Squatch (Rolling Thunder MC Birmingham Book 4)

by Candace Blevins

  “How did they know which beer and wine to bring? I didn’t hear you tell them.”

  I shrugged. “Either someone remembered, or they made a call to Velvet to ask.”

  She started to panic, afraid they’d done something stupid that might tell her father where she was. I wanted to be annoyed, but I reminded myself we were still building trust. I tried to tone down my annoyance so she wouldn’t hear it in my voice. “If they called Velvet, they did it on the app, not over an unsecured connection.”

  I could see her relax. “Yeah. Sorry. You’re right. I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “Even if we told him point blank where we have you, he couldn’t get in here.”

  “Maybe not, but there’d be a bigger risk the next time I’m moved.”

  When we finished eating, she took another shower, blow dried her hair yet again, and then flipped her head upside down, brushed her hair straight, and cut it. She stood up again, brushed it some more, parted it down the center, pulled half of her hair around to both sides, and chopped at the bottom in angles. Finally, she parted it on the side like I’m used to seeing it, and cut it around her face, so it framed it.

  She looked like the Kitty I was used to again, but it broke my heart that she had to hide her true beauty. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s gorgeous like this, but she’s stunning with her hair natural and her eyes such a unique, magnificent shade of blue.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Kitty

  We spent two days with his brothers in Chattanooga. Mostly in the main clubhouse, but I was assured it was safe for me to go to the little wooded area inside the compound. I didn’t expect it to feel so good. So safe. So serene. A tiny patch of protected nature inside the city.

  I’d seen the “Property of” vests on the ol’ladies in Birmingham, but there were a lot more of them up here. The concept bugged me because I’d been my father’s property — an asset he could trade. He owned my body, my eggs, my potential for creating more babies, some of whom he’d also own. Part of me loved the idea of the vests, but mostly, they bugged me.

  Angelica saw me looking at Harmony’s one night, and she said, “You know that goes both ways, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It means Harmony belongs to Brain, but it also means he belongs to her.”

  “But we aren’t...” I didn’t want to broadcast private stuff, but I needed to know if he hadn’t given me one because we’re so new, or if it was because I wasn’t completely his.

  I tried again. “I know wolves are usually monogamous, but that doesn’t work for me. I dance, and there are, well. I’m not exclusively his. I’ve encouraged him to keep using the sweetbutts, too.”

  “Horse and I aren’t monogamous,” Gabby said. “That isn’t what it’s about. He’s mine and I’m his. We both have sex with other people, but we always come home to each other.”

  The women and I talked at least an hour about the status of ol’ladies, and our place in the club, and monogamy versus not, and the rules for a prop vest. After hearing about when you can and can’t wear it, and how it has to be treated when not being worn, or if you have to take it off for some reason while you’re out, I was even more happy I didn’t have one — for about five minutes, and then I went back to wondering if I’d ever get one. It was screwed up. I didn’t need to go from belonging to one man to belonging to another, and yet, I couldn’t help but hope Squatch would one day want to give me a vest proclaiming I belonged to him.

  Squatch

  The lady who does the Rolling Thunder patches and designs doesn’t like to be rushed. Usually, you get things one to three weeks after you order it, and you don’t call and ask where it is.

  But I needed this now. Tomorrow. The next day, at the latest. I talked to Duke about it, and he pulled Dawg in.

  “Can you work your magic to get a prop vest here in a day or two for Kitty?” Duke asked him.

  Dawg grinned at me, obviously happy I was taking this step, and pulled his phone out.

  And then he proceeded to sweet-talk this werewolf grandmother no telling how many times over, who is at least in her nineties. Ten minutes later, she told him to send her the correct spelling for everything we needed, and she’d do it that night and overnight it the next day.

  Unheard of.

  “Is there any female on the planet you can’t flirt with to get what you want?” I asked when he’d disconnected the call.

  His eyes went dark. His face clouded over. “One. The most important one, unfortunately.”

