s a big deal, whether you’re willing to see it or not.  And Dane’s the protecting type, so if you two are going to be something, then you’re going to have to get over that whole ‘I can take on the world on my own; I don’t need anyone’ thing that you’ve got going on.”

Elyse blinks at her, momentarily speechless.  “Suzi, what are you saying?”  There is too much going on right now in her brain for her to take on board everything that’s just come out of Suzi’s mouth.

Suzi huffs an exasperated sigh.  “Seriously?  I thought she was supposed to be smart!”  She looks to Jen for an answer.

Jen just shrugs her shoulders.  “Don’t look at me!  Women get all stupid when a guy’s involved.”  She holds up a hand to stop Elyse before she makes a comment about Jen’s own love life.  “This isn’t about me, ‘Lyse. This is about you.”

“Suzi, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.  The last thing I heard from him was that he doesn’t want to see me.”  Elyse rubs her forehead, her emotions giving her a headache. 

“Was I talking to myself before?” Suzi looks around as if she’s asking the non-existent studio audience a question.  “Listen, Elyse, I don’t know if you can’t hear me over those flannel pajamas or what, but read my lips or something because I’m not going to say it again.  Dane is moping; he’s miserable; and he’s making me miserable.  The whole
woe is me
crap is getting old, and if I don’t kill him soon, then Rick might!” 

Elyse allows herself an inward smile at the knowledge that she’s not the only one wallowing in her own gloominess.  “So you’re doing this because you’re bored of him being a pain in the ass.”

“It’s not just about him being a pain in the ass—which by the way he is most of the time whether he’s moping around or not…you’ll learn that.”  She throws Elyse a conspiratorial smile.  “It’s about doing what’s right for him.  He can’t concentrate; he’s not focused; and that’s how mistakes happen.  Mistakes in his line of work can get him killed.”

“Who knew mechanics had such dangerous jobs?”  Jen’s eyes open in mock-shock.

“Is she for real?”  Suzi directs her question to Elyse, jerking a thumb at Jen.

“She’s going to law school.  If she wants to pass the bar, she needs to be all hear no evil, see no evil when it comes to any potentially illegal activities.”  Elyse looks at her friend, who she knows takes this stuff pretty seriously.  “You don’t have to stay.”

“No, I’m good.  You haven’t actually talked about anything that I shouldn’t know about—not yet anyway.”  Jen rolls her eyes, as if to say it’s just a matter of time, but she doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave.

“A reporter and a lawyer, just what the club needs!”  Suzi looks between the two of them as if she’s just walked into the
Twilight Zone
.  “Anyway, like I was saying, being a Rider is all that Dane has ever wanted for as long as I’ve known him.  But if he doesn’t get his shit together, he’ll be jeopardizing it all, and I know that he’ll never forgive himself for that.”  Suzi folds her arms, looking for a response.  “So are you in or what, Elyse?”

Elyse regards the woman in her kitchen, ignoring the more pressing question in favor of the one that’s been playing on her mind since Suzi showed up.  “Why are you helping me, Suzi?  I know how you feel about Dane.”  It was a long shot, but the expression on Suzi’s face tells Elyse that her hunch was right.

Suzi looks shocked, like she’d thought she’d been keeping a tight lid on her feelings for Dane.  A look of pain passes across her face, and Elyse has to resist the urge to reach out and squeeze her hand in solidarity.  Now she knows what it feels like to care about someone without much hope of receiving anything in return.  In short, it sucks.

A long minute passes as Suzi looks down at the beer bottle in her hands, formulating a response, probably trying to figure out how little she can get away with admitting.  “I care about Dane, but not like that…not anymore.”

Elyse folds her arms, leveling Suzi a ‘Don’t bullshit me’ stare. 

“Alright fine, maybe that’s not exactly true.”  Suzi bites her lip and takes a deep breath, like she’s admitting something that she hasn’t told anyone else.  “Turns out it’s not all that easy to fall out of love with someone.”  She shrugs sadly.  “But I know that we’re not meant to be.  I think I knew that even before you came on the scene, Elyse.  But once I saw the two of you together, that was it.  I don’t want to be the person that anyone settles for and that’s what Dane would be doing with me.”  Suzi’s eyes shine with unshed tears.