Gasket.
The old man was on his knees, working on a motorcycle and hadn’t seen me yet. I stared, my heart racing.
He was greyer than I remembered. His slicked-back hair and full beard were silver with flecks of dark chestnut, and his face was hard and weathered. Paired with his broad shoulders, ripped torso, and thighs the size of tree trunks, the hair colour seemed to be the only thing that had changed.
My mind conjured up childhood visions—him and my mother, his hand ruffling my hair, a present he’d brought me on my birthday, hushed words behind closed doors. Now that I knew what Fortitude really was, I began to wonder what his role in our lives had really been.
I’d always through he and my father were best of friends, but after my mother died, he’d disappeared along with Marini. If anyone was going to come and see me, it would’ve been Gasket, but he’d disappeared and I’d forgotten all about him. It wasn’t worth remembering—not then, but now…
Crossing the garage, I stood next to him. I kind of got why he never sought me out, considering the politics in this place were screwed up to the extreme, but the pack rule book didn’t forbid me to make contact.
He glanced up at me, sensing I was looming over him. “Well, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say to me?” I demanded.
Gasket stood, towering over me, and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. “It’s good to see you, kid, though I wish it were under better circumstances.”
“You and me both,” I replied, pulling away. He still smelled like spice, though it was now laced with motor oil and the distinct scent of werewolf.
“Never thought I’d see you again.” His eyes sparkled. “Thought you’d gone off and started some new life far away from this shit.”
I didn’t want to have ‘the conversation’ about what had happened to me in the last two weeks, let alone the last fifteen years—and especially not in front of the other wolves. Gasket knew what was going on. He had to.
I narrowed my eyes as he stared down at me. Silent challenges flew between us and I snorted. “You’ve got some serious explaining to do.”
“There’s nothing I can say that you don’t already know,” he told me.
It was yet another lie the pack was feeding me, and I didn’t like it. Anger welled up inside me and I turned away, squashing it down.
“B—” Gasket coughed. “Sloane—”
“What are you working on?” I interrupted.
“I’m tuning the engine on this hunk of junk.”
“How do you do that?” I asked, kneeling beside the motorcycle.
The air seemed to clear between us—a silent werewolf truce that filtered through the entire garage—and I sensed the eyes watching us turn away.
“What? You want to get your hands dirty? With pretty fingernails like those?” Gasket grinned and shook his head.
“Got nothing else to do.” I made a face. “You know full well I’ve been ordered to stay put. There’s only so much I can take.”
I turned my attention to the motorcycle. It was a pretty thing, all black and chrome. It was understated and not as big and bulky as the bikes lined up outside.
“What’s this part?” I asked, tapping the side underneath the handlebars. It was painted a shiny black with the model of the bike written on it in fancy lettering.
“That’s the fuel tank,” Gasket replied. “Here.”
Standing, he pointed out the different parts—the radiator, muffler, oil tank, shock absorbers, the engine casing, breaks, ignition, and clutch. There wasn’t much to it, but I had no idea what to do with a muffler.
“It’s a nice motorcycle,” I said. “But it’s a lot smaller than the others. They’re all beefed-up tricycles.”
“Tricycles?” one of the wolves called out. “Watch yourself, Sloane!”
Gasket snorted, covering up a smile. “Most of the men around here like their motorcycles big and sounding bigger.”
“Is it a dick thing?”
“A big dick thing!” Spike shouted from under the car, causing a roar of laughter to echo through the workshop.
“It’s Chaser’s,” Gasket said, watching me closely. “I hope he treated you good. He’s got a reputation, and it ain’t sunshine.”
“As well as can be expected when a bunch of fruitcakes are shooting at you,” I said, not letting the mention of his name show on my face.
Gasket snorted, not looking too pleased.
So this was Chaser’s bike. Now that I knew him better, something classic and simple suited him down to the ground. The vampire wasn’t showy, he just got the job done.
“I expected something…meaner,” I said, curling my lip.
Spike appeared on the other side of the bike and snorted. “Chaser’s a pretty boy. Pretty boys need pretty bikes.”
Gasket raised his eyebrows ever so slightly but said nothing.
“So, what are you doing to it? Giving it a tune-up or something?” I asked, steering the conversation away from dangerous waters. Rock the boat too much and I might get flustered and give myself up.
“Right on the money, sweets.”
“He hardly rides,” Spike said. “It’s a wonder it ain’t rusted through.”
“Oil, radiator, brakes, tire pressure, engine.” Gasket tapped each part as he rattled off his mental checklist. “You want to learn or something?”
“Can I?” I tilted my head to the side. It wasn’t bartending or studying to become an educated whatever, but it was something to do and a way to get closer to the wolves I wanted to win over.
Spike snorted and walked away, giving his verdict on the subject. Obviously, he thought I was joking.
Gasket narrowed his eyes and sighed, knowing full well what I was like. “C’mere.”
Smiling, I knelt beside him as he got back to work, telling me all the ins and outs of the engine. He handed me a spanner and got me tightening nuts and bolts so I could pretend I was actually helping. It was quite charming…if I were five years old.
