by Vivian Arend
There was a single card inside. Maybe three inches wide and six inches long. Too long and thin to be a playing card, like the ones that we kept behind the bar to allow drunk, frustrated men to gamble away their souls.
The card was thick and glossy. Maybe coated with wax. I cupped it in both hands and studied the back for a long time. The art deco designs were red and black and gold, elaborate and industrial, yet somehow organic. The somewhat mechanical abstractions looked like they could have grown from the earth. The sight of it filled me with a strange sense of longing—and foreboding.
When I saw the image on the other side, I dropped it with a gasp.
It was a tarot card depicting a satyr crouched on a pedestal. His maleness hung heavy between his furred thighs. His glare was overtly sexual, tongue jutting from between his teeth, one hand lifted in beckoning and the other cradling a torch. A man and a woman stood in front of him. They were naked and chained, caught midstep, drifting toward each other as if the satyr’s lustful presence couldn’t quench their desire for each other.
The humans looked like Trouble and me.
A Roman numeral fifteen marked the top: “XV.”
Across the bottom, it said, “The Devil.”
CHAPTER THREE
I took the pole that night. We had newcomers in town, and newcomers meant money. Money that I couldn’t risk losing by staying at home. Gloria was angry to see me, but she allowed me climb onto the bar after smacking me around a couple more times. Her way of showing love and concern.
I’d seen more bikes arriving through the afternoon. Not just Fang Brothers, but other guys camping out before tomorrow night’s cage fight. None of the newest arrivals were in the bar. My audience that night looked to be Mad Dog and his brothers—no Big Papa or Trouble—and Gloria put on my favorite song so that I could work at the one thing I was very best at doing.
The Foo Fighters’ “Darling Nikki” pounded a harsh, cruel beat over the stereo. It was an extended remix with a long guitar solo. Perfect for tricks on the pole.
I climbed to the top using my upper body strength, trapped it between my thighs, and hung upside down with my back arched. My breasts jutted toward the gathered men. The pole rotated and turned me with it.
My dizzying view of the bar seemed right somehow. Lobo Norte was an upside-down place filled with contrariwise characters on the best of days. From this perspective, the “OPEN” sign was unreadable, the TV flickering as football players darted across a sky of grass. Gloria stood on the ceiling to serve drinks. The men hung in front of me and leered upside-down leers that looked like strange frowns.
Blood swirled through my head. I gripped the pole with both hands at the juncture of my thighs and did the splits, stretching my Lucite heels far over my head.
Mad Dog lifted a shot that looked like it held whiskey against the laws of gravity. He tipped it right-side up and it drained upward into his throat. He was seated closest to my corner of the bar, elbows resting on my platform, face tilted back so that the lights spilled over skin sunburned by long hours chewing pavement on a motorcycle.
The new men had names on their vests, too: Old Yeller, Pit Bull, Smoky. All Fang Brothers. The one in the middle was waving pesos at me.
Even upside down with all the blood rushing through my skull and my braids reaching for the bar, I did the quick currency conversion. It was something like a hundred pesos per dollar, and he was holding just a few hundred. Barely worth getting off the pole over. But I couldn’t be choosy, not when business was so rare, and not when I needed the money so badly.
I made a smooth dismount and the entire bar flipped the wrong way around again.
Crawling to the edge, I turned and performed the splits once more so that my ragged shorts were within Pit Bull’s reach. They had large slices to bare either butt cheek. His hands wandered freely as he slid the pesos into my waistband. Pit Bull introduced himself to my ass and slid his thumb between my legs while he was at it. His fingers were cold.
He was so occupied with everything below my waist that he didn’t notice the damage above my ribcage. I didn’t bother hiding my scars when I stripped. I was just one more strange feature of Lobo Norte, a girl whose history was exposed on her shoulders, as damaged as our wind-blasted trailers.
“How much for a lap dance?” Mad Dog asked in his twangy American accent. He was holding American money, too. At least two tens. Good money here—unusually good.
