Fire Of Love
Page 1
Table of Contents
End of Book 2– Please Read This
Get Your FREE Preston Walker Book
Important information…
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
Acknowledgments
Fire Of Love
Fire Of Love
Savage Love: Book 2
Preston Walker
Contents
Get Your FREE Preston Walker Book
Important information…
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
End of Book 2– Please Read This
Acknowledgments
Fire Of Love
Get Your FREE Preston Walker Book
Get your free prequel to the Savage Love Series sent straight to your email inbox. Just click here.
Important information…
This book, “Fire Of Love” is the Second book in the Savage Love Series. However, this book and every other book in the series can be read as a stand-alone. Thus, it is not required to read the first book to understand the second (as so on). Each book can be read by itself.
1
Moody looked at his email in disbelief, wondering if it was actually possible that he could have such shitty luck. His name was on the roster for this week’s patrol. That wasn’t such a terrible thing. He was used to the patrols. Except, this time, he was paired up with the very last person he would ever choose to do something like this with.
“Wonder if I can complain,” he muttered to himself, knowing there was absolutely no use in even trying. Even if he went around and tried to ask someone to trade with him, he wouldn’t get very far. No one would want to pair up with that person.
Not that anyone would be too excited about the idea of playing sidekick to Moody, either. He lived up to his name, had done it on purpose so often that it kind of stuck, and now he was just, well, moody.
Tossing his phone aside, Moody leaned back on his bed and folded his arms up underneath his head as a sort of makeshift pillow. He studied the cracks in the cement ceiling, then closed his eyes. No use. He couldn’t come up with an excuse to get out of this, and he shouldn’t even bother making an attempt, shouldn’t even bother with trying to think about it. There had been some big changes in the pack recently. Everyone else was handling it. He should be able to do the same. It didn’t matter that he was only an omega and would be expected to cave under the pressure. He just wouldn’t do it. He did have some pride, after all.
Months ago, two lovers had come together to put their differences aside. An alpha wolf named Cain, and an omega named Ralphie. They had a child together, finally finding peace in a relationship that took two tries to get right. That should have been a good thing. Love usually was.
Unfortunately, the two of them were from separate packs. Enemy packs. Cain was a biker from the club of Shadow Claws, which ruled over the west half of the city of Pensacola, Florida. Ralphie was from the east, a member of Lethal Freedom.
After their romance was discovered, tensions soared between the two packs. Then, an enormous threat had arisen in the form of a murderous third pack that wanted to take over the city for their own purposes. Shadow Claws and Lethal Freedom united forces to beat back the threat, and in the process, the SC leader, Destiny, had fallen in love with the younger brother of LF’s leader. They had a kid now, an infant named Axel. But, there had been some heavy fallout from that conflict with the invading pack. Both motorcycle clubs had suffered heavy casualties and terrible deaths. LF’s leader had gone into hiding.
The packs were supposed to be uniting, working together to repair the bad blood and the more recent damages between them. It wasn’t going exactly as planned.
As many changes as there had been, nothing had really changed at all. The wounds were still too new. No one trusted each other. And despite the fact that they were supposed to be one pack now, one conjoined motorcycle club, the wolves still referred to themselves in a separate manner. Lethal Freedom. Shadow Claws. If there was unity, Moody had yet to see it.
Some wolves thought it was unfair that Destiny be the one who was in charge of both groups. He would naturally favor the members of his pack.
Moody knew that wasn’t true. Destiny really considered everyone one pack now. Everyone was his pack. There was no separation in his leader’s mind.
Then again, Moody had formerly been of Shadow Claws. Maybe he was a bit biased in favor of Destiny. Really though, anyone would be. That alpha only had to look in your direction to get you pregnant.
Which brought Moody back to the current dilemma. Before, the separate packs had patrolled their own territories. United, the entire city was one big territory. To keep it even and fair, Destiny assigned a new member from each group to do a patrol to make sure things were going smoothly. Fair was fair. No one could complain about being treated equally and evenly.
Except, they could. There were less members of LF remaining, since they had suffered the heaviest losses. That meant they were patrolling more frequently, since their rotation was smaller. Most of them understood the reason. They complained anyway.
Now Moody had been paired up with the last person he wanted to be with. He had known this day was going to come. Even before all this, Destiny had been so intensely invested in maintaining order in his pack that he did absolutely everything he could to ensure no rifts formed. That meant making sure everyone spent at least some time with everyone else. That meant Moody would be spending time with them sooner or later.
He’d just been hoping it would be later.
If he complained, he was going to seem whiny. Destiny had enough to take care of, being in charge of both packs and his own family. The least Moody could do was this small thing.