“What the hell happened to you?” Spike exclaimed, his voice echoing over the music.
“I got a talkin’-to, that’s what happened.” Ratchet.
“For what?” Gasket rose to his feet, the tenor changing in his voice. One minute he was all fatherly and sweet, and the next, his big bad wolf was switched on. It was slightly terrifying.
Turning, I swallowed a gasp as I saw the swollen blob that was Ratchet’s eye socket, and I knew.
Marini.
Ratchet glared at me with his one good eye and said nothing. He knew he’d been played, used as a pawn in a game no one knew the rules to but the alpha.
I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything, Gasket grabbed my wrist and pulled me away from the engine. I dropped the spanner and it clattered to the concrete, the metallic clang echoing through the garage.
“Betty,” he exclaimed when he finally saw the tattoo on my thumb. The tattoo that’d already healed. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Don’t call me Betty,” I snapped, wrenching away from him.
“What are you trying to do? Get yourself killed?”
“You think this was me?” I hissed. “You think I wanted this? This was Marini. He ordered Ratchet—”
He wrenched me closer. “Shut your mouth.”
“Get your hands off me.” I couldn’t pull away. If I did, I’d out myself as a full-time wolf. Gasket seeing the healed tattoo was already too much.
“Don’t be stupid, Sloane. I remember your mother. She was the most intelligent woman I ever met. Be like your mother.”
“Don’t talk about my mother.”
“There’s more going on here than you realise,” he whispered. “I’m trying to help you, girl.”
My eyes widened and I relaxed as his grip loosened.
“Watch your footing,” he went on, raising his voice so the others could hear. “All of you. You know what Marini is like.”
Spike snorted
and I glanced at him, aware everyone in the garage was listening to our conversation. Ratchet continued to glare at me like a sullen child.
“He can’t do this,” I said to him. Marini wasn’t going to own me, let alone scare off every single wolf in this place—it was counterproductive to my secret plan for domination.
“What are you going to do, huh?” Ratchet asked, curling his lip. “He’s alpha.”
I couldn’t do anything, and everyone knew it. To them, I was just a human playing a werewolf’s game. I had no power here.
“You’ll see,” I muttered, turning my back on him. “You’ll all see.”
Chapter 8
Sloane
It was quiet in the compound.
Marini had beaten Ratchet for tattooing the pack logo on my thumb. The mark that signified I was property…the tattoo he’d ordered to be put there.
He was sending a message, one that’d been received loud and clear. The alpha’s daughter was off limits.
I didn’t want to believe it, but there was a minuscule part of me that’d hoped I was back because he wanted his daughter in his life. That this wasn’t about his pride or a shady blood sacrifice or even about power. Who wanted to follow an alpha who couldn’t control his own flesh and blood?
Holding up my hand, I stared at the tattoo. The same crossed swords that some past alpha-hole had tricked Chaser into being branded with. I wanted to throw up.
“What did I tell you?”
The sound of an enraged male voice tore me from my self-pity party, and my head jerked toward the direction of the common room.
“Stupid bitch.”
The sound of something crashing and a pained wail drew me forwards. I powered down the hall and into the common room. Screeching to a halt, my mouth fell open as I took in the scene before me.
Sam was on the ground, blood welling from a cut on her lip, and her face was stained with tears and smeared mascara. Harley stood over her, his fist raised and his face contorted with rage.
My heart twisted, painfully scraping at the sides of my chest cavity.
I watched Sam lying there, with Harley dominating her like a rabid beast, and I saw red. I sucked in a deep breath as a chill passed through me.
I saw Harley towering over Sam and it was her. It was my mother.
Harley had manipulated her good nature. He’d used her as a punching bag, abusing her emotionally and physically. He revealed in dominance and fed off violence. And it didn’t matter who it was, as long as he was in control of their terror. Why? Why?
The same thing Marini had done to my mother.
I didn’t think, I just flew into action.
My vision was tinted red with rage as I strode into the room.
I grabbed the pool cue off the table and held it high. “Get the hell off her!” I roared.
Harley’s gaze snapped to mine and his lip curled. The look in his eyes should’ve given me pause, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking away. I didn’t even blink as he attempted to intimidate me with his sheer size.
“What you goin’ to do with that?” he asked with a sneer.
“Get away from her,” I said again.
“She’s mine. That means I get to do what I want with her, and there ain’t nothin’ you can do to stop me.”
My fingers tightened around the pool cue, and I swallowed the knot of rage that was threatening to take my control. The wolf within was waking up…
“Sloane.”
Harley’s attention shifted at the sound of Gasket’s voice, and I struck. I kicked the wolf between the legs, the toe of my steel-capped boots colliding with his crotch. He doubled over with a cry of pain, and I cracked him on the back of the skull with the pool cue. Then I brought up my knee, slamming it into his face.
Harley groaned and blood dripped onto the concrete floor from his nose. I stepped back, a wickedly satisfying grin pulling at my lips. I was starting to understand what it meant to be part wolf. The snowballing of my transformation was triggering new sensations—sensations that should’ve frightened me but didn’t. They were natural.
“Bitch!” Harley exclaimed. “You broke my nose!” He lunged at me, his face crimson with rage.
