by Vivian Arend
Whenever I stopped walking, the man following me did, too. I could only hear him when I was moving. I stared around the desert, eyes wide to try to let every ounce of light in. It was impossible to distinguish between the shapes of the gnarled bushes and human bodies. I didn’t think I could see anyone coming after me, but there was no way to be sure.
I didn’t feel alone.
Maybe I was imagining it. Maybe it was just the stress of being alone in Lobo Norte finally catching up with me. Or maybe it really was a biker stalking me back to my trailer, keenly aware that I hadn’t thought to bring Bo Peep with me, hungry to use the stripper in any way he desired.
The generator hadn’t broken on its own. Kelsie hadn’t blistered herself with those handprints.
I walked faster but the bar seemed farther away than it had seconds before.
My mouth opened. “Cooper,” I croaked. I’d been trying to shout. I could barely hear my own voice. How good was a werewolf’s hearing? Would he be able to hear me over the shattering bottles, the shouting gangs, the screams and fighting? I couldn’t rely on that. Like always, I’d have to take care of myself.
I broke into a run. I’m built for strength and flexibility, not speed, so I wouldn’t be breaking any records for sprinting, but adrenaline made me feel like I was flying on the wind.
My pursuer was surprised. The crunch of his soles on the dirt didn’t fall into rhythm with mine. Then he started running, too.
I didn’t look back. I just ran and ran, putting all my energy into speed, leather fringe flying behind me. My heart beat so hard that I could taste it.
Hands reached for my back. I was certain that I wasn’t imagining that.
My trailer grew closer. I swallowed down my pounding heart and leaped for it, hands outstretched. My fingers tingled when I crossed the wards that I had placed around the walls. The door was unlocked. Had I left it unlocked?
I jumped inside. Slammed the door behind me. Flipped every lock and deadbolt. Something hit the other side with a distinct thump.
Backing up until I hit the wall, I stared, wide-eyed, at the curtained window beside my door. The shadow of a man slid over it. He was tall and skinny. That much I could tell. Then he slid away, disappearing, and my trailer was silent.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After two years staffing a bar that served biker gangs, I’d become extremely familiar with the catastrophes their parties could leave behind. But I hadn’t ever realized how good Gloria was at damage control until she wasn’t there to pick up after the destruction. I stood in the doorway of the bar with my mop. My jaw dropped open.
“Where do I even start?” I asked the trash and broken bottles strewn across the floor.
Like Pops always said, the only way to eat an elephant was one bite at a time.
I was pretty sure he’d never said that while thinking of his little girl cleaning up used condoms and hypodermic needles, but whatever.
Grabbing heavy duty gloves and trash bags, I started sweeping everything into piles. The motion was a peaceful and repetitive and gave me lots of time to think. Maybe too much. It was easy to pretend that I had been imagining my pursuer the night before now that morning had hit, but it didn’t change what had happened to Kelsie.
It was funny how repetitive stripping for tips while men beat the shit out of each other in a cage could become. We were meant to be neutral territory. A relatively safe place for biker gangs to hash out their disagreements and earn lots of money.
None of them had ever hurt the girls before. Johnny hadn’t let them.
The monotony had been shattered.
I had the windows cracked open, and there was a strange smell on the wind. There were no clouds in the acid-blue sky but the sun didn’t seem quite bright enough. The gloom sucked the urge to work right out of me. There was no way I was going to be able to clean everything in time to open for the early afternoon drinkers.
My gaze drifted to my purse on the counter. It was a leather hobo purse with fringe hanging from the bottom and a beaded pattern on the side. I’d bought it at the reservation outside Lobo Norte’s borders, over on the United States side of things. It was big enough to hold all of my magic supplies and a few extra boxes of shells for Bo Peep, so I hadn’t bothered to empty it the night before.
I was still tingling from trying to heal Kelsie. I felt electric. Almost invincible.
My hands took over for me. They opened my purse, pulled out the big jar of salt, and started sprinkling.
