I hurriedly pulled Chantal toward Bomber. “Stick by Bomber, Wooly, Mammoth, or Brace. Everyone else will be too busy, and I want someone to keep an eye on you while I’m handling business.”
“I got it,” she assured me, then moved closer to Bomber. “Is there something I can help with?”
“Can you cook?”
“I can,” she told him with a smile as the two moved off toward the kitchen area. It appeased me to know she would be busy and safely tucked away with someone I trusted. That was also the only reason I managed to make it so quickly to the room where we were currently keeping the rogue panther we had caught lurking around Chantal’s place.
“Listen up, asshole, because I’m only going to ask once. I want to know exactly who you are, who you work for, and what orders you were given in regards to Chantal Piper.” Knox rattled his demand off to the panther who just sat in the corner looking defeated as hell.
“What I want to know is what sort of dumb fuck sends a failure of a lacky to collect a woman he supposedly planned on claiming for himself?” I added. That got the asshole’s attention. Apparently, he had a lot of love for his boss or disliked being called a failure.
“You don’t want to be disrespecting the council members like that,” he offered along with an ineffectual sneer. Noted. It didn’t matter that I called him a failure, so long as I did not bad mouth his employer.
“Answer my fucking questions before I lose my patience with you.” Knox wasn’t fucking around with this guy any longer.
“Name’s Jake Hawthorn,” he informed us. We had the room wired, so no doubt, Aces was already on it. He was our in-house information technology specialist. “I work for Raven Blackwell,” he started to say.
“Raven Blackwell? His parents were kind of redundant, weren’t they? ‘I work for mister Black Black’,” Brace said in the most condescending voice he could as he closed the door behind himself. He handed a piece of paper to Knox. No doubt it was confirmation about what we had already been told so far at Chantal’s place, and would just confirm what the asshole was telling us again now.
Jake, the epic failure of his kind, rolled his eyes at Brace’s antics and continued on. “Raven is one of the Council of Cats. He was promised Chantal Piper, just as the two other councilmen were promised her sisters. Only one has managed to get close.”
“How are you keeping in contact with Raven?” I asked.
“My cell,” he admitted openly. I didn’t trust the fact that he was being so open with the information he was giving us. At the same time, my gift led me to believe he wasn’t being deceptive. “I’m not trying to pull one over on you. It serves no purpose to lie to you at this point. There will be hell to pay for my failure in securing the woman for Raven. He will want retribution. Some of that will be my price to pay, the rest, he’ll want off the backs of the men who tried to harm Miss Piper.”
“And what of our club who intervened on her behalf?” Knox asked.
“He can’t really hold you responsible for something done in her defense, now can he?”
“He also can’t take her away since she’s my mate,” I countered.
He lowered his head in defeat once more. “That fact will sting, but I can’t say as to how he will react or behave when he finds out.”
“We’ll see real soon. He has been alerted to the situation,” Knox informed us. I had been so preoccupied with the man in front of me and the questions rolling around in my mind that I didn’t even notice he had been plugging away at a cell phone. “They’ll be here tomorrow,” he confirmed. “I think we’re done here.” Knox turned back to Jake. “You get to cool your heels in here until your master comes to collect you.”
As we left the windowless, soundproofed room we had tucked away on the upper level for unwanted guests, Snow approached us. “I brought Verity, figured she could help your new woman get adjusted. Can’t be easy being thrown into our world when she’s been on her own for so long.” I nodded my appreciation to him. Snow turned to Knox afterward asking, “Do you think this might have something to do with the group who took my sister?”
“Too soon to tell. All we know about the others is that one was a leopard, the other a vulture, and they probably weren’t acting alone. It’s possible. We have Aces on it, but I need you to gather as much information as you can. We’re putting Thian with Aces to get us everything we need on the Council members too.”
