Gideon's Promise (Sons of Judgment Book 2) Read online

  Gideon’s Promise

  By Morgana Phoenix

  Gideon’s Promise ©2015 by Airicka Phoenix

  www.AirickaPhoenix.com

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

  photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the copyright owner and/or the publisher of this book, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Editor: Kathy Eccleston

  Beta Readers: Jaime Radalyac & Krystal Marlein

  Illustrator: Airicka’s Mystical Creations

  Interior Design & Formatting: Airicka Phoenix

  ISBN-13: 978-1505682021

  ISBN-10: 1505682029

  Published by Airicka Phoenix

  Also available in eBook and paperback publication

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  As Airicka Phoenix

  As Morgana Phoenix

  Dedication

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgement

  About Airicka Phoenix

  As Airicka Phoenix

  Games of Fire

  Betraying Innocence

  TOUCH SAGA

  Touching Eternity

  Touching Smoke

  Touching Fire

  THE LOST GIRL SERIES

  Finding Kia

  Revealing Kia

  REGENERATION SERIES

  When Night Falls

  As Morgana Phoenix

  THE BABY SAGA

  Forever His Baby

  Bye-Bye Baby

  IN THE DARK SERIES

  My Soul For You

  Kissing Trouble

  SONS OF JUDGMENT SAGA

  Octavian’s Undoing

  Dedication

  To the girls of AKT

  Gideon’s Promise

  Part I

  .

  Chapter One

  There were three things a smart man ought never to say to a woman, especially when that woman collected sharp, deadly instruments the way most women collected shoes. But then no one would ever accuse Gideon Maxwell of being a smart man. He was a man of action first, consequences second, and retaliation when it counted third. Besides, anyone watching could clearly see he’d been provoked. Practically framed.

  Women were such conniving creatures.

  Next to him, shifting uneasily as they were closed in from all sides by no less than two dozen heavily armed bikers, Regulus cleared his throat.

  “Maybe we should leave.”

  Oh hell no, he wasn’t leaving. She wanted to play, well, baby, he would play.

  Gideon cracked all ten fingers and eyed the crowd with a glint of challenge in his eyes. He smirked coldly at the woman on the other side, perched on a stool at the bar, long, leather clad legs crossed in a way that was sure to send a man’s blood roaring. She raised the martini glass in her hand in a sort of salute before bringing it to her red lips.

  Oh, it was so on.

  “Gentlemen,” he spread his hands, but there was nothing peaceful about the gesture. “Return to your drinks and save yourselves a beating.”

  A few snickered, stupid for not taking his fair warning seriously.

  Ah well, he tried.

  He swung.

  The initial crack of bone on bone stilled the room for as long as it took for the others to watch as their companion’s entire body went soaring as though weightless and slam to the ground a full three feet away in an unconscious heap. Then the madness struck in a full blown cacophony of rage.

  Vaguely, he heard Reggie swear, but everything was lost in a war of flying fists and battle cries.

  Gideon was in his element.

  With every slam of his knuckles into flesh and meat, it sang up his arms in a sweet rush of bloodlust. Octavian would have his head for letting his temper rule his better judgment, but in that moment, there was nothing but the freeing sensation of proving a point. In all honesty, if anyone was to blame, it was the vixen at the bar, watching the brawl with quiet deliberation. She was his main focus, the reason he was making a clear path across the room. She was responsible for letting the beast out.

  A dirty uppercut got him in the gut and sent splinters of pain and fury shooting up into his lungs. He doubled over, his breath escaping in a snarl. His fingers curled even as the cackling chuckle of his opponent reached his ear over the din.

  Gideon straightened. He turned his body to scrutinize the hulk of a man looming a good foot taller than him, which was an impressive fact considering Gideon was six-three.

  The man leered around yellow, rotted teeth. He stood the way men stood when they were so sure they’d won, with confidence a shiny cloak draped over their shoulders. His broad shoulders were braced with his wide stance. At his sides, his ham-sized fists were clenched. The veins along his forearms rippled, making the snake tattoo wrapped up each arm wiggle. Asshat had no idea that Gideon fought things bigger and stronger than him on a daily basis, which was why, when Gideon backhanded him, holding nothing back, he flew into a cluster of tables as though he weighed no more than a small child.

  That seemed to calm the natives. Everyone in the room stopped. They turned to watch as the man fought to untangle himself from the mess of splintered pieces of wood. A nasty flow of blood gushed from his nostrils and trickled down to mix with the gash in his bottom lip. It all oozed down to color the front of his blue t-shirt.

  “I would really stay down,” Gideon warned him when he hefted his heavy frame to his unsteady feet.

  “Gideon...”

  He ignored the warning in Reggie’s tone.

  His hands curled at his sides. His feet braced. He waited for the bull to charge and wasn’t disappointed.

