With the Colonel’s Help: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

Otto stared at her through the duskiness of the night. Face so fuckin’ pretty he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but lay with her on that bed with her tucked tight against him.

What the hell am I doing?

This was Raven Tayte he had in his arms. So goddamn off limits it felt like he was committing a mortal sin just inhaling her air.

Those jagged puffs that kept jutting from her lungs as she gazed across at him. Looking at him in a way she shouldn’t.

And for the last two weeks, he’d been looking at her in a way he shouldn’t, too.

He didn’t know what’d happened between him getting sent away and then. But it’d struck him like a bullet when he’d looked up and found her standing in the doorway to the kitchen when he’d come back to the house after he’d been released.

A thunderclap.

A lightning bolt.

The feeling that had jolted through him so intense he was sure he’d sustained burn marks across his heart.noveldrama

He couldn’t do this.

But still, he came to her night after night, holding her this way, ensuring that the dreams never came.

Raven smoothed a timid hand up his chest, and he struggled to drag the oxygen into his too-tight lungs. Because when he did inhale? He was only inhaling her.

Her innocence.

Her goodness.

Her sweet moonflower scent.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” she finally whispered.

“Hate that I was away from you,” he muttered into the shadows that crawled the walls and pelted at the windows.

“I hated that you were, too. The whole time…I felt like…like a piece of myself was missing.” She whispered the confession through the hush that infiltrated the room.

He pulled her closer, in a way he knew better than to do. Her heart beat violently at his chest, the air dense and rippling with dark, decadent things. Things he couldn’t contemplate. Things he knew would make him the biggest monster of all.

But he couldn’t stop the way his spirit pitched toward hers, as if she had a hook impaled directly on his being. Connected to her in a way he couldn’t be.

But it was there, a bright light that radiated around her and drew him close.

A connection.

One that was deep and profound.

Shifting, Raven propped herself up onto her elbow, and Otto rolled to his back. His guts stretched tight, and his fingers moved on their own accord, brushing over the gorgeous swell of her cheek before they were threading up into her hair.

Her lips parted, and those inky eyes dipped to his mouth. His mouth that watered with the urge to draw her against him.

To taste and devour.

“I shouldn’t be here like this,” he forced out.

Rejection of the notion billowed across her face, all mixed with a muddling of hope. “I think this is exactly where you’re supposed to be. Here, like this. With me. I…”

Hesitation brimmed through her, though he could read everything she was trying to say in that gaze that covered him in an embrace.

In trust and truth.

“Do you feel it?” she asked, voice timid and brave.

His chest stretched tight. No doubt, he should keep the words locked tight, but he was unable to hold them back. “Yeah, I feel it, Raven. But that doesn’t mean we should⁠—”

Raven’s phone suddenly started vibrating from where it sat on her nightstand, and Otto glanced to the side to see the screen light with Haddie’s name.

Worry instantly gripped him, especially when he saw the same damned thing ripped through Raven’s expression.

She bit down on her bottom lip.

Reservations and fear spiked through the air.

Otto grunted, “Answer it.”

With a trembling hand, Raven reached over him and grabbed it, and she pushed back to sitting, her voice quiet when she muttered Haddie’s name.

Haddie started rambling, obviously crying, her words just loud enough for Otto to be able to make out since Raven had the phone pressed to her ear. “He just dumped me. On the freaking street. He’s such a jerk, Raven.”

Otto’s baby sister gasped and choked, while a vat of rage plunged into his stomach. It took everything he had not to rip the phone out of Raven’s hold.

“Where are you?” she whispered as those eyes came up to meet with his.

Guilt and dread roiled in them.

There was a break, then Haddie mumbled the crossroads.

What the fuck? She was halfway across town from where she was supposed to be. Near Iron Owls’ club.

Agitation barreled through his senses.

“I’ll be there in a minute to get you,” Raven said.

“I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry,” Haddie rambled.

“It’s okay,” Raven promised. “I’ll be right there.”

The line went dead, and Raven slowly let the phone drop to her lap.

Otto eased up to sitting, careful since he felt like he might split apart. “The fuck was that?”

Raven gulped, and she looked away like she was trying to hide whatever secret she was supposed to keep.

“Raven…please. This is my sister we’re talking about.”

She looked back at him, that guilt in full force. “I don’t want to betray her confidence.”

His eyes squeezed closed for a beat, then he was urging, “Is Haddie in trouble? If she is, I need to know.”

A single tear slipped down her cheek, and warily, she nodded. “She’s been seeing Gideon.”

Horror belted through him.

Alarm and a hatred so fierce that he couldn’t contain it.

He flew out of the bed and started for the door. “Don’t worry about pickin’ her up. That’s on me.”

The words were coated in disgust.

“Otto, please, don’t…” Raven scrambled off the bed behind him.

He whipped the door open, then he came to a crashing halt when he slammed into a body on the other side.

River.

Fuck.

With his hand trembling like a bitch, he reached behind and closed Raven’s door.

