Page 1 of Learn For Me

Chapter One

Three years ago…

Zeke

The world was going to hell.

Any moment now, the explosives packed into the walls were going to blow, taking Zeke and several of his friends out in the process. It was a feeling in his bones, cold and eerie, haunting him as he bolted through the second barn of Avalon with those friends close beside him.

Braun, the club owner, was slightly ahead, running next to the blond Dom, Liam. To Zeke’s right, Liam’s boyfriend Wyatt was keeping pace.

They made it into the walkway, but it felt like a trap. Doors at both ends, a long narrow space. Bootsclompedat rapid speed on the carpet, and the sense of urgency grew sharper. Like electricity in the air, foreboding crackled.

“He’s going to detonate that shit before we get out,” Braun growled at Liam. “If he got C-fucking-4 in here, he’s got cameras on us.”

“Run faster,” Wyatt suggested, his voice low and tight.

Thecrewsworking on the club renovations were already out of sight, evacuating as soon as Liam uncovered the deadly stash behind the drywall. Faulty, lazy wiring had led him to the nasty surprise, and now, all their lives were in serious jeopardy.

Zeke was clueless. Who the hell would want to blow up a kink club in the middle of nowhere, Phoenix? Braun obviously had someidea, which meant Liam probably knew too.

Personally, he didn’t want to know anyone who had access to thatamountof explosives.

The doors into the bar and social area were open. Relief washed through him even as imminent danger bit at his heels. He was too old for this shit; there were a lot of things he’d outrun in his life, but nothing quite as terrifying as this.

A clock ticked soundlessly as images of the empty bar snapped like photographs in his head. It was Liam’s baby, and was fast becoming Zeke’s. Every inch of it, from the gleaming brass beer pulls to the spotless glasses on the shelf above the glossy bar, was home.

One minute, he was running flat out for his life, and the next… something caught his foot and sent him sprawling. Pain spiked up his leg from ankle to knee. Losing his breath as it was knocked out of his lungs, he gasped and lay where he fell, stunned.

“Keep going!” Wyatt shouted. “I got him.”

Zeke grunted as arms hooked under his and hauled him to his feet. Lightheaded, he swayed for a second before one of those arms locked around his waist and dragged him forward, taking his weight until adrenaline overrode the pain. “Should’ve left me, boy.”

Face grim with determination, Wyatt refused to slow down, steering them toward the swing doors that led into the sign-in area, then freedom. “Not long ago, someone called me a coward. Might be true, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let a man die because of it.”

They almost fell through the doors, still swinging back and forth from Braun and Liam’s exit. They weren’t too far ahead, which told him they’d been willing to stop and help, just like Wyatt.

But Braun had a family, a beautiful submissive and a young son, while Liam was building his own. He and Wyatt shared their shy, insecure sub together, although the path was a little rocky. Mainly because Wyatt’s issues with her facial hair kept rising to the forefront.

Zeke wanted to shake the lad and tell him to open his fucking eyes. Sierra was sweeter than any submissive he’d known. A pleaser, always putting everyone else’s needs above hers. If Wyatt didn’t buck his ideas up, he’d lose her, and regret it for the rest of his life.

Six feet from the outside doors.

Four feet.

They breached the threshold together, stumbling onto the porch.

As predicted, the world went to hell.

The ground erupted beneath their feet, quaking with the force of the explosion ripping through the third barn. He barely heard the shouts of alarm as fire blasted toward the sky, taking wood and steel with it. Within a heartbeat, the second barn went up, and something shoved him between the shoulder blades as a violent wall of heat blasted through the social area, fire seeking a way out wherever it could.

He hit the ground awkwardly, and the pain in his leg became a scream before his head cracked solidly against the gravel. Burning debris rained down on him, eating through his clothes into his skin. There was no air to breathe, just pressure in his chest where his lungs were supposed to be working.

Fuck, he was going to die.

They’d been so close to getting out of there. He tried to reason that even if they’d made it another twenty, thirty feet away from the building, they’d still have been in dire straits. With his cheek smashed into the small, hard rocks, through blurred vision he saw the devastation unfolding.

Pieces of the club jutting from the ground, fiery javelins of death. Smoke and ash already filling the air, and the scent of charred flesh beginning to mingle with it.