Garden of the cursed, p.32
Burn (Montana Mountain Protectors Book 6), page 32
BURN
MONTANA MOUNTAIN PROTECTORS
BOOK 6
GEMMA WEIR
Burn
Copyright © 2025 by Gemma Weir
Published by Dirty Ink Publishing
www.gemmaweirauthor.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.
Without in any way limiting the author’s exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The authors reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Burn/Gemma Weir - 1st ed.
CONTENTS
AI Statement
***Warning***
1. Knight
2. Octavia
3. Knight
4. Octavia
5. Knight
6. Octavia
7. Knight
8. Octavia
9. Knight
10. Octavia
11. Knight
12. Octavia
13. Knight
14. Octavia
15. Knight
16. Octavia
17. Knight
18. Octavia
19. Knight
20. Octavia
21. Knight
22. Octavia
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Gemma Weir
Hey guys, this is yet another statement that I wish I didn’t need to write but feel like every human author has to make.
To make it completely clear I write every single word of my books myself. I have never and would never use AI because honestly if I have to use a computer to write a book then I need to find a new job.
That being said you will find a fair few em-dashes in this and all of my books. That doesn’t mean that I use AI it means I use appropriate grammar.
If someone decides to look at my book and say well I read an AI book and it had words and phrases that sound like Gemma’s, that probably because every single one of mine and tens of thousands of other authors books were stolen and used to help AI learn how to write.
I put my blood, sweat and tears into my books and every single word, character, plot, and happy ever after are mine, dreamt up in my own head without the use of any kind of AI.
My covers have pictures of real human people, photographed by a human photographer and are designed by a human graphic designer. My words are polished and made pretty by a human editor and my ebooks and paperbacks are made beautiful by a human formatter.
My books are AI free.
Gemma xoxo
The one we’ve all been waiting for…especially me.
***WARNING***
My heroes are assholes. They are not PC. They are, at times, morally ambiguous, behave like cavemen, and sometimes they’ll do whatever it takes to get their heroines pregnant.
Please, please, please don’t read this book thinking I’m exaggerating about how OTT and alpha these characters are, because you’ll hate this book and then write a scathing review saying both me and my characters are psychopaths.
My alpha male characters are extremely controlling, manipulative, single-minded, and sometimes cold to the point of being glacial. If this type of hero is not your jam, then please stop reading now.
All of my heroes are over-the-top, jealous, unreasonable, possessive, red flag waving assholes, and although this is a love story, some people might consider it a toxic love that’s as wrong as it is deliciously right.
If you consider unapologetic alphaholes unacceptable or feel their behavior is in some way abusive, then this isn’t the book or series for you.
If you’re a naysayer who thinks what I write is romanticizing domestic violence and abuse, then please, please stop reading now. You will not enjoy this book!
This book isn’t a guide to dysfunctional relationships; it’s fiction. My books are fantasy; this isn’t real life. It’s a romance novel and should be read as such.
We all know that in the real world, throwing a love interest over your shoulder, messing with their birth control, or stalking them and letting yourself into their home is a one-way ticket to either a restraining order or the mental hospital.
Nothing I write is based on real life. It’s pure fantasy, so it’s okay to agree that the dysfunctional relationships between my characters are sexy as fuck. Please do not kink shame me or my enthusiastic readers for finding these extreme alphahole behaviors hot. Maybe if you read this book with the pinch of romantic salt it was intended to come with, you might like it too.
Please heed this warning. My books will make you question your feminism, so I suggest you leave it at the door while you live in the world of my creation for a little bit, then pick it back up on your way out. But please know it’s okay to like this kind of story because that’s all it is. A story, a few hundred pages of fantasy intended to titillate and excite, not to change your life.
If you’re easily offended, this isn’t the book for you.
But if, like me, you love a guy who is so obsessively in love with his girl or guy that he will manipulate, coerce, control, and obsess over them until they give themself to him completely, then read on and welcome back to the world of my Montana Mountain Protectors.
For a full list of trigger warnings for each book, please check out my website www.gemmaweirauthor.com.
ONE
KNIGHT
Sliding the zipper closed on my bag, I heave it off the bed. I take one last glance back at the familiar but still foreign bedroom I’ve been sleeping in since I moved to Rockhead Point before I stride out the door and down the stairs. I’ve lived in this house for well over a year now, but it still looks exactly the same as it did the day I moved in.
My brothers have all decorated and renovated their houses and yards, but I don’t see the point. This isn’t my home. It’s simply a house I’m staying in. My home is the house I’ve helped build with my own two hands, a quarter of a mile from here, on the land I purchased when I realized this town was a place I wanted to settle in.
