Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6) Read online

  The Fallen Men Series. Book Six.

  Contents

  License Notes

  A note to my readers

  Playlist

  1. Chapter One

  2. Chapter Two

  3. Chapter Three

  4. Chapter Four

  5. Chapter Five

  6. Chapter Six

  7. Chapter Seven

  8. Chapter Eight

  9. Chapter Nine

  10. Chapter Ten

  11. Chapter Eleven

  12. Chapter Twelve

  13. Chapter Thirteen

  14. Chapter Fourteen

  15. Chapter Fifteen

  16. Chapter Sixteen

  17. Chapter Seventeen

  18. Chapter Eighteen

  19. Chapter Nineteen

  20. Chapter Twenty

  21. Chapter Twenty-One

  22. Chapter Twenty-Two

  23. Chapter Twenty-Three

  24. Chapter Twenty-Four

  25. Chapter Twenty-Five

  26. Chapter Twenty-Six

  27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

  28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

  29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

  30. Chapter Thirty

  31. Chapter Thirty-One

  32. Chapter Thirty-Two

  33. Chapter Thirty-Three

  34. Chapter Thirty-Four

  35. Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  Welcome to the Dark Side Preview

  Welcome to the Dark Side Excerpt

  Thanks Etc

  About Giana Darling

  Other Books By Giana Darling

  Copyright 2020 Giana Darling

  Published by Giana Darling

  Edited by Jenny Sims, Editing4Indies

  Proofed by Sarah Plocher, All Encompassing Books

  Cover Design by Najla Qamber

  Cover Model Lane Dorsey

  Cover Photographer Lane Dorsey

  * * *

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  For those that are never afraid and always intrigued by the things that go bump in the night.

  And to Allaa, for being my soul twin, my sounding board, and my best friend.

  Bea and Priest will forever be yours.

  A note to my readers

  This is a dark romance. Priest and Bea’s story features graphic violence, kinky sex, and sensitive subject matter. Additionally, it deals with issues of religion, serial killing, and psychopathy. If you have a problem with any of these topics, please do not proceed.

  “Wholeness for humans depends on the ability to own their own shadow.”

  –– Carl Jung

  “Spooky” ––Classic IV

  “Sleeping On The Blacktop” ––Colter Wall

  “Bleeding Out” –– Imagine Dragons

  “Chasing Cars” –– Snow Patrol

  “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” –– Blue Oyster Cult

  “Make It Holy” –– The Staves

  “Watch Me” –– The Phantoms

  “Dangerous” –– Royal Deluxe

  “Can We Kiss Forever” ––

  “You Want It Darker” –– Leonard Cohen

  “#1 Crush” ––Garbage

  “You’re In Love With A Psycho” ––Kasabian

  “I’m Gonna Do My Thing” –– Royal Deluxe

  “Dark Side” –– Bishop Briggs

  “Crazy Town” –– Ozzy Osbourne

  “Hypnotic” ––Zella Day

  “Creep” –– Ember Island

  “Mad Hatter” –– Melanie Martinez

  “New Blood” –– Zayde Wolf

  “Bloodsport” –– Raleigh Ritchie

  “We Must Be Killers” –– Mikkey Ekko

  “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” –– Death Cab for Cutie

  “Graveyard” –– Halsey

  “Praying To A God” ––Mr. Probz, LUKE

  “The Groundskeeper” –– David Keenan

  “Bring Me Back to Life” –– Ht Bristol, Charlie Bannister, Vincent Steele, Nine One One

  “Are You Even Real?” ––James Blake

  “Get Right Church” ––Ben Miller Band

  “Bodies” –– Bryce Fox

  “bury a friend” –– Billie Eilish

  “Graves” –– Whiskey Shivers

  “Angels” –– Khalid

  “Dust To Dust” –– The Civil Wars

  “Dear God” –– Lawless, Sydney Wayser

  “No Shade In The Shadow Of The Cross” –– Sufjan Stephens

  “Hide & Seek” –– Imogen Heap

  “The Prayer” –– Bloc Party

  “Ready Or Not” ––Misha “Book” Chillak ft. Esthero

  “Become The Beast” –– Karliene

  “The Killer Was A Coward” –– Dermot Kennedy

  “White Demon Love Song” –– Vampyre Moon

  * * *

  Link to the full playlist HERE!

  Bea

  I was wearing white.

  More specifically, I was dressed in the costume of an angel resplendent with feathered wings gracing my shoulders and a silk dress that fluttered above my knees. With my pale gold hair, my small feminine features, and my plush mouth painted pink, Brett had told me I looked descended from heaven.

