Munroe and Stanka_The Beginning Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Munroe and Stanka

  By

  Daniela Jackson

  Shadow Wolves MC Book 3

  The Beginning

  Copyright © 2017 by Daniela Jackson

  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 publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Description

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Excerpt: Samael: A Dark Romance (Shadow Wolves MC Book 4)

  Description

  A lonely biker.

  A virgin in need of protection.

  Europe devastated by war.

  An impossible romance.

  Munroe

  I’m thirty-four. I’m a Scottish gangster. Stanka will be my wife. She said she was eighteen, right?

  Stanka

  I’m only eighteen. I’m a Slovakian aristocrat.

  ***

  What a fucking mésalliance.

  Intended for mature audiences. Explicit and dark content that may not be suitable for some readers. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.

  Prologue

  Munroe

  “You will be my wife,” I say. “Do you understand?”

  “Nie,” she says, her white aristocratic chin trembling.

  “Is this all you can say? You can only say ‘no’?”

  “Nie.”

  “Stanka.” I shake my head. “You will come to me.” I raise my hand and run my knuckles down her cheek then glide my callused thumb over her lower lip. “You’ll come to me sooner or later. I can wait. I’m a patient man.”

  She steps back, a wild fire blazing in her emerald eyes. “Nie.” She leans slightly forward, her fingers rolling into fists. “Never.”

  She’s lying to herself.

  I may be a simple man, a gangster, but I know what she truly wants. She wants it raw. I will give it raw to her as soon as she lies down on my bed with her folded legs splayed for me.

  She will come to me and I will teach her proper English. I will teach her to say ‘fuck me harder’ or ‘I love your cock’. I will teach her to open that sinfully beautiful mouth of hers wide for me and wrap those slim thighs of hers around my waist each time I lie down beside her. Oh yes, I will teach her to be a good wife for me.

  She will be my wife and I’ll take her aristocratic innocence. I will contaminate her with my crudeness, wreck her, and dominate her. She will be mine. It’s only a matter of time. I just need to be patient.

  Stanka

  Peasant.

  Rude peasant.

  I can speak four languages and he can’t read.

  Yet, his touch makes my thighs quiver, and my mind whirls.

  Chapter 1

  Stanka

  Slovakia 1945

  The sound of many heavy footsteps comes closer and closer, dreadful thumps ringing out the upcoming threat like an alarm bell. My father’s face darkens. He winces, pain and sadness pervading his glance. A pistol swings in his hand. He strokes my head and kisses my forehead.

  “Go, child,” he says.

  “Papa,” I whisper, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  My father shoves my back. “Go.”

  So I go, run, escape. There is no time for my pain. My primal fear is all that guides me. My grandma wheezes behind me as her hands push at my back and we tumble into the basement through the heavy wooden door.

  This regime wants to erase people like us. We symbolise the past, the principles, and the divisions. The regime wants to wipe the past away. Freedom and equality, they say. Why murders and camps then?

  I have to run faster or I’ll end up in prison or dead.

  The sound of a gunshot hits my ears like a whiplash and yanks me back, but my grandma squeezes my hand with hers and drags me behind her. Her son, my father, is probably dead now. He wanted to buy the two of us more time.

  “Hurry,” my grandma says, tears rolling down her cheeks, her breath laborious.

  I’m Stanka Natalia Tesarik. I will turn eighteen in less than two days. My grandma’s name is Vilma. She’s sixty-eight years old, but she looks one hundred. The war has marked her face with deep furrows, has taken the mischievous gleam from her green eyes forever. She was once a beautiful woman. Now she’s the embodiment of fear and loss.

  Our kin has been erased; just the two of us are still fighting to survive. I know my papa is dead. I just know.

  We hope to find refuge far from here. Vilma is taking me to join her deceased husband’s family.

  I don’t think we’re going to make it. The bad people are hunting us. They know how to hunt prey like us.

  I think we’ll die soon. We’ll die like all the others who rebelled against the German occupation troops and then against the communist regime.

  We cross the dark basement, dust and humidity like the touch of cold satin against my face. We pour out of the house through the back door, meander among the trees in our once beautiful garden, and take the narrow passage between the shed and stables. The wall of outgrown bushes masks our escape route. I pull the branches away and jump through the vegetation. A thought hammers in my head. Faster. Faster. The passage leads us outside the estate and I spot a man wearing dirty clothes. His grey linen shirt is full of holes and stitches line the lower edges of his trousers. He’s standing by a wagon, patting the side of the black horse attached to it. The animal shivers and moves its wide hoofs then turns its head to mine. Old age and a life-long struggle make its eyes stare as though it has a tired human soul.

  “Where is the count?” the man asks in an unpleasant raspy voice.

  He must smoke a lot. The scent of tobacco hangs heavy around him.

