Hard Limit Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Sybil Bartel

  Cover art by: CT Cover Creations, www.ctcovercreations.com

  Cover photo by: Wander Aguiar, wanderaguiar.com

  Cover Model: Kaz van der Waard

  Edited by: Hot Tree Editing, www.hottreeediting.com

  Formatting by: Champagne Book Design, www.champagnebookdesign.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  Warning: This book contains offensive language, alpha males and sexual situations. Mature audiences only. 18+

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Books by Sybil Bartel

  Hard Limit

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  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

  Hard Justice

  About the Author

  Books by Sybil Bartel

  The Alpha Antihero Series

  HARD LIMIT

  HARD JUSTICE

  HARD SIN

  The Alpha Bodyguard Series

  SCANDALOUS

  MERCILESS

  RECKLESS

  RUTHLESS

  FEARLESS

  CALLOUS

  RELENTLESS

  SHAMELESS

  The Uncompromising Series

  TALON

  NEIL

  ANDRÉ

  BENNETT

  CALLAN

  The Alpha Escort Series

  THRUST

  ROUGH

  GRIND

  The Unchecked Series

  IMPOSSIBLE PROMISE

  IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE

  IMPOSSIBLE END

  The Rock Harder Series

  NO APOLOGIES

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  HARD LIMIT

  One breath.

  That was all I needed.

  Air in my lungs so I could exhale through the pain.

  Stabbed and broken, my limbs useless, I tried and failed to lift my head. Mosquitoes swarmed, and the sun dropped. My face in the mud, I swore to myself I would not die out here.

  Then I heard her voice—angel soft and breathless—and I wondered if I had been kidding myself. I did not have time to figure it out. A small hand landed on my back, and I fisted my bloody knife.

  If I was going to die tonight, I was taking someone with me.

  *HARD LIMIT is the first book in the Alpha Antihero Series, and it’s Tarquin “Candle” Scott’s story.

  The Alpha Antihero Series:

  HARD LIMIT

  HARD JUSTICE

  HARD SIN

  For my Mom and my Dad.

  “Candle was earth. Dark and dirty between your hands, he rubbed across your skin and left marks as his scent soaked into you like a memory. You smelled him after every rain, and you felt him every time you fell. He’d cradle you if you needed to lie down in the woods, but he’d never lift you up to touch the stars.”

  —Kendall, from ANDRÉ

  I sucked in a labored breath and swamp mud filled my mouth. Pain shot through my ribs as I choked. One cough and my head spun.

  Spitting, panting short and shallow, I tried again.

  A short inhale, and the stench of rot permeated everything. When I did not choke, I decided I did not care about the stench. My own body was rotting. Bloody, beaten, I used my good arm and leveraged my elbow. Digging it into the mud, raising my chest an inch, pain shot through my ribs and I heaved forward.

  Army crawl. Or so I had been told.

  One forsaken inch at a time.

  I was going see another turn around the sun. I had to.

  Dead people did not get revenge.

  Dead people did not get anything except a hole in the ground.

  That I knew.

  I was a digger.

  I had had one job on the compound. Bury the bodies.

  Except I was not on the compound anymore.

  Struggling for air, my lungs on fire, I heaved myself another inch. Mosquitoes swarmed, and I cursed. “Fuck.”

  The forbidden word rattled from my conscience and grew larger than the forsaken swamp. Then, just as I had been warned, the sin took hold, and more profanity bled out. “Fuck, fuck, FUCK!”

  Stabbing pain stole my breath as my hoarse voice defiled the swamp’s nighttime chorus, but I did not care. A laugh—half-gurgle, half-hysterical—ruptured from my chest like a rebirth.

  “Born!” I yelled to the alligators, rats, and insects. “Re-fucking-birth.” Coughing, rolling to my side, I blinked back mud until I saw the stars. The same stars I had seen every day on the compound, but I was not looking at them from there now. I never would. Not until I went back to kill every brother who had done this to me. Including him. “I’m coming for you, River Stephens.”

  Choking on my own blood, I coughed, and pain blindsided me.

  I fell back to my stomach and forced the words out on a wheeze. “I’m fucking coming for you,” I whispered to no one as my head landed in the mud. “You’re—” I coughed. “—dead….” My chest burning, my leg throbbing, darkness edged out the night.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus.” Like an angel, the female’s voice floated down over me. “Are you breathin’?”

  Was I dreaming?

  “Can you hear me?” she asked, whisper soft and perfect.

  No female had ever sounded that sweet. It was a trap, it had to be. Fighting an inhale, I willed my body to lie predator still.

  “Oh Lord have mercy,” she breathed, her voice heaven sent. “Please be alive.”

  A small, warm hand landed on my back.