Being a smoke jumper is the best job in the world, but that’s all it is…a job. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy it. I do, but if I had to give it up tomorrow, I would without question. I’m thirty-eight years old and heading toward the end of my career jumping out of airplanes and fighting wildfires. The only reason I’m still capable of doing my job is because I’m at peak physical fitness and devoted to performing at the highest level.
Until recently, I thought my job and my brothers-in-arms were enough to make me content with my life, but I’ve discovered I want more. I want my wife. I want a family. I want…my perfect little doll.
I was born and grew up near Sulphur Springs, Texas, the oldest son of Drill Sergeant Anderson Taylor and his wife, Mary. I was raised to be a soldier, and from the age of ten, my days started at 0500 with army-style PT. My father—forever the drill sergeant long after he left the army—lives and breathes the healthy body, healthy mind mentality. He taught me how to be a good soldier: the importance of taking care of my body, how to be part of a team, and how to follow orders and a chain of command.
Two generations of Taylor men before me served their country with pride, and it’s my father’s greatest failure that I wasn’t the third.
The first time I remember my mama telling me I was peculiar was when I was five years old. Back then, I didn’t know what she meant, but I knew I wasn’t like my younger siblings or the children at my school.
I wasn’t sick or dumb. I never saw a doctor, and I wasn’t placed in special ed classes, but I heard all the names the kids in my neighborhood and at my school called me. To them, I was a freak, a weirdo, an oddball, a nutjob, and a few other things I don’t like to repeat.
I’ve always been particular. I like order. I like things just so, and even though I’m sure that I would have survived in the military, I always knew I never intended to follow in my father and grandfather’s footsteps.
The day I graduated high school and told my parents I had no intention of enlisting was the last time my father spoke to me. I don’t miss him, but I do hold some appreciation for the things he drilled into me as a child that have followed me into adulthood. Because of him, I live my life with structure, rules, expectations, and unrelenting standards.
I haven’t seen any of my family since I left home at eighteen, but my mother has kept me updated about her, my father, and my siblings through a yearly Christmas card. My younger brother Eric stepped into the shoes I rejected and enlisted straight out of high school. He served eight years in the US Army before he left, moved back to Texas, and married his high school sweetheart, Marie. My sister Sylvia was volunteering at the VA when she met and fell in love with John, a retired Navy officer. After they got married, they bought a house next door to Eric, a few streets over from our parents, and between them, they have a brood of children. From my mother’s cards, I believe they all like their lives, the town, and their families.
But I’m not like my family, and I never have been.
Even though it’s been twenty years since I lived at home, I still live my life on an orderly schedule. When I’m not on shift, I wake up at 0500 hours. I go for a run on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and do a calisthenics workout on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. On Sundays, I do both. Once I’ve worked out, I shower, then have breakfast at 0700 hours. Lunch is at 1300 hours and dinner is at 1900 hours.
When I’m on shift, I’m forced to adapt to a flexible schedule depending on how many fires we’re called to attend, but when we’re on base, I still adhere to a similar daily routine where I can. During my time in the fire service, I’ve served under captains and leaders who have disliked my need for orderly clarity, but my current chief, Buck, understands that order creates a superior working environment. It’s one of the reasons why this town and these people have become my home.
Prior to moving to Rockhead Point, I considered the notion of friendship…disquieting. I understand and appreciate a clear chain of command, but applying order to friendship is almost impossible. Unlike many people I’ve encountered throughout my life, I have never found any benefit in companionship. I enjoy my own company and the quiet that being alone allows me. Or that was the way I felt until I came here.
Within a few moments of meeting my chief, Buck Henderson, I realized he was unlike anyone I’d met before. He’s intuitive, quiet when needed, loud when required, and from almost our first encounter, he embraced my need for structure and became one of the first people I’ve ever met whose company I didn’t despise.
His brother and second-in-command, Nero, though very different in personality from Buck, has added levity and enthusiasm to my world. One by one, our team—men I planned to work alongside but never expected to like—have become my…friends, something I’ve never had, or wanted before. Here in Rockhead Point with this team, my brothers-in-arms, I’ve found a family and a home for the first time.
Then I met Tori. Her addition to our group happened when her friend and ex-roommate, James, started a relationship with Buck. When James and Buck moved into Buck’s house, Tori moved into the house next door with Nero.
Tori and my relationship developed when she called one day and asked to use my kitchen. Despite having been invited into all of my teammates’ homes, I’d never opened my private space to them in return, because the thought of having people in my house is disquieting. But as I’m aware of societal expectations, I didn’t feel like I could refuse her without upsetting my position in our group, so I told her she could use my oven, silently despising the idea and the chaos her invasion would cause me. But instead of interrupting the flow of my life, she followed my rules without question. She anticipated how her interruption would affect me and mitigated the impact. In short, she got me in a way no one ever has before.