I’d already swept everything away from the walls, so it was easy to make a big circle that contained everything. I lit a few sex wax candles and placed them at the corners. North, south, east, west. The guardians of the watchtowers came even easier to me this morning.
Rubbing my palms dry on my cutoffs, I reached back into the depths of memory for Abuelita’s favorite household spells. “Blessed Hecate…” I began, and then stopped myself. I didn’t need a goddess for cleaning a bar. Better to stay on Hecate’s good side so she’d want to help me when I really needed it.
I pressed the play button on my tape deck. “Pour Some Sugar on Me” started to play, and I grabbed the broom.
Pushing the broom across the floor made my spine jolt with magic. I didn’t just sweep the trash that I touched. Everything moved. A wind swirled through the room, pushing all of the trash toward the middle. It even whipped everything off of the tables and counters. It was a small hurricane of garbage—might have been kind of cute if it hadn’t been made up of broken bottles and other dangerous objects.
Giggles escaped me as I ducked out of the way of a flying, studded cowboy boot.
“Now this is cleaning,” I said.
I bounced my hips along with the music as I gathered the trash into bags, holding them out so that the wind could dump everything inside. It took all of five minutes to clear the floor, leaving nothing but blood and whiskey stains behind.
In the end, the magic filled six big trash bags, which I set aside very carefully, making sure I didn’t puncture myself on anything.
I hummed as I filled a bucket with water behind the bar. It seemed to sparkle with its own magic. Better than any soap. But I didn’t get to test it out.
The front door opened. Cooper entered, scuffing the salt line and making my magic die in an instant. It sucked out of me. My hands went slack and I dropped the bucket. Water sloshed over my feet.
“Ofelia,” he growled.
He crossed the space between us in two strides, shoved me against the bar, and kissed me hard enough that I forgot how to breathe. His hands tangled in my braids. His chest against mine was hot from the sunlight.
I could get used to a greeting like that.
He broke away from me, running his thumbs along my jawline, gazing intently at my face. “You didn’t tell me you were leaving last night.”
“I’m sorry. The Ranch girls needed me. You were busy.”
“You never came back.”
“I had to go home, where it was safe,” I said.
“Your single-wide’s safer than being with me?”
I didn’t want to tell him about my wards. I wasn’t ready to explain the magic thing to him yet. Unfortunately, Cooper wasn’t utterly blind, and he finally realized that he was standing in a circle of salt and burning candles.
Cooper grabbed the nearest candle. It was still in a red tin that said “Edible Sex Wax.”
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Cleaning,” I said.
“With sex wax?”
“It sets the mood.”
“You’re a witch,” Cooper said. “I should have known.” He leaned into me to return the candle, putting his body flush with mine in a long line. I gazed up at his chiseled jawline. “You’ve put some kind of spell on me.”
Even though I knew he was just flirting, the accusation made heat climb my cheeks. “It’s not like that. I haven’t cast magic in a long time.”
“But you smell even better now.” He tongued the tend
er skin behind my ear, making my knees weaken. “I’m smelling your magic.” He sucked on the side of my neck.
I dug my fingernails into his hips. “Cooper, I want this. I want you. But I have to open the bar, and that’s not going to happen until I clean everything, and there’s still a lot to do.” Especially since he’d completely wrecked my mojo.
He groaned softly, but said, “Okay.” He picked up the bucket and started refilling it with water.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Helping you clean.”
I’d been wrong the night before. I’d thought that watching Cooper threaten another biker over me was the hottest thing ever. In fact, watching Cooper clean was the hottest thing ever.
He turned up the tape deck and started scrubbing the counter.
“What happened last night, Ofelia?”
“It’s Kelsie, like I told you. She’s sick. Tatiana thought that it was an overdose, but I think someone’s hurt her. So I went to try to help them.” I blushed. “I tried to heal her.”
“You should have warned me,” Cooper said. “I’d have gone with you.”
“And left the bar?”
“Nothing is more important than you.”