  Part animal, all instinct, my reaction was immediate. Palming my blood-stained, muddy knife, I reared up from the waist. I did not notice her hair was the color of summer sunlight. I did not notice her wide green eyes. I did not notice the freckles ghosting across her face and falling to her chest.

  I wrapped my arm around her neck, pulled her against me, and brought us both back down to the rotten mud. The tip of my knife pressed against the vein on the side of her neck, and adrenaline-induced words snarled past my parched throat. “Who sent you?”

  Tiny hands grasped at my muddied forearm in desperation as she struggled for lifesaving air. “No-no-no one.”

  My knife about to break skin, I squeezed her neck harder. “Who do you belong to?” No female wandered out here alone.

  “My daddy owns this swamp.”

  No one owned this land. “Liar,” I accused, putting more pressure on the knife.

  “No!” she squeaked. “Please. I’m tellin’ the truth.”

  I did not have time to respond. A water snake slithered over her bare legs and she screamed. J
erking in my grasp, her elbow made contact with my beaten ribs.

  Excruciating pain lanced through my side and bile rose in my throat.

  My knife dragged across her neck as I forced my broken body to twist so I did not choke on my own vomit.

  My stomach heaved, then everything went black.

  His death grip on my neck released, and I didn’t pause one single southern second. Jumping to my feet, I stomped my boots in the swamp mud to make sure that snake was nowhere near me. Nothing like a slithering reptile to make you lose all fear of a half-dead man holding a knife at your throat.

  My throat!

  My fingers muddied, I dragged the back of my hand across my neck and held it up to the full moon.

  No blood.

  I glanced down at the blond man with muscled arms almost as big as my thighs. Stock-still and laid out like Jesus on the cross, he christened the muck all around him.

  Holy hell.

  He looked so pathetic, I couldn’t even be mad at him for the knife. Wasn’t the first time I’d seen a blade.

  My gaze cut to his broad chest, but it didn’t move.

  I dropped to a squat and held my hand in front of his nose. “Don’t you quit breathin’ on me.” Please, please let him be alive.

  Daddy would have my hide if I told him there was a dead man on his land that he didn’t put there. If he didn’t accuse me straight-off of being up to no good, he’d for sure ask why I was out here to begin with, and I couldn’t let that happen. Not now, not when I was so close. I needed to keep my nose clean and make sure all my ducks were in a row. I was getting out of here soon, come hell or high water, and no funny-talking dead man was gonna stop me.

  The man sputtered up a cough.

  Relief exhaled through my own lungs, and I took his switchblade from his open palm. For a second I weighed having my prints on what could very well be evidence from whatever had happened to him, versus having him coming to and pulling the same stunt twice.

  It wasn’t even a choice.

  I wiped the knife on his muddied pants as best I could and closed the blade before tucking it in my pocket. “Okay, mister, you need to wake up.” I patted his cheek. “Come on, now. It’s feeding time for the no-see-ums, and I’m fixin’ to get inside.”

  He didn’t move.

  I upped the ante and slapped him.

  Bright blue eyes popped open, and his hand went unerringly to my throat. “Who tends to you?” he barked.

  Holy shit, he has some kinda grip. “Mister,” I choked out. “If you don’t let go, there’s gonna be no one here to help you.” I grabbed his wrist and dug my thumb and forefinger into the webbed skin of his hand.

  He instantly let go. “No female should be out here alone.”

  “Glad you’re chivalrous, but we can talk about that later. You need to get out of the mud and indoors before the no-see-ums suck whatever blood you have left.” I stood up, but held my hand out. “C’mon, get up. Then you can crawl back under whatever rock you came from.”

  For one long moment, he studied me like I was the fish outta water. Then his scratchy voice, deep and rough like half-rotten wood, filled the night space between us. “I am not going back.”

  Huh. “Then you can go somewhere new.” I wiggled my hand. I didn’t have time for this. I needed to get back home.

  He stared at my hand but didn’t move. “Why would you help me?”

  My hands went to my hips, wondering if I was biting off more than I could chew. If trouble arose, I knew how to shoot. But my shotgun was inside the house in the hall closet, and I didn’t particularly want to trudge all the way back to get it, only to have to come right back out here to shoot his sorry butt. “You see anyone else willing to take on the job?”

  “You should be afraid of me.”

  I laughed. “Mister, if I was afraid of every muscled man with an attitude, I’d have no business callin’ myself Daddy’s girl.” Not that I did it often, but if the need arose, I wasn’t beyond using it to my advantage.

  The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “Who is your father?”

  “Who’s yours?” I countered.

  He hesitated only a second, but then a sneer formed on his full lips. “I do not have one.”

  I couldn’t figure out if that made him lucky or cursed. Glancing at his shoulder that was bent at a funny angle, I decided on the latter. “Well, that’s unfortunate, because right about now you’re lookin’ like you could use all the help you can get.”

