Hounds of Hell MC, Book 3
Motorcycle Club Romance, Suspense
Date Published: April 19, 2024
Sadie -- I finally found the courage to escape my abusive boyfriend, but I
didn’t make it far. I’m holed up in a small Virginia town called
Mercy. There will be no mercy for me if my ex finds me. Thanks to Axel, the
gorgeous biker who towed my car to his garage, I have a place to stay and a
job at the town’s greenhouse. I also have the hope that I might have a
second chance at love one day, with Axel.
Axel -- When I got called to tow a broken-down car to my garage, I found
the beaten and battered angel who owns it on the run from the devil. Here in
Mercy, with me, she’s healing and learning to live again. When her ex
figures out Sadie’s here, even his mafia ties can’t protect him
from me. His entire mafia family can’t take back what’s mine and
there’s going to be hell to pay when they try.
EXCERPT
Axel
It was a cold February morning. Alexander Harper had just sat down with his
first cup of coffee when his phone hummed in his pocket. When he pulled it
out and looked at the screen, he saw the call was from Cowboy Pete’s,
a local gas station just off the interstate.
“This is Axel,” he said, using the road name he’d been
given by Razor when he’d been a prospect.
“Hey, hon. How are you?” He recognized Elsie Damron’s
voice. She’d worked at the gas station since he was a kid.
“Cold,” he said. “What can I do for you
today?”
“A young lady stopped for gas a little while ago,” Elsie
explained. “She filled it up but now her car won’t
start.”
“You give her bad gas?” Axel asked, grinning.
“No,” Elsie said. “Well, I hope not. There’s smoke
rolling out from under the hood. Looks like it’s overheating to me.
Can you come take a look at it?”
“Yeah.” Axel knew the quiet morning was too good to be true.
Putting the call on speaker, he placed his phone on his desk, grabbing a tie
from his desk drawer to pull his hair back from his face. “Did you
already call Tyler? I appreciate the business, but it would be a lot closer,
and cheaper, to tow it to his place.”
“Yeah, I know,” Elsie said, her voice dropping to a loud stage
whisper. “But I think you would be better for this particular
situation.”
“Okay, I’ll head that way,” he told her.
“What’s she driving?”
“He’s going to come get you,” Elsie said to someone there
with her. To Axel, she said, “Yeah, it’s an older sedan. A
Lincoln, I think. What model year is your car?”
Axel couldn’t make out what the other person said.
“It’s a 2002 model,” Elsie told him.
“Give me thirty minutes,” Axel said, ending the call.
Taking his coffee with him, Axel headed back into the shop. His twin
brother Ryder was working on an SUV brought in yesterday. Ryder looked up
when he saw Axel approach.
“Where you off to?” Ryder asked.
“Got to tow someone in,” Axel told him. “I’ll be
back.”
When Axel reached Cowboy Pete’s with the tow truck, there were
several cars there. They had a halfway decent grill inside the station, and
it was a popular breakfast stop for town regulars and travelers alike. He
pulled into the lot and parked, heading in to have Elsie point out the lady
and her car.
Elsie grinned when she saw him at the counter. “Thanks for coming,
hon. She’s a couple of spaces down from where you parked. The black
Lincoln.”
“You bet,” he told her, seeing it in the window behind the
counter where the older lady stood.
“Axel?” Elsie called as he headed for the door.
“Yeah?”
“If I can do anything for her, you let me know, okay?” And the
kind older woman meant it.
“Will do,” he told her, curious now about what he was walking
into.
Axel returned to the tow truck, spotting the black Lincoln that was just
three spaces to the right of him with no cars parked in between. It looked
like someone was sitting in the driver’s seat. Walking up to the car,
Axel tapped on the driver’s window. The lady jumped in the seat,
startled. Axel saw a flash of red curls before she peered up at him through
the window.
Now Elsie’s words made sense. The young woman’s left eye was
black and almost swollen shut. Her nose was swollen and bruised, her lip
split. Someone had beat the fuck out of this little lady. Slowly, she opened
the door and got out of her car. Her careful movements told him her face
wasn’t the only thing that hurt her this morning. Axel stepped back to
give her room as she closed the door and leaned back against it.
The way she wrapped her arms protectively around herself and the fear in
her green-eyed gaze had him pausing. Now he knew why Elsie called their
garage. Tyler wasn’t a bad guy, but he was gruff and lacking in most
social niceties.