God, that man talked pretty. I was tempted to peel off my gloves and shove him to the floor right that moment. But the sun was getting awfully high in the sky—we’d have company soon. I settled for appreciating the sight of his muscles flexing as he scrubbed the tables alongside me. It was almost as good as sex.
“So what’d you do before you became a bartender in a magical town?” Cooper asked. “Wait. Let me guess. You were a witchy seductress in a traveling carnival. You used your allure to part men from their money at the ring toss.”
I laughed. I liked the exotic imagery of it, but it was way more exciting than the truth. “I got an associate’s degree. General education.” The corner of my mouth lifted in a half-smile, thinking back on my time at college with my friends. I’d mostly gone because a few of the girls from high school were doing it. That, and because Pops had given me the choice of continuing education or living on the streets. Not much of a choice.
“College girl.” Cooper gazed down at me, as if trying to picture me in school.
“Pretty hard to believe the stripper took trigonometry, I know, but I passed with flying colors.” If a C-minus counted as flying colors.
“It’s not hard to believe at all. I can tell you’re smart. I’m just surprised you only got your associates.”
My smile faded. “I was accepted at UCLA. I was going to finish off my undergrad.”
“But?”
“Life happened.” I swallowed hard. “Lobo Norte happened.” That was only skipping…oh, a few hundred significant events. “What about you?”
“Would you be surprised if I told you I went to college, too?” Cooper asked. “I have a masters in anthropology. When I left, I was working on my doctorate.”
My jaw dropped. “Your doctorate?” Dr. Trouble. Insane.
He hooked his finger under my chin. He smelled like soap. “You don’t have to look so surprised.”
For some reason, I couldn’t shake the idea of him wearing a cap and gown. Nothing but a cap and gown, with the sides parted to bare his rock-hard abs, the tribal wolf tattoo, and his incredible…everything else. It was kind of a silly mental image. Silly, and yet incredibly hot. “Was your anthropology doctorate on werewolves? Or was it more of a motorcycle gang thing?”
“Neither. I didn’t know werewolves were real…before. Not until about two months ago.”
“Before you got bitten?” Sympathy unfolded in my heart. I reached up to stroke his jaw, wishing I could stroke all his pain away. “How did it happen?”
Instead of answering, he gently took my wrist, prying the wash rag out of my fingers. He pushed me onto the bar stool. Captured my face in both of his hands. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”
He kissed me with none of last night’s urgency. I liked it when he got rough me, liked it when I bruised under his touch, but I liked this, too. He tasted like toothpaste. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d kissed a biker who took the time to brush his teeth after partying at my bar.
The tape cassette stopped playing with a grinding sound, and I realized that an engine was grumbling outside the bar’s windows, breaking through the quiet.
I knew the sound of that engine. It was distinctive, unlike any other motorcycle I had ever heard. The harsh grinding made it sound like the parts were about to fly apart in a thousand directions, but I knew for a fact that the rider was just as meticulous with his baby as Cooper was, if not even more.
That noise made me feel sick in a way that even a dozen tequila body shots couldn’t.
Cooper was still talking to me. I couldn’t hear anything he said. I leaned over the bar to grab Bo Peep, and I didn’t even give a moment’s thought before tucking her under my arm and storming out onto the street.
My name followed me out. Cooper calling. I was numb, my head filled with white noise.
How dare he come here? To my town? To my fucking bar?
It didn’t make any rational sense. I knew that if I had screwed someone over as thoroughly as Peyton had screwed me over, I would never be able to show my face again. He deserved to die in a ditch somewhere. The fact he hadn’t had the courtesy to rot made my intestines turn into a knot.
Fortunately, it wasn’t too late for Peyton McCollum to meet the fate he deserved.
I pumped Bo Peep and aimed it at the yellow Harley that had just parked in front of my bar.
Peyton took off his goggles, hanging them on the handlebars. His cheeks were tanned and blistered. The skin around his brown eyes was a few shades paler. Next, he took off the helmet, and the black hair underneath was tousled and sweaty. I remembered running my fingers through those locks as he ate me out, sucking and biting between my legs. I remembered wondering if our kids would have hair like his, or more textured like mine.