  “Leave.”

  This time my laugh was more an unladylike snort than a chuckle. “And let you die on my land?” I shook my head and reached for his good arm. “I don’t think so.” My hands wrapped around his shockingly hard bicep and I tugged. “Come on, swamp boy. You’re gettin’ up.” With no little effort, I pulled him into a sitting position.

  He hadn’t flinched when I pinched his hand, but this time, he let out a pained howl that rivaled a wolf on a full moon as he sat. Short breaths cut in and out of his lungs, and for a second, I wondered if I should’ve left him lying.

  Still holding his arm, I squatted back down and risked putting my arm behind his shoulders. One of his legs was limp, his torso, where I could see past the mud, was all bruised and bloody, and his face was a roadmap for what looked like the wrong end of a fist, or three. Saying he’d been through the wringer was an understatement. “Maybe I should just call for an ambulance.”

  “No,” he barked with surprising strength. “No doctors.” He shrugged away from my arm.

  “Fair enough.” Who was I to judge? I’d never been to a real doctor in my life. “But you’re gonna have to work with me then. In good conscience, I can’t leave you out here, and I can’t carry you back to the house, so you gotta move.”

  His gaze scanned the swamp. “How far?”

  I nodded in the direction of the house. “Just past those trees on the other side of the clearing.”

  “Kilometers?” he asked, as if the amount of actual distance would make a difference.

  “I don’t know about nothin’ fancy like kilometers, but if a yard’s three feet, then I reckon we got a good few minutes’ walk ahead of us. More if you’re slow.”

  “I cannot walk,” he stated without emotion.

  I frowned. “Then how’d you get clear in the middle of the swamp? Someone dump you here?” Which, if it was one of the guys from Daddy’s club, then I wasn’t covering for him. I was telling Daddy, and he could deal with whoever thought they could leave their trash on his land.

  The blond man’s head turned, moonlight hit his face, and I got the full force of his unwavering stare. “I crawled.”

  Mud covering most of his face, one eye almost swollen shut, his lip split, I was still taken aback. Broken and dripping trouble, he was the most handsome man I’d ever laid eyes on.

  Swallowing past the sudden dryness in my throat, my voice wavered. “You crawled? From where?”

  Staring at me, he tipped his chin over his shoulder, indicating the land behind us.

  I tried and failed to shake off disbelief. “There’s nothin’ out there for miles and miles, and past all that nothingness is a whole lot more nothingness of defunct orange groves that run along the perimeter of the Everglades. And if you ask me, those old groves only lose more footin’ each year to the wild of the Glades. They should just give up already. Ain’t nobody out there to pick ’em anyway.”

  His jaw ticked.

  The slight movement in his otherwise stillness brought me up short. “You sayin’ you came from there?”

  He didn’t nod, but he didn’t shake his head.

  “Well, I’ll be.” I sat back on my haunches and swatted at a mosquito as I dragged my eyes over his body. “You look pretty fit for a homeless person.” I’d heard the rumors that homeless people lived off the land in the Glades, but I’d never met one.

  “Leave,” he said again, but this time quieter.

  Despite the eighty-degree weather and humidity I wouldn’t wish on my worst en
emy, chill bumps ran up my back and curled around my neck. “Now see, I can’t do that.” I tested a smile on him. “Would you leave me here if you found me in your condition?”

  Without hesitation, and with a dead seriousness that chilled me to my very bones, he laid four words on me.

  “I would bury you.”

  Moonlight shone on her hair. It was not blonde, but it was not red. Somewhere in between. I had never seen hair that color.

  “Charming,” she muttered, seemingly unfazed by my admission.

  My energy waning, I tried one more time. “Leave. You do not belong out here.” I did not know how many sunrises had passed since I had been thrown off the compound, or how far I had made it. I had been left for dead far outside the main gate, but if any of the hunters happened across me, I would have a bullet in my skull as fast as they could pull the trigger of their rifle. And with her looks, she would be dragged back to the compound.

  The thought made anger spur.

  Making a derisive sound no woman on the compound would ever get away with, she rolled her eyes at me. “If I don’t belong on my own land, mister, then it’s about as sad a day as it’s ever gonna get, because I sure as hell don’t fit right out there in the real world.” She waved her hand dismissively behind her.

  My pain momentarily forgotten, alarm spread. “Real world?” I felt for my knife, wondering if there was more than one compound in the area.

  “Yeah.” She half smiled, half frowned at me. “Life, boys, girls, normal kids goin’ to college, bikers, clubs, parties—real world,” she said plainly, as if it were obvious.

  The only word I knew of in her rattled-off list was college. No textbook had ever touched my hands, and I intended to keep it that way, but I knew of what she spoke. “There is no compound on your land?”

  Her head tilted and her hair caught the moonlight. “Come again?”