Hunter (The Devil's Dragons Motorcycle Club)

by Nikki Wild

  “So, how did you fall in with them?”

  His response was what I pictured you’d get if you crossed a sigh with a smile.

  “Knew you were going to ask that someday,” he replied aloofly. “Surprised it took you this long to ask.”

  “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all,” I confessed. “The last I saw you, you were a Marine going off to fight in the war again, and now you’re a biker outlaw.”

  “You’re wondering how that happened.”

  “Yeah… if that’s okay, of course.”

  Grizz scratched at his beard for a moment. “Twelve years ago, we parted ways. Half that time passed with me either fighting with my squad or trapped in the desert… When I came back to Arizona and you were long gone and I was left without direction. My father died in his trailer and he left me nothing. Place was a wreck.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

  “I’ve made my peace with it… Anyway, I had money. The Marines paid me for my service, and gave me extra for my trials. Put me through to a good psychologist to help me adjust to civilian life again.”

  “How was it? The therapy?”

  “Never went,” I answered. “The kind of therapy the shrinks would have given me… I knew it wasn’t the kind I needed.”

  “What did you do, then?”

  “I left,” he answered. “Bought a shit bike at a shit price, packed a few changes of clothes, and high-tailed it the fuck out of there.”

  He paused for a moment, reliving the experience. I held his strong, rugged hand in my own.

  “Where did you go?”

  “The desert is all I know. I understood the beating heat and how to be a soldier. Without direction I was Moses, alone in the wilderness and searching for my Promised Land. No matter where I turned, I couldn’t find it… I fell in with an Indian reservation for a few weeks, smoking peyote in the desert and having long conversations with God.”

  “Peyote?”

  “It’s some kind of shit they take from a cactus out there. Supposed to help you make peace with your demons. Didn’t do shit for me. Anyway, I came across a small band of bikers in search of salvation. They had been scattered to the winds after betrayal slaughtered over half of their own. They were directionless.”

  “The Devil’s Dragons?” I asked.

  “One and the same. The youngest among them had sharp eyes. We broke bread and he spoke of his dream – to follow in the footsteps of his former leader. He wanted to bring the criminals of the desert together to do some good in the world. The boy was naïve. But despite his flaws, I saw something in him. He had the gift. If he was molded the right way, he would become a powerful leader.”

  I finally started to get it.

  “They were desperate, and I was damn good with anything that took bullets. It was nothing for me to join them. Once I was in, I mentored Hunter, teaching him how to fight… and how to lead. He was still too young, and most of the club looked up to me after a while. Pretty soon, the club voted me in as President.”

  “You mean… you were the real president of the Devil’s Dragons club?”

  Grizz chuckled. “You sound surprised. I never wanted to be in command… I just wanted to enable the right person to take the reins. So that’s what I did – I taught the boy to lead, and then I let him lead. I named him my second-in-command, and when he was ready, I stepped down.”

  “And that’s when you got into armed protection?” I asked.

  “At the time, it was unheard of for a biker gang to make their way as hired guns. Hunter demanded a new direction for the Devil’s Dragons. He claimed that there was a better way, and that everyone would get paid more than ever before. Armed protection was his idea. There was room for a gang of hired guns in the Arizona desert, so we made money. Lots of money. Enough money to bring on new men, buy better equipment, and build a solid brotherhood between us.”

  Grizz smiled cryptically. “That’s when he began working towards building the Outlaws. But as Hunter likes to say… that’s a story for another time.”

  I pouted. “You can’t stop it there.”

  “Sure I can,” Grizz grinned, pulling me into his embrace to kiss my neck. I felt his strong fingers tickle up my body, and squealed with pleasure. “I can stop the story wherever I want…”

  “Nuh-uh!”

  “Which would you rather,” Grizz smirked, kissing his way along my chest. “A little more of the story? Or my face between your thighs?”

  “That’s not fair,” I groaned.