This young woman before him looked like she’d been through hell and
was expecting more.
“Hi there,” Axel said. “Elsie called me to come look at
your car. What’s going on?”
“It overheated I think,” she said quietly. “I was okay
for a couple of hours. But then it would heat up and it would start smoking.
I would stop and let it cool off. I stopped here to get gas and let it cool
off again. When I tried to restart it this time, it
wouldn’t.”
“Would you pop the hood for me?” Axel asked.
She scrambled back into the driver’s seat, searching for the lever to
do that. Just when he was about to offer to do it for her, she found
it.
Axel lifted the hood and removed the radiator cap. Walking back around to
where she sat behind the wheel with the driver-side door open, he said,
“Try starting it.”
It did start but looking into the radiator, he saw the coolant start to
bubble up like a milkshake. Walking back toward her, he saw white smoke
coming out of the tailpipe in the rear. Well, that wasn’t good
news.
“Turn it off,” he told her.
She did as he said, climbing back out of the car.
“Yeah, that’s a blown head gasket,” Axel explained.
“The smoke coming out of the back is coolant getting into your exhaust
system. It’s not supposed to do that.”
“Can you fix it?” she asked. “H-how long will it
take?”
“I can fix it,” he said. “How long it will take depends
on a couple of things. I need to find a replacement for the head gasket and
if there’s any damage to the engine, we might need parts for that too.
Once we have the parts we need, I can have it fixed in two or three
days.”
Axel could tell that wasn’t the answer she was hoping to get. It was
probably a good idea to get all the bad news out at once.
“It’s also going to be expensive,” Axel told her.
“You’re probably looking at two to three thousand dollars to fix
it.”
Those big green eyes were getting shiny with tears and Axel felt a tiny bit
of panic creeping in. He was no damn good with tears. Never had been. He had
to find some way to make the situation the little lady was in less
terrible.
“Where are you headed?” he asked. “Do you have any
friends or family we can call that will come help you out?”
Dropping her gaze, she shook her head.
“Where are you heading?” Axel tried again.
She shrugged for an answer.
“Do you know if your insurance covers towing?” he asked. If
nothing else, it looked like he was going to be towing her back to his
garage.
She shook her head. Pretty red curls swung with her movements.
“Do you have your insurance information in the car? We could
call,” he offered.
“I don’t have it,” she told him.
Didn’t have a destination. Didn’t have insurance information?
What the hell was the situation here? When he gave her the cost of towing
the car, she reached into the pocket of her coat, pulled out a credit card,
and handed it to him. It was brand-new and shiny. Axel doubted it had ever
been used.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’m going to run this, and
we’ll be on our way.”
She scrambled back into her car like a scared mouse. Axel shook his head as
he headed back to his tow truck, reaching in to get the card reader they
used for payments. The name on the card was Sadie Downing.
What the hell happened to Sadie?
He ran the card. The transaction went through which surprised him. He
walked back to her car, tapping on the window to return her card. Again, she
scrambled out of her car, looking around nervously.
Axel just had to ask. “Are you okay? The local hospital is on the way
back to the garage.”
“I’m fine,” she said a little too quickly.
“Okay.” He would leave it at that. “Why don’t you
go ahead and climb in the tow truck? I’ll get your car hooked up and
we’ll get going.”
“Thank you,” she said quickly before making a beeline for the
truck, hastily climbing into the cab.
It didn’t take Axel long to hook up her car and get them on the road.
Sadie, if that was her name, huddled quietly in the far corner of the cabin
with her head leaning on the window. While he normally appreciated the
silence, just now it was awkward. He really wanted to ask her what happened.
Who did that to her face?
One thing was pretty certain. She was on the run, and she was afraid.
Looking at her, he understood why.
About the Author
Jamie Targaet is the author of the Hounds of Hell MC. She's anxious to
introduce you to this club of gorgeous, dominant men and the lucky women who
surrender to them. The ride is going to get wild at times, not going to lie.
But there's thrilling action, scorching hot sex scenes, and all the
feels.
Jamie writes erotic romance for Changeling Press, a little fanfiction on
the side, and she's an aspiring horror writer in another life. She enjoys
time with her family (including the fur babies). She likes good horror
movies and shows, emo metal and classic rock, and time spent in other worlds
writing and reading. She loves hearing from readers and is looking forward
to hearing from you.
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@changelingpress
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