Ridden by Darkness

by Michelle, Christine

  It only took a quick glimpse out the back door to note that the gate at the back of the space, that led into an alley way of sorts, had been damaged pretty badly. There was no way out except up and over the wall. “I’ll check it out thoroughly,” Mammoth informed me before moving off and sniffing around the yard. It would have been easier if we could shift in public places and use our senses in our animal form, but that shit was off the table while our kind were still hiding in plain sight from the humans.

  I texted Bomber to let him know someone had been here and to keep a lookout for motorcycle boots. One good thing about our club accepting strays, who weren’t cats, was that it gave us some of the best eyes in the sky a club could ask for. It also gave us amazing trackers, as was the case with the bears. It had been one of the deciding factors in me joining the MC rather than trying to find a leap to belong to. I liked that they took in others, alphas who didn’t want to follow the same rules of the human society or our own preternatural one.

  “How much room do I have for my stuff? I have a few bags that are absolutely necessary, and a couple with clothes,” Chantal was saying as she walked into her living room where I was filling Knox in on what was going on since he had been preoccupied with a call after our arrival. She stopped and I watched as fear washed the color out of her face as she glanced at something over my shoulder. I turned to see the mantel, which had some pictures and keepsakes on it.

  “What is it?” I asked as she slowly moved to stand before an empty spot.

  “There used to be a picture here.” She swiped her hand across the empty area. “Me and my sisters when we were little girls,” she whispered. I didn’t have to tell her how important that was. It meant that whoever was behind her abduction knew she was a triplet. It meant that they either already knew exactly who and what she was, or that they were now after her sisters as a result of that picture. “Did I accidentally paint a target on my sisters’ backs?”

  “No, babe,” I told her as I pulled her into my arms. “You didn’t do that. We don’t know why these guys even caught on to who and what you are. It could have been the other way around. Could just be a coincidence too. We don’t know, and I don’t want you going around with that image stuck in your head. We’ll discuss options when we get back to the clubhouse.”

  She nodded her head into my shoulder. “About my stuff?”

  “There’s plenty of room in the vehicle the prospect drove up here. You’ll still be on my bike for the ride back to the clubhouse.” As I mentioned that, we all tuned into sounds of a scuffle happening out front. We all took off running, except for Wooly and the prospect, who stayed behind to guard Chantal.

  Bomber had a cat pinned beneath him. The thing was fighting like mad to gain his freedom, but to no avail. The cat was a pure black panther that was snapping his teeth, trying to get hold of Bomber as he attempted to subdue the creature. Once we all pitched in, the panther was easily tied up and quickly moved into the condo so as not to draw attention to what was going on. We didn’t need any nosy neighbors calling the human police to come deal with a supernatural problem. That would just mean time lost and energy wasted before we could get to the others responsible for harming my mate.

  “Who the fuck do we have here?” Knox asked the pissed off panther.

  “Oh my God, that’s him!” Chantal cried out. “That’s the one who grabbed me.”

  “Are you sure? I thought you didn’t see him,” Knox questioned.

  “I didn’t. I smelled him though.” My woman crinkled up her cute little nose in distaste. “Trust me, that’s the same one.”

  “Hey, fucker! I’m pretty sure my woman just told us that you stink.” I taunted him. He wasted no time in changing to his human form then.

  “She’s not your woman!” He snarled. “She’s meant for Raven.”

  “Well, your little buddies tried to take her pelt in an alley in Kalamazoo, so apparently she was never going to make it to this Raven anyway.”

  “No!” He blanched noticeably as he hissed out his response. “They said she escaped. I came looking for her. We were supposed to be protecting her.”

  “If you meant to protect her, you shouldn’t have left her alone with two assholes who obviously knew exactly what she was.”

  The man hung his head in obvious shame and agreement. Then he sniffed the air and glared up at me. “You took her for your own?” His question was more accusation than anything.

  “No, she chose me because she needed someone to save her from the mess you left her in.”

  “Fuck!” He yelled. “I have to go. I have to let them know what happened. She was promised to Raven. They will not be happy about this.”

  “Who the fuck are ‘they’ that you keep talking about?” Knox spat out at him.

  “The council,” he hissed back. “Raven sits at the head, and you just fucked up,” he added while glaring at me.

  “The council?” Mammoth asked.

  “I think you fucked up and left her with some fuckers that couldn’t be trusted. One of them wasn’t even feline. He was a fucking vulture.”

  The man’s head snapped back. “I did no such thing. I left her with Ward, a leopard.”

  “She was with a leopard and a vulture when I got there. Either he was working with the bird, you both were, or this Ward guy was taken out by the vulture. Considering what was done to her was a two person job, and she told us there was a leopard and a vulture attempting to skin her pelt from her body, I’m guessing your cat sold you up river. This failure will fall on your shoulders, right?” I ventured the guess. I knew I was right the moment he mentioned the council though. There was a Council of Cats that met to discuss issues pertaining to feline shifters world-wide. They were to meet soon to discuss, once again, the possibility of coming out to the humans as a separate race. Many of our kind were tired of hiding who we were and what we could do.