Snow, being the SAA, and a no-nonsense kind of guy, took off to get busy doing his part and hunting down the leads we would need to take the bastards out. I turned to Knox and Brace. “Chantal isn’t going with them. We’ve already been bonded and she’s taken the leopard form to match my animal. There’s nothing they can possibly use to undo that, right?”
“Not that I know of, Gray. Don’t worry, your woman isn’t going anywhere without us fighting the whole damn way.”
“I’m going to check on her, make sure she’s settled with Bomber and Verity.” I took off and got about three steps away before I turned back. “Do not hesitate to get me if something pops or if the council jerkoff shows. Can’t believe that fuckwit was trying to send someone else to claim a woman for him. What the fuck kind of alpha does that?”
“The kind that hasn’t been challenged in a really long time and doesn’t know how to handle his business any longer,” Brace surmised. I couldn’t disagree with him. It took a fuck-ton of ego, and just as much stupidity, to send someone to claim a mate for you.
“I’ll head down with you,” Brace told me as he jingled a shiny little gem on the end of a gold chain. “I want to see what dragon-breath does when I dangle a shiny in front of him.” He chuckled to himself, and once again I wondered if Chantal hadn’t hit the nail on the head. Brace and Bomber definitely had a weird chemistry. Looking at it one way, they were like close siblings who pranked one another, fought, squabbled, made up, and defended one another fiercely. Then again, there were the looks too, or more notable the times when they looked away too quickly so as not to get caught. It made me wonder why I’d never inadvertently picked up on something more between them.
I shrugged off the thought as we made our way down to the lower level of the clubhouse in order to find Chantal making enough food to feed an army. “Holy shit, when you asked if she was any good at cooking, I’m pretty sure she didn’t think you meant to turn her into the club’s personal chef,” I scolded Bomber as if he were a child and not my club brother.
“Calm your tits,” he hissed at me, eyes narrowed, before turning a beaming smile back to my woman. “She wanted to do this. I told her to help me make sandwiches for everyone.”
“And I said that all these strong, capable men running around doing all of this work for me needed to be fed better than just sandwiches.”
“Moonbeam,” I hummed out as I approached her and planted a kiss right over the mark I’d left during our claiming. “Love that you want to take care of my brothers, but they would have been ecstatic with sandwiches they didn’t have to make themselves.”
Bomber chuckled. “I tried to tell her that.” He was distracted as he got to the last word, and I saw his eyes continuously flicker off to Brace who was busy twirling the gold chain with the green gem attached to the end of it around on his finger as he whistled a little tune. Damn if he hadn’t been right. The dragon couldn’t manage to look away for any length of time. It was like he was mesmerized.
Brace glanced between me and Bomber and chuckled. “Told ya,” he laughed. While his attention was on me, Bomber reached out and snatched the chain mid-arc in another swirl around Brace’s finger. He plucked the gem and gold chain out of the air and deposited it straight into his pocket. Chantal just stared at the scene in awe of what just took place.
“If anything shiny of mine ever goes missing, I want you to know you’re my number one suspect,” she told Bomber. Brace burst out laughing while Bomber failed to contain the blush of embarrassment on his cheeks.
15
Cooking with a dragon in the kitchen actuall
y proved to be a fun adventure. “Can you try this one, but a little lower heat this time?” I asked, fascinated at the results of the first attempt.
“You do know I’m not a fucking Easy Bake Oven, right?” He asked me as he rolled his eyes and glanced at the fresh, though unbaked, garlic bread I had sitting on the pan.
“Of course, everyone knows that you can’t change temperature settings in an Easy Bake Oven, silly.” Bomber had been half way through ‘baking’ my garlic bread to perfection when he sputtered out a cough and charred all the remaining pieces. I shrugged while laughing off his failure since I had caused the response. “No worries, there’s more where that came from,” I told him as I scraped the blackened bricks into the trash.
“Is this really the first time you’ve ever experimented with cooking while using your dragon’s fire?” Verity asked him while trying to hide her laughter.