  “Dead,” Vilma says in a cold voice. “Just the two of us.”

  “Get in the wagon,” he growls and points his finger to the piles of straw covering its floor.

  I help my grandma clamber onto the wagon and pull my calf-length skirt up to my thighs to follow her. We bury ourselves under the straw and our hell begins.

  There is the monotonous sound of the wheels rattling, the horse’s snorts and neighs, the hammer of its hoofs, the nauseating smell of the rotting straw, the lack of air, the scratches on my skin, and the pain in my muscles.
Many hours pass swaying and jumping in rhythm of the wagon.

  The man’s hungry eyes scare me to death. They slide over me each time we stop to pee or eat something.

  My grandma shelters me with her body in those moments, shooting knives towards the man with her glance. He’s been paid well to transport us to safety, but it doesn’t seem to be enough for him.

  We spend the night in a devastated barn then we’re on the wagon again. The straw jabs my back, scratches my face and digs into my nose. It’s cold. The wagon climbs along a basic road meandering among the hills of the near abroad region. Grandma breathes heavily and squeezes my hand in hers. I sob like a five-year-old.

  “Hush, child,” she says in a tired voice.

  “I’m scared of Mattias,” I whisper.

  “You should be. Stay away from him.” She kisses my temple. “And happy birthday.”

  “Thank you, grandma.”

  Her chest rests against my back and I curl into her. The intense smell of her sweat whips my nostrils. We both need a bath. We stink like cattle.

  Or, maybe we need two caskets. Maybe it’s better to die now when we still have our dignity. I’m an adult at last, but it seems like there is no future for me. Like my life ended the moment I left my home.

  “The horse will die soon,” I say, surprised by the lack of emotion in my voice.

  “Don’t think about it,” Vilma whispers into my ear, her breath wheezy.

  My father’s face flashes through my mind, distorted like it’s a ghost’s face then the image of the front door of my house bathed in the bright sun’s rays follows. I can see four white pillars supporting the roofed entrance, our family crest on the double door, then the swing in the garden, and red roses along the fence. A memory of my happy childhood. These images pierce my heart and burn into my brain like a brand. This brand will die with me, and will be forgotten like my kin. I’m already a corpse.

  The wagon stops.

  Mattias whistles and we emerge from underneath the layers of straw. It’s time to rest. Vilma staggers towards a majestic tree abundant in foliage of all shades of yellow and sits on her heels, correcting her jacket and shaking off little pieces of straw. Her grey hair is a mess, as is mine. The afternoon sun’s rays burn my cheeks as I shake the dirt off my jacket. It’s the middle of October, but the temperature is like early summer.

  I look around to find a suitable place to pee and decide to hide behind the wall of bushes. I’m really brief, my heart pounding at the thought that Mattias may watch me. I’m scared of his pig-like impure eyes and black teeth.

  Vilma calls me so I correct my skirt and jacket. A chill bites my skin and penetrates my bones. A cloud of vapour leaves my mouth.

  I trip over a stone and curse under my breath as a hand grips my arm, fingers digging in my flesh. A violent force throws me to the side. I manage a small scream as my body hits the moist grassy ground and a massive frame crushes mine, knocking the air out of my lungs. The hand dives between my thighs as a foul breath puffs on my cheek. A dry, cracked mouth brushes against my neck. Pain lashes through my back as nausea rolls over my stomach and I feel acid in my throat.

  “Get off me,” I gasp.

  It’s Mattias. He rolls me on my back as he presses his body against mine. I’m helpless. I haven’t eaten properly for many months. I haven’t slept properly for many nights.

  My breathing turns into wheezing as this disgusting man atop me parts my legs with his knee and covers my mouth with his. I can feel his erection rubbing against my crotch.

  A dull sound wafts through the air above me. Mattias’s body stiffens and his head bumps against my shoulder. Pain shoots down my arm as his body rests limp against mine. I notice Vilma out of the corner of my eye. She’s leaning over me. My eyes flicker over the big stone glittering in her hand. I roll Mattias off me and scramble to my feet. Red and black flashes dance in front of my eyes.

  “Is he dead?” I squeak.

  I feel contaminated. Rage and panic mix in my chest, rise up to my throat and squeeze it like a massive hand.

  “I hope so,” Vilma says with a high-pitched crack in her voice, her cheeks bright red. “Did he...?”

  “No,” I rasp. “What are we going to do now, grandma?”

  “We are going to survive, child. At any cost.”

  I pull back and forth then watch Mattias. He’s not moving.

  “Strip him,” Vilma says and kneels beside him, taking a knife from behind his belt. “Stanka, my dear, strip him.”

  I always obey Vilma. She’s older than me and I respect her.

  I sit on my heels and put my trembling white fingers on Mattias’s chest then remove his shirt and pull down his trousers. His limp cock looks grotesque and so do his dead eyes.

