A Leap in the Dark (Assassins of Youth MC Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

strike at any moment. Real sex, of course, anything to do with penetration of any kind, was reserved for marriage, and even then, only for procreation. The most we’d done was make out, but man, I was a hot to trot teenager, with testosterone zooming through my system, making me crazy. I was sixteen, and on my way to a priesthood myself. Or so I thought.
    I swear that’s all we did, kiss, but one night when I went to her house to pick her up, her father got all over me. He came storming down the front walkway like a giant fierce gale. He swarmed me before I had a chance to defend myself, punching me in the face and stomach, kicking me when I was down on the lawn.
    Worse, his friends joined in. They must’ve been waiting in the bushes or something. It took two or three other men to break my rib and arm, kicking me with their fucking elder boots. Mr. Pratt shrieked that I was a liar who made a covenant to abide by God’s laws, and I had turned traitor to the priesthood and my own existence. I was led by my master, who was, of course, Lucifer.
    Zelpha and some of her siblings came out and started yelling at Mr. Pratt, so they finally let up. I was gasping for breath, afraid to hold onto my ribs, afraid some inner organs had been ruptured. The men just stood around me looking down triumphantly like they’d just completed a satisfactory circle jerk.
    Zelpha dared to hit her father with her little inoffensive fists. What is wrong with you, Father? Levon hasn’t done anything wrong .
    But I knew I had. Irrevocably. By kissing a girl who was destined to marry a sixty-year-old elder two months later, I had committed the ultimate crime.
    “Damn you all to hell,” uttered Mr. Pratt from between shaking lips like two pieces of liver. “I cast you into the outer darkness where traitors and apostates go. You will be ground into a native element in the darkest spot on earth.”
    Now, straddling my saddle in the shadows of that gas station, it was rushing back to me. I normally succeeded in keeping the floodgates closed on that particular part of my life. But that night it all came pouring in, with all the floating trash and random pieces of shit that come with a flood.
    My hand actually shook as I yanked on my wallet chain and grabbed the bulky leather. The hundred dollar bills were still wrapped around the guy’s business card.
    Ladell Pratt
    Mayor
    Town of Avalanche, Utah
    I got off my ride and walked into the brighter light, blinking my eyes. I looked again.
    What. The. Fuck.
    The brain wants to deny what the eyes plainly see. Eventually it was my stomach that wrested control from both, sending a plume of bile spewing up my throat. There was no choking it down—I had to retch it onto the ground or it would’ve come out my nose. The remnants of my lovely, homey dinner with my men came gushing from the pit of my stomach, splashing loudly against the asphalt.
    Luckily no one saw me. I righted myself quickly and jumped back on my scoot, panting heavily, gulping clean air.
    Motherfuck. Motherfuck.
    Ladell Pratt was not Zelpha’s dad. He was her uncle.
    He was one of the men who’d kicked me in the ribs when I was down, defenseless.
    Without thinking it out in defined linear terms, I started thrashing it back to the dingy hotel.
    Avalanche, and all the other little towns in the county, employed many men who were sympathetic to the Cornucopian cause. Some Lost Boys in my age group had actually been driven out of town by policemen and county sheriffs. Postmen, bartenders, businessmen, you name it—they were all on Allred Chiles’ payroll.
    But why did this asswipe come back to taunt me? Didn’t he get what he wanted fifteen years ago—me gone, Zelpha married to some pervy elder?
    He obviously wanted something more from me. Had I met him before? Had he come to Liberty Temple before to wrap his depraved, polluted lips around my cock?
    My mind flew quickly, jumping from one conclusion to the next, discarding each verdict just as