  With a vicious roar, the gorilla charged.

  Ready for him, Gideon twisted his body, hooked his arm around the back of the man’s neck and flipped him seamlessly. They both went down in a glorious crash of shattering glass and splintering wood.

  Wrenching around, he locked both arms around the man’s throat even as the bigger man thrashed and tried to throw Gideon off. It took no time at all to incapacitate him, even with all his st
ruggling. It would have been just as simple to snap his damn neck. But despite the fight, Gideon wasn’t actually allowed to hurt humans. And technically, he hadn’t started it. If anything, he was defending himself. After all, it had been two against twenty four. Hardly a fair fight; the humans never stood a chance.

  “Gideon!”

  Reggie, looking only slightly tussled, surged forward, probably to try and drag Gideon off the ox. But Gideon had already let go and was getting to his feet, dusting himself off.

  “I’m done,” he told his brother as he yanked down the collar of his favorite coat. The worn leather gave a familiar, comforting rustle.

  He faced the rest of the room, surveying the faces more than the damage, which was immense. When no one made a move towards him, or Reggie, Gideon grinned inwardly and moved to the cause of all his problems.

  Valkyrie Devereaux watched him, her blue eyes bright against the smooth, pale contour of her breathtaking features. Her hair was down, spilling in a sleek, dark sheet around her bare shoulders and over the leather vest-type top she wore that delved deep between her breasts and left her stomach bare. The ends curled at her hips, just inches from where her waistband began. Blasted woman was clad entirely in leather, his number one weakness. There were times he wondered if she did it just to torment him. It was a very real possibility. Most everything she did was for the sole purpose of driving him insane so it wouldn’t have surprised him.

  “Enjoy the show?”

  He stopped a safe two feet from her. Any closer he couldn’t be trusted not to grab her and ... he gritted his jaw.

  She took a casual sip of her drink, those unfathomable baby blues watching him over the rim. Then she ran the tip of her pink tongue over her upper lip and Gideon had to fight not to shatter his teeth when they creaked under the force of his resolve. It took a lot of willpower not to do something insane, like groan.

  “Hardly.” She set her glass down on the bar. “You’re still here.”

  His feet moved without a single shred of consent from his brain. He closed in on her personal space, trapping her with an arm on either side of her, caging her between the bar and his body. And even as every bit of common sense in his head screamed for him to back away, he found himself leaning even closer still.

  Damn if she didn’t smell like sin, forbidden and delicious.

  “Baby, I am always going to be here.” His traitorous gaze dropped to her mouth, full and red. “Like it or not,” he followed the smooth curves of her pink cheeks to anchor in the deep oceans of her eyes. “You’re stuck with me.”

  Maybe it was because he was mere inches from her, or maybe it was because he was falling so deeply into her eyes, but he didn’t miss the pulse of her irises, nor did he miss her sharp intake of air.

  His fingernails gouged into the scarred wood as that single sound slammed square into his chest.

  He could kiss her. Damn if he didn’t want to. He wasn’t stupid enough to deny it. But he was also not stupid enough to actually do it. Not only would she probably gut him with the daggers she carried in her sky-high boots, but he knew who she was, knew what she represented, and that scared the holy fuck out of him.

  Instead, he shoved away from her, finding a small ounce of sense and grinned at her with much more arrogance than he felt.

  “Better luck next time.”

  With a wink he knew would get him slapped, he whirled on his heels and marched back to where Reggie stood, waiting for him with a deep scowl of disapproval.

  He smacked his baby brother on the shoulder in passing as Gideon stalked from the bar into the cool, spring night.

  The place reeked of urine, vomit, and sweat, even on the outside, but there was something almost comforting about it. Gideon couldn’t put a finger on it, but he didn’t try. He just let the moment wash over him as he moved towards his Rolls-Royce gleaming like a giant, gray ship amongst a sea of shiny black motorcycles. His keys jingled as he fished them from his pocket. He was distantly aware of Reggie’s boots crunching gravel behind him. He could also feel his brother’s disapproval beating against the length of his spine. It surprised him that the younger man restrained himself until they were seated in the warm leather before unleashing the annoyance wafting off him in dark tendrils.

  “That was stupid.”

  “I didn’t start it,” Gideon reminded him as he stabbed the keys into the ignition and started the engine.

  “But you instigated it,” Reggie argued. “You deliberately pushed Valkyrie—”

  Gideon arched a brow. “Have you met Valkyrie? You can’t push her to do anything that she hasn’t strategically thought to death first.” He turned out of the driveway and pitched into the night. “I mean, she’s the one that got those guys on our asses.”

  “Because you attacked the guy she was talking to ... for no reason!”

  Gideon snorted. He kept his gaze fixed doggedly on the road as the bitter tang of annoyance and anger tainted the back of his throat. The leather bound wheel creaked beneath his fierce grip. He relaxed his fingers.