  I didn’t bother to educate him on the irony of my guise. Yes, in most ways, to most people, I was Beatrice Lafayette, lover of all things pink, cute, and girly. I was virginal, by choice, during a time when most girls threw their first time at anyone who handed them a Solo cup of lukewarm beer, and I volunteered my weeks at First Light Church, where my grandfather had been the pastor for decades.

  I was good enough to suit the wings.

  No one knew the dark heart of me. It was a private secret I harbored inside me, attentive to it only enough to keep it barely alive.

  Growing up as I did in the mayor’s mansion, a white wedding topper of a house set in the middle of a relatively sleepy town on the west coast of Canada, I didn’t have cause to experience much violence. We had a cousin, though, who played hockey down in Vancouver, and my mum, wanting to visit her sister but not particularly enjoying her company, often decided to visit during one of Ryker’s games. I loved going to those games, not because I liked the sport or even my aunt very much, but because I loved to watch the fights. They broke out abruptly, little grenades of violence bursting forth on the frosted surface of the arena so suddenly it stole the cold breath from my lungs. There was so much power in the interchange, the vicious strength of seasoned athletes battering each other. It was moving to me in a strange way. I knew my mother noticed my fascination, the way my cheeks pinked from more than just the cold, and how I leaned forward in my seat to be closer to the action.

  Even as a child, I was drawn inexplicably to those things opposite of me.

  Violence and darkness, immorality and iniquity.

  I was a good Christian girl with an obsession for those who sinned.

  Which explained, imperfectly, how I felt when my older sister, Loulou, fell in love with an ex-con, outlaw motorcycle club president and in doing so, introduced me to an entire world ripe with deviancy.


  The Fallen MC felt more like my home than that mayor’s mansion ever had.

  These were people who understood the full spectrum of morality and cut their own rules and uses from it.

  I loved the bloodthirsty nature of their revenge because it stemmed like a dark bloom from their deep-rooted loyalty. The way they proudly, staunchly wore their flaws the same way they did their values, daring you to accept nothing less than the full package of who they were.

  These men, perfectly imperfect, compelling specimens of the ultimate alpha male who eschewed all judgments that were not his own? These men were my kryptonite and my family.

  So was it any wonder I grew to love one of their own?

  Maybe love isn’t the right word.

  I didn’t know him well enough for that.

  Obsession, probably, was more fitting.

  I studied him like one, stalking him as much as I could over the years under the ever-watchful eyes of my blood and biker family, which wasn’t as much as I wanted to but enough to sustain the vague image I had of this man and my yearning for him.

  They called him Priest. As far as I’d ever been able to tell, no one knew his birth name. Beyond that, I knew nothing much of his history before he showed up at the club as a seventeen-year-old runaway. He was originally from Ireland and retained a lyricism to his speech that he obviously tried to curtail with that rough and gritty biker slang.

  He looked exactly how I envisioned God must have wanted a man to look, constructed so beautifully he seemed almost preternaturally handsome. His otherworldliness cast a kind of confusion on those who looked at him; he was at once both divine and an invitation to sin. A magnet to even the most pious moral compass.

  One look at him nearly shattered mine.

  The silken red hair worn too long, kissing the tops of broad shoulders, and the thick gleam of it along the curve of his jaw and upper lip. The endless constellations of cinnamon freckles scattered on every inch of available pale skin, and the shade of green in his eyes I sometimes fancied was emerald and other times darker, textured like wet moss.

  I knew his looks as well as I could, having never touched him or seen him in anything less than a T-shirt, leather cut, and blue jeans.

  My imagination, which my mother and sister had long called overactive, filled in the blanks.

  Other details were gleaned over my years of living at the heart of The Fallen family where Loulou reigned with her husband, Zeus, as sovereign.

  Priest was the club enforcer.

  The death dealer.

  The vengeful angel sent to collect the cost of betraying the club.

  He was a loner, but comfortable in company, charismatic in a quiet way that didn’t draw too much notice. I’d seen him make Cressida laugh when she was grieving for her lost husband, and I’d seen him touch his rough tipped fingers to the crown of Z and Lou’s little girl, Angel’s fair curls, as if anointing her with his protection, a knight in service to her since birth.

  I knew he didn’t drink, but he smoked cigarettes he rolled himself.

  He played darts like a pro but was masterfully skilled with knives and often practiced on an old, rotting cross the size of a cow he’d leaned against a tree behind the clubhouse on The Fallen Compound.

  Such a small collection of things, like seashells gathered along the shore, not nearly enough to claim notion of the entire ocean.

  But I was desperate for more.

  For him.

  It was a fantasy I entertained only in the darkest hours of the night, alone in bed with my hand between my thighs or when storms tossed frightening shadows through my bedroom window and made me think of what kind of monsters inhabited the night.

  It was a fantasy I’d determined, after four years of living with its burden, that I should cast aside the way children do childish things at a certain age.

