Run my fingers through my hair and try to remember how it felt to be free.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AARON
THE BLOOD MOON shines on a grisly scene outside the Rusted Spike as my MC settles in for a feed of Stricken hearts.
“I owe you one,” I say to Nash while I walk over and toss Blunt’s heavy boar’s head on a raging bonfire of burning Stricken corpses. I’m fucking shaking with raw, barely restrained energy. My nerves race and burn with adrenaline from the kill. My wolf is half out, snarling and howling, scenting the new crew members and making his alpha presence known.
I haven’t felt this strong in a long fucking while.
This certain of what I am and have to do.
My pack’s still with me. My collar’s gone. I command the shadow-wolves. My bloodmate’s the fucking All Encompassing. And together we’re gunna murder the First Fallen.
I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.
A few familiar faces slap me on the back. There’s fist-bumps and high-fives and someone hands me a bottle of rye and then I’m snorting a dump-truck sized load of blow from a gold sniff bullet and the desert wind’s swirling through the parking lot, blowing dust down the empty highway and all I can think about is getting on a bike and scenting her out, my bloodmate, because her and I…well, we need to clear the air about our little domestic.
“You owe me more than one,” Nash laughs, patting Stricken corpses down for weapons and contraband. “You owe me a fucking boatload.”
“How’d you find me?”
“Tate filled me in on what happened with your girl at the rich prick’s house.”
My neck muscles tighten. “Lily’s not my girl. She’s the All Encompassing.”
“That right?” Nash says, a flicker of concern clouding his eyes. “You going all in now? Cuz the last time we talked you believed it was all bullshit.”
“Yeah. Until the bitch blasted me with her fucking heat ray.”
I decide not to detail my new plan just yet. Lily and I murder her fucked-up brother Vuk. Keep it strictly business until that’s done. And after, when things maybe get semi-sane again, if there’s still something between us—
Nash laughs. “That could change a man’s mind.”
“About a lot of things. We got some shit to work through, Sparkles and me. Bitch tried to kill me.”
A powerful slap on my shoulder nearly sends me careening into the dirt at the same instant a booming baritone rumbles: “Boohoo for the Prez! I tried to kill you, too, you whining little pussy. Fuck! Everyone’s tried to kill you, Aaron. You gunna hold it against this girl forever? Gotta say I’m psyched to meet the girl that has the Pureblood Prez so whipped.”
I snarl and turn, about to gut the motherfucker stupid enough to step to me like that, and when I do I’m facing the fucking largest dude I’ve ever seen. I’m no shortie, and this guy stands so tall I have to crane my neck up to meet his eyes. His hands are big as dinner plates. The fucker’s chest is twice as wide as a normal man’s, and it ain’t flab: his leather cut was shredded during the fight. Long sinews of tattooed muscle bulge across his chest and shoulders.
Blue.
The motherfucking predator Kodiak grizzly.
Rock-solid pillar of my MC. And next to Nash and my dead brother Sorry, one of my oldest and most trusted friends.
Blue would look like a monster, except his face is boyish, his smile broad and guileless. He has wavy sandy-brown hair that hangs loose around his ears, and his eyes are a happy-go-lucky golden color.
I hop to the side, slam my fist into my friend’s stomach.
It’s like punching a brick wall, and I have to struggle not to wince.
“You’re still slow as all shit, Blue,” I say, rubbing my hand.
Blue laughs. “But hard as all fuck. Prison’ll do that. Nothing to do but lift iron and murder motherfuckers.”
“How’d you get out?”
Blue shrugs his broad shoulders and lifts his hands in a sure-beats-me gesture. “You know how it is, Prez. Can’t keep a big bear down.”
I lift my head to the sky and howl. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so freely. I don’t have to tell the bastard it’s good to have him back, because he knows it.
“So. About this lady,” Blue says in a way that’s more than getting- caught-up friendly.
“Lily,” I say, not really wanting to talk about it but thinking Blue and the others deserve to hear my story. The rumor mill’s probably been grinding out an earful of bullshit about how I got my ass kicked by a Skin cop chick. A few of the MC gather around behind us, listening. “What about her?”