  “Then I’ll make the decision for you.”

  “You can’t do that either!”

  I felt him rip me down the bed with his incredible strength. Before I could protest, he was burying his face into my pussy, sucking on my clit, and all my complains seemed to just slip away…

  Nineteen

  Grizz

  I was polishing a few guns for the crew when a real rat bastard on the team wandered up, sniveling like he always did. The guy didn’t know the first thing about professionalism, and he’d made no attempt to hide that he thought I was a narc in disguise.

  No matter what our leader said.

  “Boss wants to see ya, shit-stain,” he growled, scratching the back of his head. “Bet you’ve done fucked up real good now.”

  I cast him a withering glance, twirling the shotgun in my hand and cocking the weapon to pop a bullet from the chamber.

  The movement was crisp, fast, and absolutely useless… unless you wanted to look hardcore. It did the trick. His eyes bugged and he backed the fuck off a step.

  “You think you’re tough shit.”

  I matched his step, putting barely less than a few inches between our faces – or, better put, between his face and my chest.

  “I know I’m tough shit.”

  Placing the gun on the filthy countertop at my side, I cast him a towering smirk before turning my attention away. I could practically hear this asshole shitting himself as I left the room.

  The boss wasn’t far, just up a flight of stairs and in a small, shitty office. The entire organization was run from an abandoned shop in an alley, the rooms all barely converted for “business.”

  Our leader, Clemens, had a room up the flight of stairs where shop owners tended to live in cities. I figured he probably slept here.

  “Come in,” he grunted from behind the closed door when I tapped.

  I did as I was told.

  “You’ve been doing good work, Grizz,” he smiled as I closed the door behind myself. The stench of ancient cigarettes slapped me in the face, but I didn’t say a word. “Damn good work, yessir.”

  “Happy to hear that, boss,” I politely responded as he waved for me to take a seat.

  Clemens was small-time.

  He knew it. I knew it.

  Pretty much the only people who didn’t were the peons that he had running the joint for him on the streets, which was exactly how it should be.

  Part of a leader’s job was to keep the illusion that you were a part of something bigger than you really were. Like your bullshit six-hour shift in the alleyway actually meant a damn thing.

  In that way, Clemens was admirable.

  “It’s high time we had a little chat about your future with us,” he grunted, arms crossed as he leaned back in his chair. He had a gruff grimace plastered across that ugly mug of his.

  “My future?”

  “Yeah,” he nodded, eyes trained on me. The guy looked more like someone’s old, raggedy, conspiracy theorist uncle than a small-bit crime lord. “Namely, that you ain’t got one anymore.”

  This was taking a turn I didn’t like.

  “Not quite sure I follow you.”

  He rose from his chair, flattening his palms against the countertop of his shitty little Craigslist desk. A wave of menace poured off of him as he gazed down at me.

  “I know what’s really going on here, Grizz. What you’ve been up to. I’ve known all along. Your time with us ends tonight…”
/>
  Instinctively, my hand slipped out of sight. It reached for the pistol in my pocket, ready to pull it and blow this asshole away if he meant what I thought he did.

  That didn’t mean that I was ready to fight my way straight through half a dozen thugs in the building, but if those were the odds I had to face…

  “It’s a damn shame, is what it is. I’m gonna miss you,” he chuckled, his gaze growing eviler by the second. “Lots of us here are. Such a shame…”

  “I agree,” I replied coolly. I could feel my thumb on the safety catch, fingers wrapped around my gun enough to arm myself in an instant.

  The air was thick with choking tension…

  “But this is always how these things go, isn’t it?” He mirthlessly glowered. “I hate losing such a good man. But the ruling came down tonight, and it’s out of my hands.”

  I hesitated.

  “Ruling?”

  “You’ve proven yourself,” Clemens remarked, settling back down in his chair. “You’ve got a seat at the table now.”