  “That wasn’t talking.” He squinted hard at the windshield. “He was all over her. I did him a favor.”

  “Well, I don’t think she saw it that way.” Reggie faced his window, missing the flex of his brother’s jaw. “I should have known you were up to something when you picked me to tag along with you tonight. Magnus would never have let you go in there and neither would Octavian.”

  It was the hurt in his voice that made Gideon groan inwardly and let go of his own irritation.

  It was true. Magnus and Octavian wouldn’t have let him go in. The minute they saw Valkyrie, they would have grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him out. They knew the two of them in the same room was like gasoline near an open flame. Reggie, well, Reggie was easier to convince, easier to stronghold into doing what Gideon wanted. True, he felt horrible about using his brother like that, but it was for the good of mankind.

  “I asked you to come along because we never spend time together anymore.” It wasn’t entirely a lie.

  He hadn’t seen much of his baby brother. They were always busy with their Caster duties, or manning the bar, or whatever else needed seeing to. So why not kill two birds with one stone, he’d thought. He’d take his brother out, have a few drinks, and if they happened to come across Valkyrie ... well ... he could hardly be blamed for that. Besides, how could he have known she’d sick the entire club on him for beating the shit out of that gangly asshole pawing at her? That had just been uncalled for.

  “Maybe.” Reggie said, pulling Gideon out of his woolgathering. Then he turned and asked the one question Gideon had no intention of answering. “What’s the deal with you two anyway?”

  Only Magnus knew the truth. His twin was the only person he felt like he could trust not to blow the whole thing out of proportion, the only one who would be logical about the disaster. After Riley and Octavian, and Daphne and Reggie, the last thing he wanted was to fall into that death trap with an infuriating woman that made him want to bite the head off a kitten.

  “There’s no deal,” he replied evenly.

  “Seriously?” He didn’t have to look over to know Reggie had an eyebrow raised. “You two can’t even walk into the same room without going into full battle mode.”

  “Can you blame me?” He tossed his brother a quick glance before facing the road once more. “That woman is a pain in the fucking ass.”

  “Uh huh.”

  He highly disliked the amused disbelief in the other man’s voice.

  Asshole.

  What did he know anyway? He had Daphne, a girl that was crazy about him, who would drop everything to be with him ... happily. Valkyrie would just as soon stick a dagger into Gideon’s heart before even considering the possibility of being his for all eternity, which he told himself suited him just fine. He wasn’t a masochist. He didn’t exactly thrive on pain and boy was that woman a pain.

  It took no time at all to get home. Reggie rolled out befor
e Gideon could even eject the keys from the ignition. The two crossed the gravel lot and stomped up the front steps to face the doors of judgment. Gideon didn’t know the history behind the bronze emblem. He didn’t know where it had come from, except it had been there when they’d been given Final Judgment as their home. The house itself had been built on the grave of more lost souls than any in the world. It was the very doors of hell and every time he passed through, he felt a chill go down his spine.

  The night was winding down to a few stray stragglers hoping against all odds that tonight would be their last night there. He didn’t know why they bothered. If their name hadn’t been called by the first hour, it wouldn’t be, at least not that night. Yet they stayed, hoping. It was ridiculous.

  Across the room, behind the bar, he spotted Magnus mixing drinks. He looked up when Gideon and Reggie strode in.

  As twins went, they looked nothing alike, which threw a lot of people off at first glance. Magnus was tall, dark, and harbored a perpetual scowl that only intensified the angry scars slashing the side of his otherwise handsome face. He wasn’t the friendliest of the brothers. Truthfully, he wasn’t friendly at all. It amazed Gideon how someone so surly could be related to him at all, never mind actually having shared a womb at one time.

  He’d begun to grow his hair out, letting the once neatly clipped strands curl around the back of his collar and around his face. He never said, but Gideon knew it was to hide the scars. He also knew it wasn’t vanity. Magnus didn’t give two shits about what anyone said, or thought. But even he had to admit the change gave his brother an almost pirate appearance, which suited him. It was wild, dangerous and, well, very dangerous, which fit Magnus to a T. Aside from being gruff, he was the brother most people feared. Despite his calm demeanor, Magnus could make a grown man cry just by looking at him. The fact that he had no qualm about taking the law into his own hands didn’t help the ruthless reputation he carried like a badge. Magnus just didn’t give a shit. That’s what Gideon loved best about him.

  “Hey.” Gideon took a spot at the end of the bar and was passed a small shot of vodka, just what he was dying for. He threw it back greedily and hissed as it poured with a beautiful burn down the center of his chest to brew welcomingly in the pit of his empty stomach. Satisfied, he sent the glass skidding across the table back to where Magnus stood wiping the counter. “Where is everyone?”