Darkness reigned in the narrow hall, though he could make out the speculation and something that looked too close to animosity glow in River’s dark eyes.

“What the fuck is goin’ on?” his best friend growled.

A landslide of shame slammed into Otto, and his throat constricted so tight he could hardly speak. “I heard Raven having a nightmare.”

What bullshit.

She hadn’t had one in two weeks.

Not since he’d been going to her.

Not since he’d been holding her.

River took a step toward him. He might have tried to keep it in check, but Otto could feel the combativeness roll through his body as he backed Otto up to the wall. “You sure that’s all it was?”

An accusation lined the words.

“River…” Otto didn’t even know what to say, but River had plenty to fill the tension that curdled the air.

“You think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been lookin’ at her? You think I don’t know you’ve been slinking into her room night after night?”

Otto’s head shook. “No, man. Would never fuckin’ cross you like that.”

River came closer, getting right up in Otto’s face. “She’s innocent, man. Want to keep her that way. Outside of this life.”

“You know I’d never touch her like that. She’s a sister to me, and that’s all she’s ever going to be. That’s it. Swear it. Swear it on our friendship. On our brotherhood. You never have to worry about me goin’ against that.”

Otto wanted to vomit saying the words.

The lies he had to force between clenched teeth.

But he had to cling to those lies. Believe them. Take them on for himself.

Because he couldn’t…he couldn’t stoop to being so vile.

Raven deserved so much more than he could ever offer. More than he could ever give. He wanted the world for her, not the Hell their crew had made their home.

A bit of the suspicion drained from River’s expression, and he stepped back and gave Otto a tight nod. “I know it, man. I just…she’s grown now, and I don’t fuckin’ know how to handle that. How to keep protecting her from the evil in this world. Can’t fuckin’ handle the thought of someone doing her wrong. Not again. She’s too good. She’s far too good.”

Otto reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “Know it. We can’t stand aside and watch it happen. Not to either of our sisters.” Otto hesitated then leaned in and murmured around the rage that was still seething inside him. “Which is why I’m gonna need your help.”

“You’re all sure you want to get involved in this?” Disquiet whirred through Otto’s senses as he peered out into the night where he and his crew lurked in the darkness of the alley, waiting on the right moment to strike.

“You think we’re gonna let you go this alone?” Kane scoffed. “Asshole messes with you, he messes with the rest of us.”

“That’s right,” Theo and River agreed, and Cash barely gave a nod from where he leaned against the wall.

Still, nerves rattled through Otto, his mind a slog of second thoughts that he was having about dragging his brothers into the war he was about to start.

But truth be told, Gideon and Dusty had started that war that night almost three years ago when they’d sought Haddie and Raven out at the club’s bar, and he’d sealed it when he’d set Otto up to go down for possession.

Otto was sure that Gideon had been responsible.

Sure that it hadn’t been random.

Gideon had never liked him. A sentiment Otto had wholeheartedly returned.

He was supposed to be his brother.

Iron Owls swearing an oath of loyalty to each other.

But there’d always been something about Gideon and his group that had set Otto off kilter. No trust to be found. And the bastard had proven Otto had a right to be leery time and again.

Now, it’d grown to this rampant hate that tore at Otto’s insides.

He still couldn’t believe that Haddie had been with this fucker the whole time he’d been locked away. Killed him to think of his sister being used up by this scumbag.

Otto had confronted her when he’d picked her up in the middle of the night two days ago. And he’d nearly gone on a murder spree when Haddie had admitted that Gideon had hit her earlier that night when they’d gotten into an argument.

Otto had demanded that she never talk to him again. Warned her all over again how dangerous he was. Told her he was pretty sure he’d been responsible for setting him up.

Haddie had promised she’d cut things off, but that didn’t mean this betrayal wasn’t going to go without retribution.

This motherfucker was going to get the message that Otto wasn’t one to be trifled with. He’d fuckin’ destroy anyone who messed with his sister.

Strains of country music infiltrated the air from the dive bar that sat on the outskirts of the city. Trent had given Otto the inside that Gideon and his crew were going on a run on that side of town, and Otto knew from experience that the assholes would likely end up here.

It was another clue that things had gone amiss in the ranks of Iron Owls, fact that Trent was giving them up. Trent wasn’t going to stand for someone fucking with River and Otto’s sisters. Gideon should have fuckin’ known what was coming for him.

“You ready to let these motherfuckers know they messed with the wrong Owls?” Theo spat as he flicked his cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out with the toe of his boot.

“Yup, let’s do it,” Kane said, tossing his neck to the side to crack it.

Each of the men shared a look. Their own loyalty. They might have been part of the Owls, but there was no oath greater than the one the five of them had made to each other.

Then Otto scooped up the can of gasoline, and the five of them strode around the corner, steps long and full of purpose as they moved for the row of seven bikes parked out front. The ones they knew well.

The ones they made quick work of toppling into a pile and dousing with gasoline.

And Otto?

His grin was far too satisfied when he struck the match and watched the bikes go up in flames.