  The crackling thickness in the air was swept from the room in an instant. I bitterly chided myself for completely misreading him as I slipped my hand from my gun.

  “You’re upset that I can’t stay.”

  “Damn right I am,” he snapped. After a moment, he palmed his forehead and sighed. “Sorry, Grizz. Emotion got the better of me. You’re a shining example of what I expect from my crew, and now I’m being told to hand over my ace in the hole.”

  “I understand.”

  He smiled mischievously, lowering his hand from his eyes again. “If you stay, I’ll make you partner. We’ll take this city by storm, yeah? Give me a couple of years, and we’ll be callin’ all the shots!”

  It was sad to see him desperately try to play that card. Worse was how poorly he did it. I chalked that up to inexperience. This was probably the first time he’d ever been in this position, losing a hired gun clearly outside his league.

  “You just need your lucky break,” I reassured him awkwardly. “Clemens, you’ll get there. Just give it time.”

  “Yeah,” he bitterly scoffed. “Time.”

  We sat in silence for a moment.

  Just after the passing time started getting weird, he scraped a drawer open and pulled out a bottle of bourbon with a pair of glass tumblers. He rose from his chair and poured us both a congratulatory drink.

  “Here,” he gruffly commented, pushing my glass a few inches forward with a finger.

  I matched his stance, rising from my chair and clinking glasses with him. “What do we toast?”

  Clemens thought for a moment.

  “The future,” he grinned widely. “May it always turn in our favor through lesser times, for the both of us.”

  I was almost touched.

  We both downed our drinks together before taking our seats again, and he poured us another pair to sip as we continued.

  “So, what happens now?” I asked.

  “The others are willing to hear your case.”

  “My case,” I repeated.

  Another roadblock.

  “That’s right,” Clemens nodded as he sipped his drink. He waved with his hand for me to do the same. “They are willing to hear you out on your… proposition.”

  “Bringing the Devil’s Dragons club to New Orleans.”

  “Without bloodshed.”

  We wrapped up our conversation, and Clemens filled me in on how to contact the rest of the group. Once we were done, he and I rose to shake hands.

  “If you ever change your mind…”

  “I’ll know where to find you,” I noted.

  Satisfied, we parted ways. My last walk down the staircase left me both pleased and disappointed.

  It felt like I was spinning my fucking tires in the mud. Every time I thought I was getting ahead here, there was something else to push me back down.

  Maybe I could convince Julian’s partners in the local underworld that the Dragons brought something irreplaceable to the table.

  Last face I saw before ditching Clemens’ kiddie pool operation was the rat bastard from before. Standing by the wall and looking pleased with himself, he was sniffing the air as I walked past.

  “Heard you got tossed.”

  I shouldn’t have bitten, but I was in a bad mood. A second later, I had a palm slammed against the wall above him, and my hand wrapped around his throat.

  “What… are you… doing…”

  “I have turned away from putting down people who have given me less shit than you have these last few weeks,” I snapped. “I’ve been patient, ass-face, but let’s get something clear between you and me – you’re one snide fucking word away from being a smear on the pavement outside.”

  The fucker quivered, his eyes wide with panic. Just like all the other yappy assholes I’d dealt with on this side of the law, he was all bark and no bite.

  And the bark was pathetic to begin with. Just like a tiny, snappy dog that felt it has something to prove, he lacked intimidation but knew how to grate on a goddamn nerve.

  “You understand?” I demanded.

  He weakly nodded, and I let go of his throat. It was only then that I realized I had been holding him a foot up off the ground.

  Enough to put the fear of God in him.

  “You’re an animal,” he sputtered as I turned away to leave.

  “I am only an animal when I’m made into an animal,” I replied coolly. “When left in peace, I am but a slumbering bear. Wake the bear, and you wake the beast.”

  He stayed quiet, rubbing his throat and bent over against the wall. I took that as all the reply I needed, and left the building.

  I hadn’t killed Mudflap.