No one knew how not-small this really was. No one knew, because he had sworn never to bring this up to anyone. He had made that vow on his own, reached that decision on his own. If he ignored it, all the pain would go away.
Here was the pain, old and shallow now, though the aftereffects still ran deep.
He had been paired up with Isaac Reed. Tomorrow, he would patrol with Isaac. They would spend hours together going around the city on their bikes, exploring anything that looked iffy. They would be close enough to touch.
No choice. Can’t get out of this. I’ll just have to deal with it. Nothing says we have to talk, after all.
Keeping his eyes closed, Moody tried to sleep. The weather outside was growing cold, cold for Florida, at least, and the chill seeped through the concrete and into the air and his very bones. He tugged his blankets higher up around his body, then snuggled down all the way underneath them. Shortly after that, he gave up and transformed into his wolf form. He fluffed out his fur against the cold that persevered in spite of the heating system, and managed to feel better; enough so he could finally fall asleep.
His sleep was choppy, torn with strands of dreams, like blood mingling with spat toothpaste foam.
His internal alarm clock woke him around dawn, his eyes snapping open to stare around in the dark to look for some threat that he knew just had to be present even though t
here was nothing to scent, to see, to hear. His heart pounded painfully against his ribs, slow to settle. The dark pressed in all around him, crushing his lungs in his chest so that his breath came shorter and shorter as the seconds went by.
“Dammit,” he whispered. His voice hardly made a sound at all, certainly wouldn’t have been heard outside this tiny little room that he called home. Even so, what he had said seemed to be reverberating around inside his empty, cavernous head. No thoughts, nothing, just darkness and a mockery of his own being.
Raising his hands, Moody turned over and pressed his face against the mattress. He didn’t know when he’d become human, didn’t think that it really mattered very much anyway. His heart pounded even faster, harder, spasming inside him. His blood pumped in his ears, a pounding rush like that heard inside of a seashell.
He exhaled against the mattress, the warmth of his own breath filtering back against his face. He inhaled, pulling in warm air, not enough, but some. He didn’t know why this worked to calm him down when he was freaking out like this, it just did, and he needed it right now. If he didn’t stop, he’d pass out and wake up shivery. Couldn’t ride a motorcycle while being shivery. They might be easier to balance than a bicycle, but an average roadster still needed some balance.
Five minutes passed, maybe ten. Time lost all meaning in the middle of these attacks, which Moody had been struggling with ever since he was a child. In the past year or so, they had only gotten worse.
Eventually, his breathing slowed. His heart started to stutter and skip, then settled down into a more normal rhythm. The resultant ache in his chest was slower to go away, though he would gladly deal with that over everything else right now.
Moody sat up, rubbed his eyes. The world swirled dizzyingly around him before coming to a gentle halt. He swayed, then righted himself. His stomach felt tense and tight, as it usually did after these attacks, but it was over. He had survived another one, though sometimes he was pretty damn certain that they were going to be the death of him.
Standing made the dizziness want to return. He pushed that out of his mind, focusing hard on the rickety dresser across the room. The world halted again more readily than before, and he crossed the few steps to the dresser. Yanking on the top drawer, which always stuck, he nearly fell backward as the drawer slid smoothly all the way out. Socks and underwear scattered on the ground, scraps of cloth dangling over the edges of the drawer.
This was an odd miracle, to the point where it seemed like less of a good thing and more of a concerning one.
I really am miserable, he thought, unconsciously quoting what he had heard tossed in his direction a time or two by packmates who assumed he wasn’t listening to them. When something good happens and I don’t really care, that’s miserable.
This thought didn’t affect him much.
Setting the drawer back in its rightful place, Moody bent down to pick up the clothes that had been dropped. He kept some for himself, then put the rest away neatly. He was gentler with the other drawers, withdrawing a t-shirt and his favorite pair of dark blue jeans.
Holding the bundle under his arm, Moody headed over to his bedroom door and pushed it open, then stepped out into the wide expanse that was the second floor of a parking garage.
Destiny owned this parking garage. It was his base of operations before he moved to be with his mate. It was a place where all members of his pack could come at any time, adapted into a cross between a community center and a makeshift apartment building. Wolves could live here in these rooms if they paid rent, which Moody did. He wouldn’t have been able to, had the rent not been so damn reasonable. Destiny was damn reasonable, too much so for his own good sometimes. Even a blind human could have seen that.
The second floor was where most of the rooms and relaxation areas were located. The concrete surface was covered in mismatched rugs and carpets, broken up into sections by furniture and makeshift walls. Bookshelves and tables held games and craft supplies and books, mostly cheap paperback novels from the thrift store. Everything had a used, lived-in quality to it that made the garage feel much more like a home than it otherwise would have.