“Ofelia,” he said with a lazy smile, dismounting from the motorcycle. His jacket hung open, baring a t-shirt with a winged skull on the chest. “Funny meeting you in Lobo Norte.”
“As if you didn’t know I’d be here,” I said, voice quavering.
“I’d heard rumors.”
And he’d come anyway.
This was the man I had been running from. No, not just the man—the entire life he represented. I’d been so happy without him. A pit like Lobo Norte was miles better than being with Peyton in his mansions of platinum and marble and jacuzzi tubs.
Two years after it all, I barely remembered the whirlwind of coked-out parties that I’d shared at Peyton’s side. It was a blur of colors and sensation. Dizzying highs punctuated by nauseating lows. Strolling down the red carpet on his side, flirting with celebrities, then watching him take money from johns after they fucked me in the dressing rooms. My bruised arms covered in needle marks. Laughing, dancing to music, getting bent over tables while too drunk to fight off the attention I didn’t want.
But I remembered the night he had sold me for the last time perfectly.
“I must say, the scars don’t look as bad as I expected,” Peyton said.
I was going to kill him.
But I felt someone step up next to me and turned, jerking the gun up to aim at his chest.
Cooper clamped his hand down on the muzzle of the shotgun.
“Ofelia,” he said softly, pushing it down so that it wasn’t pointing at him.
I’d been so jittery that I’d almost shot Cooper. I eased my finger off the trigger, gazing up at him with horror. He’d probably heal the wound, sure, but that wouldn’t change what I’d done. And it’d be a waste of a good slug that deserved to blast apart Peyton’s face.
I aimed again, back at the man who had earned it.
“You can’t,” Cooper said, his breath warming my ear. It would be so easy. Just squeeze the trigger and watch him splatter, just like the coyotes. “If you kill one of the bikers, then the truc
e is blown,” he went on. “You’ll be fair game.”
Startled, I turned to look at him. His face was just inches from mine. “Truce?”
“You don’t think the gangs just respect you and Gloria, do you?”
I’d always assumed that they feared us.
Peyton smirked as I lowered the gun. That smile didn’t reach his eyes. He sniffed, wiped the sweat off of his upper lip. “Who’s this, Ofelia? New pimp?”
My finger tensed on the trigger again. “Peyton’s not in a gang,” I hissed at Cooper. “He’s just some jack-off rich kid who digs deep in his mommy’s wallet.”
“But he’s wearing gang tats,” Cooper said.
Peyton didn’t have tattoos. At least, he hadn’t used to. I’d explored every inch of his body with my tongue and I had him memorized.
I took a second look. Cooper was right. There were tattoos ringing Peyton’s wrist that looked like vines with incredibly long, metallic thorns. I’d never seen those gang tattoos before.
At least, not in Lobo Norte.
“What are the Needles doing here?” Now Cooper was speaking to Peyton, not me.
The Needles. I had to shift my grip or I was going to fire accidentally. Like Cooper had told me, there was no biker gang named the Needles. It was the name of a very different organization. One much more dangerous.
Peyton was with the Silver Needles now.
Rich boy had gotten into some fucked-up extracurriculars.
Once I realized why he was here, I knew who had hurt Kelsie. It couldn’t have been Peyton—he was a grade-A asshole, but he didn’t have burning hands. He hadn’t come into Lobo Norte alone, though.
He had brought the incubus mafia with him, too.
“We want to talk with Big Papa,” Peyton said. “We want to cut a deal.”
Cooper nodded, settling a hand on the back of my neck. His touch was heavy. Comforting. It grounded me. Kept me from opening fire. “I’ll tell him.”
“Good boy,” Peyton said, like he was talking to a dog.
He mounted his bike and puckered his lips at me. Made kissing noises. Then he drove off, leaving me in the dust with a feeling of being dirty that I hadn’t felt in years, not even when I stripped or blew a biker behind the bar or let them fuck me. There was no feeling of dirtiness quite like being used.