I never hesitated to perform for the clients, whether it was on the bar or straddling their thighs. The men that came through Lobo Norte didn’t bother me. Not the ugly ones or the fat ones or even the ones sticking needles in their arms as they begged for me. Dancing was easy, dancing was fun; any performance beyond that was up to me, and that’s where I got choosy.
But Mad Dog was Trouble’s brother in a way that I intuitively understood to be different than these other men. For that reason, I hesitated.
“Girl’s gone shy,” Old Yeller laughed.
Maybe I was going shy. Trouble hadn’t even spoken to me yet. It didn’t matter if Mad Dog was his brother in name or blood or if they were married, for fuck’s sake. It wasn’t like I belonged to Trouble.
I slithered off the bar and the men hooted. Mad Dog spread his knees.
It was a joke to call what I did against him a dance. I twisted, I writhed, I simulated all the terrible dirty things that I could imagine without actually riding his dick.
He liked it, of course. They always did. I was good but their standards were low.
When it came time to pay me for services rendered, he held the money between his teeth. I pushed my arms together, offered him my cleavage.
Mad Dog shook his head.
I bent down and gently caught the bills with my lips. Very nearly a kiss.
More hoots and catcalls. The men were encouraging Mad Dog to see what else he could get me to do. They would be disappointed. Johnny had made it clear that he didn’t want me competing with the Ranch girls for clients, so I didn’t fuck for money. But Mad Dog was as perfect a gentleman as bikers get; he didn’t try to act on any of his brothers’ suggestions.
My eyes flicked up as I pulled back with the money, and I realized that there was someone new standing in the doorway to the bar.
Trouble was staring at me. The flashing lights of the bar reflected in his eyes.
A baffling twist of guilt guttered through me.
For a long moment, I was trapped in Trouble’s stare. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, whether he disapproved or was disdainful or disgusted.
He left, making the door bang behind him.
I didn’t think. I just reacted.
Leaping over the bar, I shoved the tips from the first songs underneath my pile of clothing—more than thirty, a good take for the beginning of the night—and I ran out the back door into the night.
We hadn’t spoken. There was no reason to think that Trouble would be waiting for me outside.
But he was.
He caught me the second I stepped through the door. Fear and adrenaline lanced through my veins as his hands shackled my arms, lifting me off the heels and shoving me into the dark corner behind the door.
I was so small against him. Unable to do anything but be dragged under by his heat.
Trouble’s mouth slanted against mine. His tongue thrust between my lips, taking possession of me, showing me what he thought of the dance for Mad Dog rather than speaking it.
He wasn’t happy.
Oh, but he tasted so good. He took what I would have happily given with harsh strokes, tilting his head to go deeper, fisting my braids in both hands.
I didn’t even know his real name. All I knew was this: I needed him. Desperately.
Fingers still tangled in my hair, his thumbs stroked over my cheekbones, back to my ears, up to my temples, tracing the lines of my face and leaving fire in his path. Such small, gentle motions from such a big man that overpowered me so easily. Harsh and tender all at once.
&n
bsp; “Wait,” I gasped, “I can’t breathe—”
He didn’t wait. He sucked the breath from my mouth. I was dizzy, flying, falling. Drunk on his touch.
It was a full moon. The desert was bright, painted in shades of blue and silver. The reflected sunlight glinted off of Trouble’s muscles as I shoved his shirt up, ripped it over his head, tossed it aside. And then he was kissing me again. All I could see was his face. Blind, I familiarized myself with his chest using my hands, learning his hard ridges and scars and digging my fingernails into his ribs.
He was sweaty from a day of riding on his motorcycle. I thought I could smell the exhaust on him, and it filled my mind with images of the endless road and a brutal wind.
I dragged furrows into his skin with my nails as his mouth traveled down my jawline, treading the path his thumbs had discovered. His growl rumbled through me, even louder than the beat of music from within the bar. It was a Muse song. One of my jams. A song I usually used to strip down and bare it all in front of a bar full of hungry, lonely men.