“Why on Earth would I have attempted to cook with my fire before?” He asked her, his mock ire forcing a bit of a European accent from his lips.
Verity shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s something I would have experimented with in my teen years if I had the capability.”
Bomber rolled his eyes at the two of us. “I still think you should have just made sandwiches.”
“Those men out there,” I pointed to where everyone was gathered in the other rooms of the clubhouse. “They are working their asses off, and maybe putting themselves in danger, to find out who did this to me.” I glanced down at my legs, which in human form simply held minimal scarring akin to what one might see on a burn victim. There was no telling if the scarring would remain or if I was still healing. Magical wounds were tricky that way.
“Yes, and they would all gladly do it even if you weren’t offering up sandwiches. Your mate is the Vice President of the West Michigan Chapter of the Dark Leopards Motorcycle Club, lovey. You have to know that means something to them.”
“Sure, it does. That doesn’t mean I can’t show my appreciation and take care of them while they’re taking such care with my situation,” I reiterated. Bomber leaned in and kissed my forehead then. It was the only place his body touched mine as he completed the gesture quickly and then retreated as if he couldn’t believe he had just done that.
“Besides,” I carried on, brushing off his affection quickly, since it seemed to bother him on some level. “It’s just pasta,” I added with a shrug.
“Just pasta,” he scoffed. “And the motorcycle I ride is ‘just a Harley’.” I turned to stare up into his lavender eyes.
“What does that mean?”
His eyes grew wide in surprise as he sputtered. “W-what does that mean? I’ll have you know that my Harley is the crème de le crème of Harleys. It has been –”
I cut him off. “The only Harley I saw you riding since I’ve been here was Brace,” I countered. When I watched his face grow red and heard the stifled giggles coming from Verity, I had to rethink my wording. “Brace’s Harley. You know, you were riding bitch when we…” The shade of red gracing Bomber’s face then was incredible. “Shit,” I mumbled. “When you had to –”
It was Bomber’s turn to interrupt me that time. “Enough. You know, all you had to say was that you had never seen my Harley, Chantal. The rest was just unnecessary.” He turned his back to me and I wondered if I had truly offended him or if he was just playing as though he were.
“Well, whatever the case, I don’t judge. Maybe you enjoy riding bitch so you can snatch people’s shiniest things as you drive by. Kind of like a modern day pirate, only on a motorcycle instead of a boat.”
Bomber turned to me, mouth agape, eyes wide, and looking completely put out. “There are so many things wrong with what you just said that I don’t even know where to start,” he finally managed to huff out.
I tossed my shoulders up and down as if I didn’t have a care in the world. Inside, my heart was singing at the teasing interaction with the man. I hadn’t felt this light and free since I’d been able to tease and lovingly torture my sisters. That seemed another lifetime ago. “Like I said, I don’t judge,” I told him again, this time unable to hide my own laughter as Verity lost it.
“Women! There’s a reason men kept you lot in the kitchen for so long.” He shuffled over to the table and pulled out a chair to flounce his ass into as I turned back to my task.
“I don’t even take offense. Men had to put us in the kitchen because they’d starve if someone didn’t actually get the work done,” I bickered back.
“Tell me, little moonbeam kitty, do you regret your choice yet?”
I turned to see the playful banter had come to an end and Bomber was being far more serious than I had ever seen him. Not that my experience with the man was extensive, but usually there was a playful quality to him that made you not take him as seriously as some of the other men I’d encountered in the club.
“I’m just going to go and check on the men and see if anyone needs a drink or anything,” Verity told us as she quickly turned on her heels and left the room.
“I don’t regret a single thing,” I answered honestly. “How could I have any regrets when Gray saved me from losing more of my pelt, possibly the whole thing and my life along with it?”
Bomber didn’t answer my question. He simply sat, patiently waiting for the rest of what I had to say. “Gray is everything I could have hoped for in a mate,” I went on.