  We all knew he considered his one true love to be out of his reach. He never expected to settle down, and he seemed to have come to peace with it, but every once in a while, we saw his pain.

  “I’m sorry, brother.”

  He shrugged. “It is what it is. Life is good, otherwise. Use the app to send what she needs, and give her a big-assed tip when you pay.”

  Brain had programmed it so it was easy for us to order shit from her, and easy for her to process it. She made the patches for every Rolling Thunder chapter, and it was my understanding that we kept her pretty fucking busy, but she loved doing it for us.

  We threw a party two nights later — the night before Kitty was due to see her father for the first time since she’d escaped. It felt important I give it to her before she saw him. An anchor to her new life, even if she wasn’t wearing it.

  Duke, Brain, and Dawg helped me come up with a plan, and they pulled their ol’ladies in to help.

  My Chattanooga brothers are close to Mythic Beast — one of the most popular bands in the world. How close? Ghost’s wife is the lead guitarist. The band has been known to give the chapter a private show when they want to try new songs out, but one of those wasn’t planned, so I asked Hailey if she’d enlist Will’s help. Will is known as Lord Byron, and he’s the lead singer of Mythic Beast.

  I took my kitten upstairs to a room full of my brothers and their ol’ladies, and Kitty turned to see the lead singer of one of her favorite rock bands.

  And she was starstruck. She couldn’t speak. All she could do was open her mouth and close it, like a fish out of water, struggling to breathe.

  There’s a rule about not taking pictures in the clubhouse, but there’s a corner in the Chattanooga main room where selfies are allowed. The rule was made because of Mythic Beast. Will walked my Kitten to the corner, pulled her phone from her back pocket, saw it was locked, asked her to unlock it, told her to smile, and took a few selfies with her. They got silly with it, and after a dozen shots, she finally found her tongue.

  “I can’t believe it’s really you! I love your music!”

  Will smiled and talked to her, giving her his complete attention, and I stood and watched as she went from fangirl to just Kitty, and the conversation turned into a normal one. Animal and Silver, the drummer and bass guitarist, joined them. Introductions were made, and Will asked Kitty to call him Will instead of Lord Byron.

  And then Hailey joined them, wearing her prop vest. Hailey is their lead guitarist, and the wife of a brother.

  “Suli!” Kitty’s eyes were huge, and they grew even rounder as she took in the vest. “You’re...”

  “Please, call me Hailey in the clubhouse.”

  “Hailey?” She looked at Will, and then at Silver and Animal, and back to Hailey. Her eyes finally focused on the vest. “You’re an ol’lady?”

  And that was my cue. I stepped to her with the gift bag down at my side. Usually, vests are given in a gift box, but I didn’t want to carry a big box. The bag was simpler.

  “She is, and all she has to do is turn around, and you’ll know who she belongs to.”

  Hailey spun in a slow circle, and Kitty looked five feet behind her to Ghost.

  The entire room went silent, everyone watching. Also, Brain was live-casting this to the Birmingham clubhouse over the encrypted app. I needed my home-brothers to see this too.

  “Kitten, I know it’s soon, but so much has happened, I find that I want the w
orld to know you’re mine.” I lifted the bag and pulled the handles away from each other, so Kitty could take the vest out. My kitten pulled it out and looked at the front, then the back, and then the front again.

  I didn’t want anyone to know I was terrified, but my heart went cold and I knew every shapeshifter within twenty feet could smell my fear. In that moment, I didn’t think she was going to accept it, and my blood turned to ice in my veins.

  The next thing I knew, her arms were around my neck, her legs around my waist, and she was attached to me, holding on, squeezing me, tears flowing from her eyes.

  My blood began pumping as it’s supposed to again. My body settled. My arms wrapped around her.

  “I love you,” she said. “I’ve wanted this, but I was afraid to talk to you about it because I didn’t know if...” She squeezed harder. “So much is up in the air right now. So many unknowns, and you still want the world to know I’m yours. I love you so much.”