“What happened?” Blue asks.
“She fucked me,” I say.
“Besides that,” Blue says, his massive white fangs flashing as he smiles.
“Turns out I maybe murdered her Skin mother decades back. She found out.”
“Ooh,” Blue says, wincing.
“Yeah. Ooh.”
“So. You gunna forget her, you gunna man up and apologize, or you gunna keep running like a little bitch?”
Fuck, Blue.
Dude’s been back ten minutes and he’s right at the heart of it. “It’s more complicated than that,” I say.
Blue cups a hand to his ear. “Hello? Is Aaron Arud, the fucking Pureblood apex predator biker Prez around? No? Oh, great. That explains why it sounds like I’m talking to a spineless little pussy.”
A few of the MC laugh.
My face burns red.
Blue looks at me long and hard.
This isn’t all fun and games.
I’m being taken to task for turning my back on the MC. Choosing Lily over them back at Tate’s mountain cabin, then choosing to run wild into the Cascades after Lily attacked me instead of seeking them out.
That’s two strikes.
I feel the MC’s eyes burning into me.
Someone snarls behind me, quiet and low. But I know what it means.
“Reach down, grab your nuts and make the call, Prez,” Blue says, his normal rumbling bear voice dangerously quiet. “And do it quick.”
“I’m gunna find her,” I say, raising my voice so everyone hears me over the wind. “And you useless motherfuckers are going to help.”
Blue claps his giant hands together. They boom like thunder. Then he points at the crew milling around. “You hear that, assholes? Your Prez just gave you a task. You fuckers in or out?”
“In!” the crew shouts.
Blue looks me up and down, then says to the MC, “Find the Prez some clothes. His pecker flapping around’s making me nauseous.”
“Making you horny,” Nash says, cackling.
The crew laughs.
After they’re gone and it’s just the two of us alone Blue grips me on the shoulder, looks me in the eye and says, “You’re free now, Aaron. Uncollared. Don’t overthink things. What does an uncollared predator do?”
“He acts.”
Blue’s eyes gleam gold. “Fuck yeah he does. Trusts his instincts. You know who taught me that?”
“I did.”
“Action, Prez. No dithering. No wavering. That shit’s over, yeah? Pick a road and follow it. This pack needs you to lead. Needs a single answer now that the world’s nothing but uncertainty and chaos.”
“I know the answer. I know where we’re going. What we have to do.”
“Yeah,” Blue says, lifting the turquoise amulet from my neck and staring at me with an intensity I’ve never seen in him. “I think you do. Because you know who you are. I scent it. Maybe you haven’t quite admitted it to yourself yet. Maybe you should say it out loud to me first.”
“What…I am?”
“Yeah. Claim it.”
My mouth goes dry.
I try to speak but only garbled nonsense comes out, and by the time I find my voice Blue’s stalked off and I’m being handed a pair of steel-toe shitkickers and some faded jeans and a black t-shirt.
The One We Answer To.
&nb
sp; I want the Skinwalker bitch to be right. Blue seems to think she is. I want that power…but even more I just want to know my role. My place in the hierarchy. Lily and her Risen pack upended everything. Destabilized a structure that’s given the Purebloods a sense of purpose for millennia. I sense it in my crew: their nervousness and anxiety and uncertainty.
Blue’s right. They need an answer is all.
A single, crystal-clear answer about who and what they are and who’s gunna lead them into the Age of Discord.
The age of violence and war and possibly extinction.
Am I The One We Answer To?
Am I?
I finger the turquoise amulet.
There’s one sure way to find out. Challenge the Fallen myself.
When I’m done dressing Nash says, “Got something for you,” and hands me a brown paper shopping bag. Inside there’s a loaded Glock, a curving Nepalese khukri blade, and my Pureblood Predator cut. I hold the cut up to the flickering light cast by the burning saloon. The front half is bubbled and melted from Lily blasting me, but it’s wearable.
I say thanks and slip it on.