  I hadn’t killed anyone since leaving the Devil’s Dragons, not even on the job as an enforcer. Intimidation was doing the trick for me. I sure as shit wasn’t going to break this little winning streak for anyone – certainly not a miserable fuck like this prick.

  I was about to regret that decision when it came to my old Lafayette friend…

  Twenty

  Kate

  Things started falling apart the moment that the brutish thug in black leathers walked into my bar.

  He smelled like danger from the get-go, but it was early enough in the evening that he was one of my only two customers. I didn’t have an excuse to not immediately strike up a drink order.

  So, I reluctantly walked over and put the biggest smile on my face that I could.

  “Welcome to Bayou Spirits,” I chirpily greeted him as he pulled a seat up at my counter. “Want a menu?”

  The thug sneered as his eyes slid over the shelves of liquor behind the bar, resting on the draft beer taps.

  “Shock Top,” he growled.

  “Sixteen or twenty-one?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  I smiled bravely and dug out a large, chilled draft mug. It was white with frozen condensation as I tilted it under the tap, pouring just the right amount of head into the ice-cold glass. A slice of orange completed the look.

  “Here you are,” I told him as I whipped a napkin square in front, just in time for the glass to set down on top.

  The thug took the drink without a word of thanks and tilted it back. While he was preoccupied, I saw the emblem on his leathers, and my heart turned colder than that mug could ever get.

  Bayou Boys.

  I froze in place, quickly stifling a minor panic attack as he downed a third of the mug and set it down. What the hell are they doing here?!

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the thug smiled, showing off a few missing teeth. The gesture only scared me more.

  “I… just realized that I forgot to make a call for my boss,” I stammered. “To one of our beer reps.”

  “Oh.” The stranger smiled evilly, “Well, little missy, better get to that then.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed, turning away.

  Suddenly, his hand was around my wrist. I jumped, startling the other customer, who was r
eading a newspaper at the other end of the bar and staring strangely at us.

  “What are you–”

  “That menu,” the stranger sneered. “I’ll take one. You’ve got food in this raggedy joint, yeah?”

  I glanced down at his hand, fingers coiled around my wrist. His grip was punishingly tight.

  “We do,” I answered. “Mostly burgers.”

  “Then bring me a menu.”

  Brazenly, I summoned my courage, feeling it weakly simmer deep down. It was barely a boil, but it would have to do.

  “Let go, and I will.”

  He instantly released his fingers, holding them near my wrist before slowly drawing back across the counter. I reached down a few inches and slapped a menu on the counter in front of him.

  “Here. I’ll be back to take your order in a minute.”

  “Of course,” he toothily smiled.

  I grabbed my phone off the charger and checked on my other guest before slipping into the back. The biker thug kept his eyes on me the entire time, and I shivered once he was out of sight.

  I dialed in Grizz’s number.

  After a few rings, he didn’t pick up.

  “C’mon, baby,” I hissed impatiently.

  Tried again. Nothing. I knew he was supposed to be meeting someone tonight, but it wasn’t like him to ignore my call…

  My phone didn’t have texts, so I left him a voicemail and reluctantly stepped back out into the bar front.

  The thug was waiting cruelly.

  “How’s your guy?”

  “Sorry?”

  Shit, did he hear that?

  “Beer guy. For your boss.”

  Relief washed over me. I was in the clear… but I’d have to be more careful around this guy. “No, couldn’t reach him. Had to leave a voicemail.”

  “Shame, that.” He pushed the closed menu forward towards me. “Cheeseburger. Well done, tomato, pickle, mustard. Fuck it up and it goes back.”

  I made a show of writing it down, just to make him happy.

  By the time I walked back out with the other customer’s club sandwich, the Bayou Boy biker had shifted his attention over to a football game on the television. He was on his better behavior, although I’d hear him swear at the top of his lungs and snap at the screen every third or fourth play.