  “Does this mean you’ll wear it?” I asked.

  My question seemed to remind her of how she was supposed to respond. Thankfully, I’d made sure Velvet had the talk with her before all hell broke loose. The ol’ladies have ways of talking about their own experiences, so new girlfriends are clued in to the rules in case the same thing happens to them.

  So now, Kitty’s eyes went big, she dropped to her feet, took a step back, and offered me the vest. “Will you put this on me, please?”

  The room cheered, clapped, stomped, and whistled when I put it on her, and I turned Kitty to the largest television, which showed the Birmingham clubhouse, with us down in the corner. She looked around, saw Brain with his phone pointing to us, waved to him, and then turned in a circle, showing her new vest off. Birmingham cheered again, lifting glasses and bottles, and Kitty jumped back into my arms. It was a little too catlike, but I couldn’t really remind her that everyone in the clubhouses didn’t know about us.

  Velvet stepped closer to the camera in Birmingham and said, “Congrats, Kitty. We can’t wait to get you home so we can throw a big party for ya’ll! Stay safe!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kitty

  I wished I could wear my new prop vest to the meeting with my father, but I understood why that would be a bad idea.

  I love my dad. He taught me things. He held me when I had nightmares, but instead of coddling me, he talked me through how to slay whatever had scared me. I’m not certain he even knows how much he empowered me, but he did.

  He also did things to steal my power from me, but I understand much of that was basic ambush protocol — created over generations, designed to keep the women home and pregnant while the men ran our little hidden mini-society.

  I walked into the Chattanooga coterie mansion flanked by the Amakhosi and Squatch. Not touching either. Squatch is bigger than the King of the Lions, but we all knew who was the most powerful. I saw my dad sniff towards the door, but he didn’t ask why one of my bodyguards was a wolf.

  Inside, I was shaking, but I walked tall, with my head held high, and I channeled as much of the cat as I could while remaining upright.

  Once we were in the living room, both men stepped to the side of the wide door, as if guarding it, and I walked another dozen feet into the room, a mere six feet away from my father.

  I’d considered my first words to him. I refused to apologize for my actions, and yet, I knew my opening words couldn’t be antagonistic. Today’s goal was some kind of reconciliation. We weren’t trying to make things worse with this meeting.

  “I’ve missed you, Daddy. I wish I hadn’t had to hurt you in order to gain my freedom.”

  His eyes went hard and his mouth twisted. “Your freedom? I gave you everything you wanted, Val, and you threw it in my face. I gave you a good life.”

  I tried to keep my face pleasant despite the fact my stomach turned over and my knees didn’t want to hold me up. I was strong. I could do this.

  “Material things, father, but you could never give me what I truly wanted, could you? College, a car, the freedom to come and go as I pleased, the ability to meet a man and fall in love organically. Freedom to decide whether or not to have kids, who to have them with, and then the freedom to raise my own children.”

  “You’re in college now?”

  I shook my head. “I had to get a job.”

  “Yes. Taking your clothes off for men. Squirming on their laps, and no telling what else.” He spat the words out as if they were distasteful, clearly disgusted by what I’d become, and it pissed me off.

  “You did make sure I was well qualified to be a whore, didn’t you, father dearest?”

  He took two steps forward and raised his hand to slap me, and then suddenly went still as a statue, frozen in time, his face a grotesque mask of anger, his hand in the air, on the way to my face.

  “Move out of the way of the hand, please,” the Amakhosi said from behind me.

  I did, and turned to look at him. His Majesty was clearly angry, and I realized he’d frozen my father in place to keep him from hitting me.

  “Baiting him isn’t helpful, Kitty,” Squatch didn’t move from his position. Neither his voice nor his gaze was judgmental. Just a statement of fact.

  The Amakhosi walked to my father, grabbed his wrist, and motioned me to his side. Once His Majesty had his arm around me, pulled out of the strike zone so my father wouldn’t hit me, he released whatever stasis he’d put my father into.