It feels like coming home.
Nash and Blue share an odd look, then Nash says, “We’ve been keeping the cuts hidden when we ride.”
I give him a long glare, then say, “What’s up with that?”
Nash pops the twig he’s been picking his teeth with from his mouth and says, “We’ve been rolling low-pro since you…since…whatever. Guerrilla style. Ambush. Strike fast and hard and get the fuck out.”
“Nash knows how to treat a woman,” Blue says, grinning and elbowing me in my still sore ribs.
“Yeah, that strategy makes sense,” I say, “if you’re a chickenshit.”
Nash looks almost angry, but when I slap him on the shoulder he relaxes.
“We cool?” Nash asks, eyeing me. He’s talking about way more than my MC choosing not to wear the cuts. He’s talking about challenging me on that fucking mountain ridge. He’s talking about defying my leadership and taking off after my brother was murdered.
“We’re cool.”
“Regular fucking bromance over here,” Blue says as Tate ambles over, wiping black blood from his lips and flicking his dreads over his shoulder. The Komodo’s still kickin’ right at the surface; Tate’s skin is all scaled up and shiny.
“Prez,” Tate says, giving me a handshake and offering me a hit from a joint nearly as thick as my wrist. “Toke?”
“Fuck yeah,” I say, and suddenly I want to get fucked up. It’s been a long, long while since I’ve felt comfortable enough to blow off some steam.
I hit the joint hard.
Tate watches me suck the blue-grey smoke down, then says, “Keep that one. You smoked the knuckle anyway.” He pulls another joint from inside his cut, sparks it, passes it to Blue, then notices the iron collar’s gone from my neck. His Komodo flickers to the surface and I scent its desire and envy, then Tate gives me a fist-bump and asks, “So how’s it? Being free with the wolf?”
“Killer,” I say, grinning.
We laugh and another crew member hands me a bottle of vodka and even though I hate the foul shit I take a long pull because the night’s still young—
“This the knuckle?” Blue asks, pointing to the super-thick middle of the joint.
“Yeah,” Tate answers proudly. “My signature move.”
“Moms must be proud,” Blue says.
“She taught it to me,” Tate laughs.
Blue inhales the joint well past the knuckle.
Tate groans and calls us all greedy motherfuckers.
A bike gas tank explodes, sending flame and shrapnel winging through the desert night.
We all laugh and cackle and howl and bark, and then I’m missing my brother Sorry and even the snarky bitch Mia.
I’m missing my inner circle. The Pureblood elite. All of them.
Blue looks at me with concern. “You all right, Prez?”
Nash passes me the vodka. I take a long pull and say, “Thinking about my brother. And Mia.”
Blue nods but stays quiet.
“I saw Mia,” Nash says. “She told me about what happened at the rich cocksucker’s house. I tried to bring her back in, Prez.” Nash shakes his head. “She was having none of it. Stubborn bitch decided to roll solo. Then I found this useless prick,” Nash nods at Tate, “and we figured you’d head east. Always did hate the city, didn’t ya? There’s only one highway running north-south out here, so we sat on it. Waited for you to turn up. Had a run-in with the Satan’s Spawn and I called in a few favors to get the rest of the boys up here.”
“You did good, Nash.”
“This is all of us,” Nash says, his lips tightening.
I look at the couple dozen MC. “All of us?”
“All that’s left alive in the western US. I sent the word out. S-O-S. No one still living would ignore it.”
“Damn,” I say, feeling somber again. I down the last of the booze, toss the bottle into the fire and say, “I’m gunna show you assholes something.”
I close my eyes and feel for them.
The shadow-hunters.
Two slip from the desert while the third stands guard over the sicko Stricken doctor I’m gunna deal with after I’m impeccably fucking wasted.
Someone shouts a warning as the wolves approach.
There’s a rifle shot, then another, then another more panicked shout.
Blue cracks his knuckles and stares at me, waiting for me make the call to kill.
I laugh and give him a fucking wink.