  “Now you strip and put his clothes on,” Vilma says.

  Watching Mattias’s nakedness, I take off my clothes and slip into his. They are too big and smell of animal droppings and sweat. Vilma cuts a wide margin off each leg of the trousers and adjusts the waistband using the knife and belt. Then she chops my hair. I watch the tendrils of my hair floating to the ground, forming a pile. The knife is blunt and pain seizes my skull. Vilma curses under her breath, working at a steady pace. The rising pile of my hair symbolises me. My mind detaches. There is no me anymore. There is only an animal that wants to survive. Vilma tosses the knife to the ground and it clinks against the stone, the sound dreadful like the naked corpse three steps away from me. Then she rubs soil on my cheeks.

  “You are Mattias now,” she says.

  Tears blind my eyes. “Yes, grandma.”

  “You’re a boy. Behave like one all the time.”

  I nod. “Yes, grandma.”

  We leave the body to rot and continue our ordeal.

  With each day that passes, Vilma gets weaker and weaker. Her breathing is laborious, every exhale saturated with acid.

  She will die soon.

  And I will die just after her.

  Munroe

  I’m not a deserter. It’s just that my whole battalion was erased and I was the only survivor.

  The war is over. There is no one to command me so I’ve decided to return to Edinburgh, the city I grew up in. I was born in a small village in the Scottish Highlands, but my parents decided to leave it, seeking a better life, more opportunities, and more happiness. I guess they didn’t find all those things in Edinburgh. That city killed them both. My father was stabbed in a street fight and my mother met a bad man who strangled her with a piece string. That’s what I heard from Dave Brown, the man who fed me when I almost starved to death. I don’t remember my parents. I remember the putrid smell of the streets, the moans of the whores fucked rough by men from all backgrounds, and the street fights. The delicious taste of fresh bread. The painful yearning for something I couldn’t name.

  I’m tearing my way through the western part of Germany. An old compass and the words of passerby are guiding me. My way is marked by abandoned tanks, patches of burned ground, and bomb holes. I’ve seen a few decaying bodies scattered on both sides of the basic road I’m riding along. The motorcycle I took from a dead German soldier will soon demand some fuel so I look around carefully to find a car or another bike with a full tank.

  I love bikes and I’m going to keep the one I’m sitting on. It’s a solid German job. I hate Germans, but they make good bikes. The war is over and they’ve been beaten up so keeping a German bike won’t stain my honour.

  A group of people passes me in the opposite direction, their faces dead like my surroundings, dread and horror chiselled in their furrows and wrinkles, hunger visible in their sunken cheeks and wide empty eyes. Their silent mouths exhale clouds of vapour and they shiver in the chill of this early November morning.

  Ominous clouds gather in the sky and the air is still, a misty unearthly aura blanketing the world like a delicate veil. Black trees stand like skeletons, like the monuments created to remind us of the battles that have destroyed this once beautiful land.

&n
bsp; Ten minutes later, I ride along a concrete road stretching through the pinewoods. I hate Germans but I must admit their road is very good. The wheels of my bike rattle on the junctions between the concrete slabs as my lungs absorb the humidity laced with resin puffing from the woods.

  On my left, a boy kneels and leans over a woman lying on the ground. A few steps farther, there is a wagon. A dead horse is lying in front of it and flies are buzzing above the black shining corpse.

  The boy wails like a girl as I pass him. What a fucking cry-baby.

  I shake my head and focus on my goal, on my journey home, but something claws my heart and tells me to stop. I park my bike on the mossy ground and move towards the boy. I stand right behind him.

  “She’s dead,” I say in my broken German.

  Purple patches of livor mortis mark the old woman’s hands and neck and she smells of death.

  The boy turns his face towards me and his emerald eyes widen. Fucking hell. I’ve never seen a boy with such girly eyes. Thick eyebrows frame them and long eyelashes adorn them beautifully. He has really girly lips. Women must love his pretty face, but surely they must hate his softness. He’s crying like a girl. He needs to harden. This is not the world for soft boys.

  I let out a guttural growl and he hugs himself.

  He looks fourteen.

  I’m thirty-four.

  A thought wafts through my head. I could be his father.

  “The woman is dead,” I say in the purest English I can manage.

  He turns his head and stares at the woman.

  It’s none of my business so I rush forward, but something jabs the side of my chest and tells me to stop. I turn back. It’s as though something is pulling me back to the boy.

  “Leave her and come with me,” I say.

  The boy looks up at me. “Nie.”

  My lips curl into a wide grin at the sound of his breathy girly voice.

  “You’re not German, are ye?” I ask.

  “Nie.”

  “Where are ye from?”

  “Slovakia.”

  I whistle. “That’s a long way.”

  The boy averts his eyes.

  “Come with me,” I repeat with impatience.