I could see Gasket in my peripheral vision, readying himself to launch onto Harley, but I didn’t need him to fight my battles.
Not now, not ever.
Swinging the pool cue, it rapped him on the ear, and he slipped on his own blood and fell on his side. Hard.
I could’ve walked away from this. I could’ve kept my nose out of other people’s business and continued with my plan for low-key infiltration, but I just couldn’t. Not when I saw a man beating up on a woman, and not when I could do something about it.
Leaning over him, I resisted the urge to spit in his face. “If you touch her again, I’ll break more than your nose.”
“Sloane,” Gasket barked, the tone of his voice ordering me to stand down.
Reluctantly, I tossed the pool cue aside and backed off before I stabbed it through Harley’s eyeball. He deserved worse. Much worse.
“Watts, get Butcher,” Gasket went on, handing out instruction to the audience I wasn’t aware had gathered for Harley’s smackdown. “Rhodes, get a mop and haul Harley’s ass off the floor. Enough humiliation has been handed out for one day.”
That was considered enough? That was a drop in the ocean.
I dabbed a cotton bud on Sam’s lip and she hissed.
“That stings,” she said with a sniff.
“Of course, it stings,” I shot back. “That means it’s working.”
After I threatened Harley, I hadn’t waited around to see them drag him off the floor. Instead, I’d hauled Sam to her feet and got her out of there. We were now in my room. She was sitting on the end of my bed while I attempted to clean her up.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said, her eyes welling with tears.
“There was no way in hell I was standing by and letting him hit you.”
“He’s a werewolf, Sloane…” she told me. “He could’ve killed you.”
I grimaced. I hated lying to her, especially now. “I don’t care what he is, and I don’t care that I’m human…and it especially doesn’t matter that he’s a wolf. He shouldn’t treat you like that.”
“I know what he is,” she murmured. “But…I’m trapped.”
“Why?” I asked, my brow furrowing. “Why do you say that?”
Her gaze lowered. “You don’t understand.”
She was right. I didn’t understand. I’d always been strong and not afraid to speak my mind. I’d always stood up to men who tried to dominate me. Marini, Chaser, the unsavories who frequented the Sailor’s Arms. I’d never thought twice about protecting myself, so Sam was right. I didn’t understand, and I probably never would.
I could try to help her all I liked, but she had to want my help for it to mean something.
Sam was just one of many in this place. The stronger women—like Shondra, Raquel, Kelly, and Emily—were werewolves. They knew how to get by in a world driven by pack rules, but not Sam. Her humanity and her sweet, loving nature let her down time and time again.
I couldn’t help everyone, not if I wanted to take over Fortitude and use the pack to go head-to-head with the Hollow Men. Revenge was a dish best served cold, but it took an army to prepare a meal the size Chaser and I needed. Helping Sam might jeopardise everything.
Maybe I should just kill Marini and get the hell out of here. Maybe that was enough for now. We could get to the Hollow Men another way. Helping Sam was the right thing to do.
“Why?” she asked, turning my question back to me. “Why would you help me? I don’t even know you.”
Lowering my hand, I tossed the cotton ball into the bin and sighed. “When I walked in, I saw you lying there…but it wasn’t you.”
“What?”
“Marini used to beat my mum when I was a kid,” I said. “She tried to hide it from me…she would send me away so
I wouldn’t see, but kids are smart. I knew what he was doing to her. I was too little to stand up for her, but I can stand up for you now.”
Sam wiped her tears and glanced at the door.
“That’s awful,” she said, her entire demeanour changing. “I’m sorry that happened to her, but I’m not your mum.”
She stood and crossed the room, leaving me by the bed.
“If you want help, I can give it to you,” I said. “All you have to do is say the word.”
She turned, a smile plastered on her battered face—a smile that never reached her eyes.
“Harley loves me,” she declared. “He’ll protect me. Don’t worry, Sloane. Everything will be okay. You’ll see.”
Then she left.
Chapter 9
Sloane
When I needed Chaser’s reassurance, he was nowhere to be found.
But that was the life we’d signed up for when we decided to come back to Fortitude. Scratch that—it was my idea. I’d forced him to come along for the ride, and now I was in trouble. Big trouble.
I’d come in here with my bravado and newly awakened werewolf powers, but I couldn’t let go of my feminist ideals long enough to grasp the bigger picture. Instead of saving one life along the way, I might save them all.
When Harley turned up with a sticky plaster across his nose and two black eyes , it wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped. There was murder in his eyes, and it was aimed directly at me.
Chaser said he would keep watch over me, but I hadn’t seen him in days. Not fighting by his side was hollow. It was strange how much he’d come to mean to me in such a short amount of time…and how starkly I felt it when he wasn’t here.
Chaser didn’t give me courage—only I could do that—but the thought of us being together at the end of all this, free…well, that was something to be courageous for.
“Your father wants you to have dinner with him.”
I glanced up at Gasket and scowled. It was so freaking hot, the leather sofa in the common room was sticking to the backs of my thighs. I’d forgotten how sweltering Melbourne could be when it turned up the heat.
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