  “Why would this Raven want me?”

  “You are one of the three,” the panther stated.

  “My sisters?” she asked. The panther nodded. “You have my sisters?”

  He shook his head then. “We had one, she is in hiding now after an attempt on her life. We were trying to avoid that with you when I came for you.”

  “The other?” I asked after the third.

  “We are still trying to locate her. I really must contact the council. They will not be happy to note that others have become involved.” He glanced wearily at Bomber, Wooly, and Mammoth. “How can you degrade your kind by working so closely with the likes of them?”

  Let’s just say that in some circles, there was an elite, racist quality to the way things were conducted. Certain species of shifters usually stuck together and didn’t intermingle with others unless they were forced to. This wasn’t a new thing, but one I had no tolerance for, especially since the men he was looking at with such disgust were my brothers.

  “Those men are the ones protecting Chantal where you failed.” My words were laced with venom as I spoke. “You said she was meant for Raven? Says who? Why? I have so many fucking questions and you’re going to come with us until we can get them answered.”

  “You know we’re not letting you go until we verify the information, but even if we do, you aren’t taking her with you.” Knox was no-nonsense as he spoke and gave the signal for everyone to start wrapping up what we were doing. It was possible this guy had already signaled whoever he worked for, and since we still didn’t know the truth of the matter, we had to get back to our own territory as quickly as possible.

  “Might want to put in a call to the rest of the Michigan Chapters,” I told Knox as we moved to leave. “Backup might be necessary depending on how this all goes down.”

  “Already working on it,” he assured me. Not that I would ever doubt that he was two steps ahead of me. Knox was our President for a reason. The man was a mastermind.

  13

  The drive back to the clubhouse was quieter and more restrained than the previous one. While I still
appreciated the closeness the bike afforded Gray and me, it was a bit disconcerting to know that the panther we had encountered at my condo – the one who kidnapped me – was in the trunk of a vehicle being driven by the prospect that everyone kept referring to as Kid. Normally, I wouldn’t second guess the men’s judgment on that, but they called the boy ‘Kid’ for a reason, he didn’t look much older than 15, if that.

  Instead of enjoying the ride, I spent almost the whole hour it took to get us back wondering what they were planning to do with the panther they had caught. Obviously, he would be interrogated in order to try to find the leopard who had been helping him. I wondered if the man known as Ward was the same one who destroyed my beautiful pelt, or if he had been dispatched to the eternal beyond by the ones who did. Sure, it was morbid to think that way, but in my life, every possibility mattered. I knew, as well as the men of the MC, that my life would continue to be in danger until the original threat was completely neutralized.

  Then there was the part of me that couldn’t let go of the fact that a picture of my sisters and I was missing from my mantel. They’d been in my condo, going through my belongings, and I’d led them straight to my family. If anything happened to them, our separation would have been for nothing.

  The best part of the ride, aside from my body plastered to Gray’s, was also the shortest part. For the fifteen minutes prior to us pulling up at the clubhouse, Bomber and Brace appeared to be squabbling like an old married couple, but whatever they were whispering to one another was lost on the wind before it reached me. The overcast skies that had allowed Bomber to fly in his dragon form to my condo, had scattered to reveal a beautiful clear blue day. Unfortunately, the prospect only had a small car with him, and the trunk was full of panther, so my belongings were placed in the back and the passenger seats of the vehicle.

  “Stop!” Brace yipped just before we got back to the clubhouse. “That tickles!” I don’t think any of the men caught what was being said, as I probably wouldn’t have either if the two men hadn’t captured my complete attention. Their interactions made me curious about their relationship status. Being a shifter and also being gay was usually frowned upon in our world. It meant that someone’s mate would go unmated, and that was seen as a tragic set of circumstances in everyone’s eyes. If you asked me, I didn’t think that the shifters who felt a pull to another had a mate waiting for them. It was probably too bad that no one ever listened to my theories. If more people believed it, then maybe Bomber and Brace wouldn’t be trying so hard to keep their hands off of one another in public.

  I had a moment to briefly wonder if the men of the club would still accept them if they knew. I ran my fingers gently over Gray’s abs as he pulled into the compound and parked his motorcycle, keeping it steadied as I maneuvered myself off.

  “You okay?” Gray asked as he kicked the stand down while hopping off the motorcycle in one smooth, practiced motion. It was clear he had been riding for a long time. Then again, that could have just been the natural grace of his leopard at play. Either way, the unintentional dance he just did for me had all of my womanly parts wishing that he was mine and only mine for the next few hours.

  “Member meeting,” Knox called out, killing my daydreams. Gray turned a very knowing look on me and winked as he took my arm and guided me into the building.

  “I promise, I’m all yours once we get this mess sorted, and figure out what to do with the panther we brought back. In the meantime, I’ll get the kid to take your things up to our room.”

  Gray knew what I was thinking, and realizing that his head was in the same place was enough to satiate my needs, at least for the moment.