  And Daddy’s arm was held in the air, stopped by the strength of our King. Daddy was clearly startled. I’d never seen him look so unsure of himself before.

  From his point of view, he’d been in mid-slap, and the Amakhosi had moved from the door to us in a split second, stopped him, and moved me out of the way.

  He hadn’t been aware of what had happened while he was frozen.

  I’d known the King of the Lions had dominion over all cats in North America, but I’d had no idea he had this much power over us. My father is a strong tiger and a fearless warrior. Normal tiger society doesn’t have official leaders, but my father is the Commandant of our ambush, which basically means he’s our leader. He’ll tell you it’s like being mayor or governor, and I’ll tell you that’s bull. He’s a totalitarian leader. His word is law, and if you break it, he’s also the judge. Not the executioner though, because we need every tiger — and because there are worse things than death.

  My father isn’t used to being told what to do. In fact, I couldn’t remember anyone ever telling him what to do and not being punished for it.

  But my father lowered his gaze and didn’t challenge the Amakhosi.

  “Did your daughter speak the truth, Vincenzo?”

  Daddy glared at me and didn’t answer.

  The Amakhosi’s voice went sharper, though his face showed no emotion. “Answer the question unless you wish for me to have you put through the same training you subjected your teenaged daughter to.”

  “Yes.” He said it so softly, I barely heard it.

  “Louder.”

  “Yes.” He said the word through clenched teeth. I scented his pain, but the Amakhosi was only holding his wrist. Even if he were squeezing it and breaking bones, I couldn’t imagine my father’s scent broadcasting so much pain.

  The Amakhosi finally let go of my father’s wrist and took a step back, drawing me back with him.

  “You will not strike your daughter merely because she speaks truth and angers you.” He placed me six feet from my father again, and walked back to his post by the door.

  “Why don’t we have a seat, Daddy.”

  The mansion smelled of vampires, though none were on this floor at the moment. Kendra had offered the use of the coterie house as a neutral meeting place, but she’d been clear that any damage would be paid for by the Amakhosi. This room had furniture from some previous century. King Louis the somethingth. The Commandant of my mother’s ambush decorated his house in a similar style, but I can’t remember which Louis.

  My father sat in
a high-backed overly decorative chair, and I chose a settee.

  “As far back as anyone can remember,” my father told me, “young tigresses have been taught the ways of how to pleasure men before they were sent to their chosen mate. You were taught the same as any other female. No more, no less.”

  Kirsten had told me the Amakhosi had put a stop to the practice in all ambushes.

  “At least one good thing has come from my choices and actions, because I’m told it won’t happen anymore.”

  He just looked at me, but the sulfuric scent of his anger permeated the room like a dark fog, pressing in on me and making it hard to breathe. Claws were in the fog, in my lungs. Sharp and angry. I breathed slowly, trying to pretend his rage wasn’t affecting me.

  Pissing him off wasn’t the goal. I breathed out with control and tried to find another way to talk to him.

  “Life in the ambush wasn’t working for me, Daddy. I love you, and I always will, but I can’t live under your thumb anymore. I need to be my own tiger, making my own decisions.”

  “I’ve purchased a house in Charleston,” he said, and I got the idea he was being as careful as me now — trying to find a way around outright war with his daughter. “I’m willing to pay tuition for you at the College of Charleston, and pay your living expenses while you get your degree. You’ll be within driving distance of the ambush property, and we’d like you to come for Saturday dinner, but otherwise, your life will be your own.”

  “So long as I get pregnant, right? And since I won’t be raising the babies, it won’t interfere with my education.”

  He shook his head. “We will pay fifty thousand dollars for every egg you allow us to harvest. We need at least ten, so you’ll get a minimum of a half-million dollars. Ideally, we’ll get fifteen to twenty. You’ll sign away your rights to the eggs as well as any children. Other than a few days of testing and then a half-day for the procedure, you will not be affected.”