My shadow-wolves emerge from the desert behind us. Walking slow as my MC peppers them with bullets that zip harmlessly through their ghostly flesh.
The wolves settle close next to me. Stare down my MC.
Blue lets loose a long, slow whistle.
“What the fuck are those?” Tate says, coughing through an interrupted inhale.
I smile. “Haven’t named them yet.”
Blue reaches out, tugs my shirt down to reveal the turquoise amulet and says, “Been a long while since anyone’s lived to tell about seeing a Skinwalker, and even longer since they’ve been gifted something like that.”
“I’m a special kind of guy,” I say.
I let the shadows off to roam free.
They nose at me, and for an instant I feel their chill breath.
Then they’re gone.
***
I climb into the mechanic’s warehouse and slam the trapdoor leading down to the Stricken’s basement feeding lair closed.
“That was fucking nasty,” Tate says, visibly shaken by the sight of a hundred partially consumed Skins strapped to steel tables.
“We kill clean and we kill quick,” I say. “That’s the difference between us and the Stricken.”
“They got these meat lockers all over the world by now,” Blue says quietly.
I nod as the Stricken doctor’s screams sound from beneath my feet.
“You think the Skins we freed are strong enough to finish him?” Tate asks as we walk outside.
It’s nearly dawn.
I light a smoke, take a long drag and say, “I know they are.”
“Something’s different in you, Prez,” Nash says. “Those dying Skins…wasn’t long ago you’d have left ‘em.”
I take another drag. Nash is right. Not long ago at all. “Nothing deserves to die like that,” I say. “It’s against natural law.” I walk over to the second warehouse and try the door. Locked. I shoulder it open, and when I step inside my breath catches in my throat. It’s a bike garage, and there in the middle is a mint Harley Night Rod in flat black.
Blue steps up behind me. “Our lucky night.”
“Starting to feel that way,” I say, checking out the bike.
Tate and Nash step inside. Tate whistles and throws me a fist bump.
“You jerkoffs want to ride?” I say.
***
It’s a beautiful desert dawn, the kind that demands gra
titude just for being alive to witness it. The sky lightens to pale purple, then deep pink and finally to fiery streaks of red arcing across the Cascades. The Harley growls beneath me and the wind tears at my hair and despite still missing Lily I feel like shit’s beginning to turn around for me and my crew.
The Pureblood Predator MC fans out behind me.
Two dozen strong.
A pack of wild motherfuckers roaming for a kill.
We all know this might be our last ride, but I tell you what: the end of the world has its perks. No pigs sweating you for speeding or not wearing a lid. No yuppies in Beamers or Sunday drivers or RV’s clogging the road. Just mile after mile of straight desert highway, juniper and sagebrush whipping into a blur, my Harley redlined and purring, morning air cool and crisp and full of promise, a bellyful of black hearts and a head full of the rasta’s skunk weed…yeah.
I haven’t felt this good in a long while.
I motion Blue up beside me. It’s been nine years since we’ve ridden together. Blue’s my Road Captain. My presence on the street. The mind and muscle of the club.
Nash is up next. The three of us ride in silence for a while, just grooving on the speed and roaring wind and sense of freedom and not giving a fuck. I’m going to make Nash my VP. He’ll replace my brother Sorry. It stings, yeah, having to choose someone else.
But that’s what a leader does.
Nash deserves more for all he’s done in the last while, but it’s all I got to give.
Tate comes last. The dreadlocked rasta stoner didn’t have to stick around after that bullshit went down at his cabin, but he did. Loyalty like that means something. Tate’s gunna be my First Sergeant.
The men riding beside me don’t know it yet, but they’re the beginning of a new Chapter of the Pureblood Predator MC.
The End Days Chapter.
Origins: the former United States of America, 2015.
And like any new chapter, this one needs an initiation in blood.
After that, we start redrawing boundaries. Reclaiming turf. There’s assholes all across the world doing that very thing right now. Burning and looting. Staking claim to the spoils. I’ll be fucked if I’m gunna sit on the sidelines for a once-in-a-millennia riot.
The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) Page 16