  I continued to watch Brace and Bomber’s interactions once we got inside the clubhouse. The two stayed huddled near one another as everyone else just sort of fluttered around, talking in small groups or floating between the various members. The dynamics of the multi-breed motorcycle club were what one might expect. Most of the leopards and other larger cats congregated together while different shifter breeds were off in their own huddles. Not that there was animosity between the groups, just that it was in their nature. Like seeks out like, and there was no better example than the men standing in the wide open room with me.

  The clear difference being that Bomber – a dragon – and Brace – a panther – couldn’t stay away from one another and basically ignored everyone else. I continued to watch them as Gray spent some time talking to a few of the other men who I’d made brief introductions with when I showed the members that I had taken on the form of a leopard as Gray’s new mate.

  By the time my mate made his way back to me, I hadn’t managed a single conversation with anyone. My people watching had been on point though. “You doing okay?” He asked me as drew closer.

  “I’m fine,” I told him just as an argument erupted among the two men I was the most intrigued with.

  14

  The clubhouse was buzzing with members when we got back. For once, they weren’t just partying or prepping to party. They were getting ready to go to war, just in case it was necessary. I hated that Chantal had to wander around on her own for a moment, but I needed to discuss things with some of the men who had already shown up from other chapters.

  “Do you think the panther will lead us to anyone?” Pickup, one of the leopards from the East Michigan Chapter asked me.

  I turned to see his large frame towering over me. The man was six feet, nine inches tall and damn near as broad. He was an anomaly amongst cats. If I had to guess what he was while looking at him from afar, I would definitely have placed him in Grizzly territory instead of the cat world. Thankfully, seeing his gigantic frame pulled me back to the here and now instead of where my mind had wandered – to the other side of the room where Chantal was taking everything in.

  For some reason, she seemed to be mostly fixated on Bomber and Brace, the unintentional comedians of our clubhouse. They were always at each other’s throats which afforded the rest of us some harmless entertainment on a normal day. The two seemed subdued, so I couldn’t figure out why my mate seemed so focused on them. A throat clearing made me turn back to Pickup again. “Shit! Sorry, brother,” I offered him.

  The grin he wore widened as he clapped one of his giant hands down hard on my shoulder. I gritted my teeth on impact as he shook my just a bit.

  “I get it. It’s not everyday you find you mate, and to have one so special,” he started as his eyes drifted toward my woman. “The men spoke of her beautiful leopard earlier. I think it’s good that the mating bond cannot be undone or you would find yourself with some serious competition from your brothers,” he told me, his words full of mock torment.

  I didn’t think he was wrong though. “The panther will lead us to the others,” I finally answered his original question.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “He trusted the wrong people with something as precious as my mate, before she was claimed. I have no doubt the one who sent for her will want to personally punish him for farming out his work. I know I would if I lost even a chance with her.” My head turned, of it’s own damn free will once more, eyes seeking out my mate without a second thought.

  Pickup chuckled. “You should go to her. Get her settled, and then we will all be able to focus on our meeting.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably for the best,” I agreed. My feet were already carrying me in her direction, away from Pickup, as I responded making his low chuckle turn into a full belly laugh.

  Chantal stood near the bar, but huddled in a corner, smirk firmly in place as she watched the damn dragon and panther duo as if they were the most interesting people in the room. It stung a bit, because she didn’t seem to have the same predilection to searching me out as I did for her. A part of me wondered if she worried she made the wrong choice in claiming me. Maybe the thoughts of whatever the treasure the dragon had hidden away was making her second guess me as her mate. Then again, Brace was a charming fucker, even if he was a panther. I huffed
out my frustration just before I reached her.

  Once I did, all my worries blew away with the smile she bestowed upon me as I slipped my arm around her.

  “You doing okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she answered as she put her arm around my waist in return. Her focus never left the two men though once she slid into my hold. I had just been about to question her interest in them when Brace’s voice rose above the din of voices nearby.

  “Why don’t you go sit on your hoard, and keep your shiny shit warm?” Brace called out. I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on between the two of them, but it was clear there was some sort of tension the rest of us had been missing.

  “Are they having a lover’s quarrel?” Chantal tried to ask me as quietly as possible, for all the good her lowered voice did. They still heard her. Bomber sputtered out the sip of beer he’d just taken while Brace turned, red-faced toward Chantal with a slack-jawed look of disbelief.

  “We have work to do,” Bomber muttered before turning away from everyone and stalking off.

  “Sorry,” Chantal whispered. I was beginning to think she was on to something though. Now that it had been pointed out, her question made so much sense.

  “Stay in your own lane,” Brace told me when he noticed the question in my eyes. Then he shoved me out of his way with a stiff shoulder check. The sulky panther turned back to grin at Chantal though, giving her a wink as he did. “You’re still my new bestie, sweetness!”

  “Oh!” she called out in mock surprise. “I can die fulfilled now!”

  Everyone laughed at her response, and it was just the thing to break the rest of the tension in the room. “Gray!” Knox’s voice boomed across the clubhouse. “Let’s go!”