My smoke jumper brothers are my friends, but they don’t understand me, and I’ve never expected them to, or tried to explain myself to them. I’m an invited part of their group, but I’m still different in the way I’ve always been different.
But with Tori, I feel…normal.
Prior to becoming friends with her, my only interaction with women was sexual. Despite my general distaste for most people, I still feel sexual urges and desires, and I’ve had encounters with both men and women, but none have ever inspired a desire to spend more time with them once I’ve found physical release.
Not that I want to have sex with Tori—I don’t. Instead, she feels familiar, like the way Buck and Nero describe their feelings toward their sister, Juni. It’s been decades since I’ve spoken to my own sister, and I feel nothing but apathy toward her, but Tori is different. If she’d been the sister I’d been born with instead of Sylvia, perhaps I’d have a different relationship with the rest of my family.
While I find the term best friend strange, Tori is the person I choose to spend time with over everyone else. Or she was until I met my doll.
I don’t believe in magic or the arcane. Everything has reason and logic, which is why when I encountered my doll for the first time and identified her as my wife, I didn’t question it. This town, though very different from the army, has its own set of rules. The men here are decisive, act instinctually, and don’t abide by the constraints of societal norms.
Like animals, they find their mates and claim them. My doll is my mate. It’s as simple as that.
TWO
OCTAVIA
Idon’t like the quiet. I never have, not even when I was a baby. According to my mom and dad, the only way I’d sleep as an infant was with music playing or the TV on. Even now, I can’t sit in a silent room because it feels like the walls start to close in on me, and my mind gets too loud.
But it’s quiet now. When Abel left a little over two weeks ago, he took the TV remote and all of my charger cables with him. The stupid TV doesn’t even turn on without the remote, and my cell died days ago, so the only sound in this god-awful apartment is the nasty voices swirling around inside my head.
I shouldn’t even be in Rapid City right now. I was supposed to start my new job at Mountain Ink, my friend Betty’s tattoo studio, months ago, but when I gave notice on my apartment, my landlord tried to take ownership of my vintage Addams Family pinball machine, and I ended up having to go to court to get it back. The judge finally ruled in my favor three weeks ago, but here I am, still here, in a shitty Airbnb surrounded by boxes filled with my stuff.
Exhaling loudly, the sound of my own breath makes the silence seem even quieter as I flop onto my back and stare up at the ceiling above me. I’ve been living in this Airbnb for almost three months now, sleeping on this awful bed, while the rest of my things were being held hostage at my old place.
When Abel, my ex-boyfriend, called me eight weeks ago, I stupidly thought he was just being nice when he offered to speak to my landlord on my behalf. He said he had experience in being the voice of reason, and that maybe if a guy turned up, my asshole landlord might not feel like he could intimidate him.
Abel and I broke up almost six months ago. The split took us both by surprise, and even though we stopped having sex, we stayed friends because going completely no-contact felt wrong for both of us. I really thought he was just trying to be a good friend when he offered to help. Unfortunately, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and now it’s clear his offer of help was just his way of inserting himself back into my life.
The first time I met Abel was when he came into the studio to get a tattoo. Somebody he knew had shown him some work I’d done on them, and after that, he’d sought me out and booked a consult. He’s good-looking in a hipster kind of way, with black rim glasses and dimples that appear the moment his lips start to twitch into a grin.
He asked me out before we even finished the consult, and when I said no, he made it his mission to win me over. He was sweet and sexy and pushy, and I kind of liked being chased. I eventually said yes, and he took me out, and I honestly thought I’d found the one.
For the first few months, we were so wrapped up in each other that I didn’t realize we were spending all of our time together, and I didn’t notice I’d ditched my friends to be with him. I was so in love and lost in the honeymoon phase of our new and exciting relationship, and I thought I’d found my person. For the first time, I was infatuated, and we could barely keep our hands off each other.
It wasn’t until we’d been together for over a year that the stars in my eyes started to fade. He’d say and do things that sounded so reasonable I’d find myself agreeing with him, even if what he’d said was mean and hurtful. It was small things in the beginning. When we first met, he’d said he loved my gothic Lolita style, but then he started dropping hints that my dresses were a bit too much, or that he didn’t think I needed that much eyeliner, or that the frills on my socks were childish. He’d chide me for my opinions if they differed from his and shame me for my job, mocking tattooing as a profession and laughing at my insistence that it’s art.