My body ached to be exposed, but tonight I had an audience of only one. The only one I wanted.
And I still didn’t understand why.
It didn’t seem to matter. He reached my collarbone and nipped the flesh hard enough to bruise. Even with the line of scar tissue that had reduced sensitivity, it almost hurt too much.
Trouble ripped my shirt down. My right breast sprung free.
He sucked my nipple into his mouth, working it with his tongue, and every little flick tugged at my core. His mouth was hot and wet and I was shocked that the contact didn’t leave me burned.
It was too much all at once. I wanted him to stop. I never wanted it to end.
“Please,” I said, and I wasn’t sure what I was begging him to do. I clutched at his head, his shoulders.
He sank to his knees, pulled my thigh over his shoulder. He was face to face with my ragged shorts. I hadn’t taken all the money out of them—he ripped the bills away and crushed them in his fist.
I fumbled to take them back. “Mine,” I said. He threw the money to the ground, caught my hand in his, fingers tangled. He pushed my arm back against the wall. Pinned me.
Trouble turned his head and sank his teeth into my thigh, silencing me with a bite so close to where I wanted his mouth, so close that I began to shake.
And then it was too sharp. Too painful.
“Hey!” I protested, trying to jerk away.
He glared up at me and bared his teeth. He hadn’t broken the skin of my thigh—it wasn’t bloody—and I was shocked that he hadn’t, because his canines had elongated.
Trouble suddenly had fangs.
With a shriek, I tried to pull away. There was nowhere to go. His body had me blocked against the wall. His hand was twitching in mine, and the shivers traveled up his shoulder, cording his muscles into hard lines.
His mouth opened in a roar. No—a howl. It shattered the heat of the night and echoed over the desert.
Twisting, I slammed my knee into his face. His head snapped back.
I leaped over him and stumbled, landing on hands and knees. Trouble snarled. He caught my ankle as I struggled to crawl away.
The image of being mounted suddenly smashed into me unbidden—being pinned by Trouble’s giant hands as his weight covered me, having his body forced into mine in a way that was much more animal than human. Being dominated. Owned. Marked. The idea didn’t scare me. It made heat thrill through my stomach.
That moment of fantasy passed, and I flipped over onto my back to see Trouble rearing over me on his knees. He straddled my legs. It was a position that would have been sexy a moment ago, since it put me up close and personal with the fly of his jeans. But now his seams were straining and it wasn’t because he was growing long and thick with arousal.
It was because he was…shifting.
I realized belatedly that there was a howling wolf tattooed on his chest—a huge, vicious beast with bared fangs just like Trouble’s.
But the change didn’t stop with his teeth. His spine arched. With a muffled crack, his nose and jaw began elongating to accommodate his growing fangs. His ears were becoming more pointed. His nails were becoming claws.
I thought of the tarot card. The Devil, number fifteen. I thought of his claws and salacious leer.
My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t breathe again, and this time, it wasn’t with lust.
Fur erupted over his shoulders, growing shaggy down his arms.
This guy was just between my legs.
I tried to squirm out from under him and couldn’t. He was heavy.
“Gloria!”
She couldn’t hear me. It was too loud in the bar.
All I could do was lie back as Trouble’s spine wrenched to the side. The change was hurting him. His howls were pained.
Momentary sympathy fluttered through my chest. “Stop,” I said, reaching for him.
He swatted my hands away, tearing at his own chest with claws that were each as long as a knife.
I was going to be slaughtered by a biker that was turning into a wolf, and nobody would even know until the sun rose.
And then I heard another howl—not Trouble’s, but a response from behind me. I craned around to see a beast flash through the night, rushing down the hill toward us. It had four legs, a tail, a ruff of fur around its neck. Definitely a wolf.
I knew wild dogs. I shot coyotes that got brave enough to creep up on us all the time. But this? This was too big to be an ordinary wolf. It was large enough to be a pony.