“You haven’t known one another that long,” he countered.
“When you find your mate, and you form that bond, there are things that you intrinsically know about them that would take a normal couple ages to discover. I already know that there wasn’t a better choice in this world for me than that man. I happen to be even luckier though. Not only did I get him for a mate, but I got his club as a family. You all might not feel that way about me just yet, but I already feel it about many of you.” I allowed the affection I truly felt for him and some of the others to come pouring out through my words. He needed to understand that I meant what I said.
“I don’t have a mate.” The way he said it meant that Bomber unequivocally believed what he said was true.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because when I found her, it was just in time to watch her die.”
What the hell could I say to that. “Oh, Bomber, I’m so sorry to hear that.” He shrugged as if it was nothing, but I knew better. Every single person who was waiting to find their mate knew what that meant for him. He would never have that complete feeling that a bond would represent. Instead, he would have to always settle for something lesser, unless he came across one of his own kind that had also lost her potential mate somehow. I was about to say something to that effect, but he shook his head.
“I know what you’re thinking, but there’s no option like that out there for my kind. We are a rare breed these days after being over hunted. Even more rare are the female dragons.”
“I didn’t mean to overstep,” I admitted. He simply waved it all off.
“Do you think you can leave that for a moment?”
I glanced in at the noodles, noting they were pretty much done and turned the heat off on the pot. “Sure.”
“I want to show you something,” Bomber told me as he winked and held his hand out for me to take.
“What are you going to show me?”
“It’s a secret. You can’t tell anyone, but if you find anything in there that you want, let me know. It will be my gift to welcome you into the family.”
My eyes must have rounded substantially in surprise, because that could only mean one thing. He was taking me to see his hoard. “Seriously?” I whispered.
“Seriously,” he answered as we moved through the too-quiet clubhouse. I wasn’t sure where everyone went to conduct their meeting, but it was definitely not out in the main room. Once we managed to get to Bomber’s room, I had to laugh because the dragon had to work his way through about seven different locks on the door plus a legitimate, not kidding, biometr
ics scanner that he had to look into a little eye scan thing in order to get the final lock to release.
“Wow, I guess no one is getting in here without you knowing it, huh?” I was teasing him, but he was dead serious when he responded.
“My brothers wouldn’t even try, but this is just in case the clubhouse is ever infiltrated or one of the other people they bring around decides to get curious.”
“I see. So, you’re saying I have nothing to worry about when it comes to my safety here because you believe every member is trustworthy?”
He nodded his head at me then. “I wouldn’t be here if any of them could possibly be capable of doing what happened to you.”
“I didn’t say that,” I told him, although it had been my worry.
“I know you didn’t. But it had to be a concern in the back of your mind. I’m sure you’ve made your mind up about most of the men by now, but there are some you couldn’t get a read on right away.” It wasn’t a question and it was then that I realized Bomber had been paying way more attention than I ever thought.
When he finally pushed his door open all I could do was stand there and gape, momentarily stunned by what I was seeing. “Are you kidding me right now?” I finally managed to move the words past my lips.
Bomber snickers. “Too much?” He asked while taking hold of my hand and yanking me inside.
“Too much might still be an understatement. Where exactly do you sleep?”
He grinned at me before doing a full-body dive into a pile of his treasures. I noticed then that some of the shinier things slipped out of the way to reveal a pile of rich velvets and silks beneath him. “I have a nest.” He patted the space next to him, but I simply shook my head.
“I’m not trying to get you killed, dragon boy. If my mate found out I put my body in your nest willingly, I bet he wouldn’t be happy at all. It would have the added bonus of making me miserable, knowing that I caused his hurt.”
Bomber’s grin widened so much that it caused his already slightly slanted, exotic purplish eyes to tip up even further. “And that is why you get to pick,” he offered with his arms flung wide indicating the room.
Ridden by Darkness Page 7