Destiny put his heart and soul into this place. He expected everyone else to do the same, to at the very least have common courtesy for those who might come after them.
A few other wolves were out and about, reveling in the early hour when things were still so peaceful. Most of them were minding their own business, though an enthusiastic debate was taking place over in the corner. Moody had no idea what the discussion was about. The words were moving too fast, and he still felt a little slow after his abrupt awakening.
Sighing, he started off in the direction of the staircase.
The other wolves who noticed him all turned their heads, watching him, and judging him. The rapid murmur of conversation faded out before being picked up again, at a slower pace than before.
Clutching his clothes closer to his side, Moody took the steps down two at a time and very nearly ran into someone who was standing at the bottom.
Hands pressed against his shoulders, not to catch him but to thrust him away. “Watch where you’re going,” the wolf said, his voice an irritable snarl.
“Get on your own fucking side of the stairs,” Moody snapped. “Just because you’re the size of a semi doesn’t mean you have to act as stupid as one.”
He was really only angry because he was hurt, his shoulder having collided roughly with the concrete wall. He just wanted to be left alone to do his own thing most of the time, but others didn’t like that in him. It was weird behavior for a wolf, even weirder for an omega. They didn’t trust him, and that mistrust manifested itself in all sorts of ways. In fact, he didn’t think there was a way that he hadn’t already seen.
He noticed wolves tended to be a little unimaginative. And he wasn’t just saying that. He’d even admit that his own creativity was lacking, in comparison to humans.
The other wolf snorted at him and climbed up the stairs, not bothering to scoot over any further to the side.
“Spiteful fuck,” Moody said. Rubbing his shoulder, he went down the rest of the stairs and wondered if it might be plausible to exaggerate this injury to get him out of patrol. Was he imaginative enough for that?
As it turned out, it didn’t really matter. Cain was in the showers, which were really more of a locker-room type area that had been specifically built by Destiny because the rest of the garage had been lacking when it came to hygienic needs.
Cain was the second-in-command, in charge when Destiny wasn’t around.
And when neither of them was around, which happened often these days, bad things tended to happen.
But right now, what mattered was that Cain was there. Cain would see him undress, would know that Moody wasn’t injured in the slightest.
“Hey,” Cain said, by way of greeting. “You notice your dresser?”
Moody set his clothes down and then went in search of a towel. The supply was getting low. Someone would need to wash all the dirty ones. “What about it?”
“Top drawer was fixed, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah. That. Yeah, I guess I noticed. You have something to do with that?” Moody undressed, not at all self-conscious. When alphas were in love, the rest of the world seemed to take on a different form. They became blind to certain things, like the nudity of others who weren’t their mate.
“Got tired of you complaining, so I fixed it for you.” Cain shut off the water and wrapped his towel around himself, rubbing briskly.
Moody turned his water on, the spray coming out icy at first before gradually turning warm. “Some warning would have been nice,” he grunted. “Almost dumped my entire dresser on the floor from yanking on it like I always do.”
He couldn’t see much of Cain through steam and water, though he was adept enough to pick up on the fact that Cain was smiling. That grated on his nerves. He hadn’t said anything funny. In his frustration, he scrubbed harder at his skin with the sliver
of soap available nearby. Thin, filmy suds were worked up, quickly washed away again by the water. His skin was turning pink, not from heat but from his vigorous washing.
“You’re pretty feisty, aren’t you?”
Moody glared at Cain as water streamed in his face, stinging his eyes. His heart was starting to pound again. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. It’s not an insult.” Cain finished drying off and tossed his towel into a laundry basket. Moody glanced away from the alpha, giving him privacy, though not before he caught a glimpse of that muscular body and fine ass.
That Ralphie’s a lucky wolf. Unlike me.
“Thanks, then. I guess. And for fixing my drawer. Thanks.”
“No problem.” Cain started dressing, pausing to button up his shirt. His thick fingers worked with surprising dexterity. “You’re a good kid, Moody. Don’t let the actions of others throw you off your track. You do you. Only you know what’s right for you.”
Startled by a more intense stinging, this time coming from his sinuses as the onset of tears, all Moody could do was nod. He didn’t trust his voice, didn’t trust his mind. He might say something really fucking stupid and then he’d fuck up his reputation as the omega who didn’t take shit from anyone, not even alphas.
It was just that no one had ever said anything about him in quite that manner, and then went out of their way to reassure him that it wasn’t an insult. No one had given him advice like that, not since…
Best not to think about that.
As Moody finished his shower, he decided that he liked the word “feisty” to describe himself. He’d be using that from now on to defend himself whenever someone dared to judge him.