It was coming right at us.
“Watch out!” I shrieked. I didn’t know why I was warning Trouble—he had attacked me, bitten my thigh, refused to let me escape. But I suddenly feared for him. I wanted him to run, stay away from this new monster.
Before Trouble could even think to react, the wolf broadsided him, and they rolled into the sagebrush.
I screamed, hands flying to my mouth.
A smart girl would have gone back to the bar. But I ran over on wobbling legs to see Trouble underneath the wolf, jaws locked on his throat.
I swung a kick at the beast. “Let him go!” My Lucite heel connected with its skull. The wolf whirled on me, baring its teeth with a drooling snarl. One of its eyes was missing. Shock staggered me. “Big Papa?”
The wolf closed his teeth around Trouble’s neck, now covered in a thick ruff of fur.
He dragged the man deeper into the sage. They were both gone in seconds, and the night was silent.
CHAPTER FOUR
I didn’t know that I had fallen asleep until I woke up to knocking at my front door.
Shock washed through me, cold and hot and tingling all at once. I had been dreaming of the week that I was given my scars again, lost in a hurricane of pain and fear, and I was disoriented to wake up free. The sight of the powder-blue walls and white furniture confused me even though I understood, rationally, that I had been waking up within those four walls for months now.
This was home. Yet something was amiss.
Someone knocked at my front door again, and the jolt of shock was even worse the second time. Probably because I knew who was knocking. There was no doubt in my mind who would be visiting me when the blue light of pre-dawn hadn’t even given way to sunlight.
Gloria had been angry at me for running out the night before, and angrier still when I hadn’t told her why my costume was destroyed, or why I was going home early. She was mean when she got pissed. She wouldn’t be speaking to me for days. Johnny and the whores, on the other hand, knew better than to darken my doorstep.
That only left one possible visitor.
Kicking off my sheets, I grabbed Little Bo Peep off the wall by my bed. Tucked her under my arm. Answered the door.
Trouble swayed on my step.
He was naked. It was the third and most powerful shock of my morning, and I hadn’t even been awake for five minutes yet. My eyes traveled down his sweaty, dirty chest, torn ragged by tooth and claw m
arks. I wasn’t sure why I was surprised to find that he was still hairless, but I was. Guess I’d expected that he would have to keep all that rust-brown fur once it had grown on him.
I hated that my body reacted to the sight of the cock hanging between his legs, heavy and large even when he wasn’t erect. I hated that he had almost bitten me the night before and that I still wanted to stroke him to life in my hand, in my mouth, between my legs.
And I really hated that it took me so long to get around to meeting his eyes.
The look he gave me was hollow. Pained.
I lifted Bo Peep to my shoulder and aimed her at his chest.
“Get the fuck off my doorstep.” I hoped that he would think my voice was quivering with rage.
Trouble’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, flashing the whites at me.
He collapsed bonelessly at my feet.
I jumped back. “Hijo de puta,” I swore, borrowing one of Gloria’s favorite curses. To her, every single man was an hijo de puta—a son of a bitch—and I was pretty sure that she would include Trouble in that assessment. Yet a maternal aching blossomed in my chest at the sight of the huge man unconscious, injured, and vulnerable on my step.
He wasn’t vulnerable. Not really. He was a fucking monster, a beast that shapeshifted into a wolf when the moon was high. I didn’t owe him anything. Not a second chance or a safe haven or even the time of day.
That was rationality speaking. Rationality also wanted me to deliver a swift kick to his shoulder, roll him off my steps, and lock the door behind him.
Rationality had never been one of my strong suits.
I forced my stiff hands to uncurl from the trigger, blowing out a slow breath. I set my shotgun against the wall. Peered out the door to see if anyone was watching. There were camps across the road from the bar, men who hadn’t found space at The Lodge or didn’t want to pay for it, but nobody close enough to see that Trouble was visiting me. Johnny and Gloria’s trailers were also dark. Neither of them were home. They were probably still working.