  I was almost twenty years old.

  It was time to move on.

  So I was out on a date with Brett.

  Brett Walsh went to the University of British Columbia too, studying economics while I pursued my degree in psychology. He was cute in the way of a puppy still growing into his body, eager to please with a ready sense of humour.

  He was, I thought, safer than safe.

  The kind of man a girl like Beatrice Lafayette should date.

  Loulou, protective as she was, had even agreed when Brett picked me up from her house so she could vet him before our date. Luckily, none of the Fallen had been there or Brett might have peed his pressed khakis.

  He was nice, courteous, opening the car door for me, ushering me through the early Halloween party with a gentle hand on my back as he introduced me to his friends.

  I didn’t have any friends my age, and after meeting the drunk, foolish students at the party, I didn’t wonder why.

  They were boring, predictable.

  I was bored too, at that party, holding my warm beer like a social prop inside of a fun libation. I didn’t like the pop music playing or the amount of skin the girls were showing, even the way the men joked, easy sexism and homophobic comments exchanged as friendly insults while they played drinking games.

  I looked around for Brett, who had left me for the bathroom almost twenty minutes ago.

  Not that I was keeping track of time…but I figured another half an hour and I could get him to take me back home.

  “Excuse me, have you seen Brett?” I asked a guy waiting in line for the bathroom in the hall.

  He stopped his conversation with another man abruptly and raised his eyebrows as he took me in. “Wow. So did it hurt when you fell from heaven? I could kiss you better.”

  “Wow,” I mimicked sweetly. “Original.”

  I turned on my heel without another word and pushed my way through the throng of people as I searched the house for him.

  No Brett.

  Unease turned my stomach.

  Would he really abandon me?

  I sighed, rubbing my forehead as I headed out onto the back deck for fresh air. My phone was burning a hole against my hip where I’d slipped it in the waistband of my panties beneath my dress.

  I wanted to go home.

  I wanted someone to pick me up––Loulou or Cressida or Harleigh Rose because they’d understand or, more, Zeus, Bat, or Wrath because they’d punch Brett in the face for leaving me alone.

  But it felt babyish to return to my comfort zone, however strange that comfort zone might have been.

  I was there to experience what it might feel like to be normal for a change.

  My eyes closed as I leaned back against the stucco exterior of the house, the walls thrumming with the bass of the music from inside.

  “That’s a rip!” someone shouted from deeper around the side of the house.

  My eyes popped open.

  “You’re jacking the fucking prices, asshole,” the same voice said again, the words accompanied by the thwack of a something hitting flesh.

  “You got a problem with the price, get your shit from someone else,” another person offered with faux benevolence.

  A person I recognized as Brett.

  My skin prickled as adrenaline rushed through me.

  Brett was dealing drugs.

  Brett.

  Slicked back hair, pattern button-up, and pressed khakis Brett was selling drugs in the backyard of a uni party in Entrance, BC.

  Suddenly, impactfully like a punch to the solar plexes, I liked him a hell of a lot more than I did a moment before.

  Because this? Dealing drugs in Entrance, the hometown of The Fallen MC’s mother chapter?

  That was just about as dangerous as it got.

  My heart thumped loudly against my ribs, knocking to get out. I took a deep breath to settle my excitement and carefully walked to the end of the porch so I could peek over the railing at the men in the shadows.

  Brett had the angry buyer pressed up to the wall with his hand shoved into his chest. His face, usually placid and pleasant, was ragged with fury.

&nbs
p; I shivered, and it wasn’t because of the cold autumn air against my bare skin.

  “It’s not me jacking shit, dude. I look like a chemist to you? I’m just the middleman. You wanna high like nothing else, you know this is the place to get it,” Brett taunted. “So take it or leave. I got a girl inside waiting for me, and if I don’t get laid tonight because I left her waiting too long, that’s on you, Owen.”

  I arched a brow reflexively at his arrogance. This was our first date, so there was no way I was going to sleep with him. No way I was even going to do more than kiss him. But his arrogance reminded me of The Fallen, those bikers with all that swagger, and again, I found myself intrigued by him.

  Brett was becoming a worse man and a sexier prospect by the second.

  “Fine,” Owen muttered petulantly. “Give me a quarter ounce.”

  “Brett,” I called out sweetly, leaning over the railing so that my hair went swinging over my shoulders, clouds of silver curls and wings behind my head. “I think it’s time you took me home.”

  I almost laughed at the look of shock on his face, the way it paralyzed him for a precious moment.

  Owen used the time to wiggle out of his hold and slink away into the dark.

  I sighed when Brett just blinked at me, obviously searching for a way to play off the entire situation. With a little hop, I swung up onto the railing and jumped over it, my skirt catching on the wind so he caught a sight of my white, silk panties.