She was privileged, and she knew it. This fancy shrink and her fancy apartment building… She was one of the one percent, but now it was on her own merit, not her family’s. She was a high earner thanks to the words she penned. What she hadn’t discussed with Harvey today, because she rarely talked about anything of real importance with him—she didn’t trust the guy!—was her thoughts about switching from journalism to authoring a novel.
The last few nights, she’d spent a lot of time just thinking about what she’d write. Whether it would be fiction or non-fiction, biographical or topical. The options felt endless, and she knew that her inability to settle on what kind of novel to write was a blessing. It gave her time to work on this series, which, after all her research, had taken on a lot of importance for her.
Shifters… she shivered at the mere thought of them.
They lived among humans, never really hiding who they were but not telling the populace either. They were maddeningly secretive, their societies often discussed but mysterious to the common man. The only humans who knew about them were the ones who were fated to mate with them.
There was a huge market for shifter-human romances. Even she’d read one of the trashy novels, and she had to admit the notion of being loved by someone from the soul up was a delicious concept, even for someone as unromantic as herself.
Annette had never found relationships easy—not even with her parents or friends. It just wasn’t in her nature to socialize or to be happy around large clusters of people, which made dating very, very hard. In fact, it made it impossible.
She hated sharing her living space, hated sharing her world. She was selfish and fully admitted it, but so was the rest of the human race. Shifters, on the other hand, were not. They were clan oriented. They worked with one another for the good of the community, their thoughts on more than just themselves.
Truth be told, a part of her felt giddy at the prospect of meeting a bona fide, guaranteed Shifter today. And she knew that any woman in her position would feel the exact same way.
She walked through the reception area, veering off at the desk to grab a handful of the candy that was in a bowl there. The receptionist, a snooty blond with longer legs than body, glowered at her as she did every week when Annette did the exact same thing. Truth was, Annette did it mostly to piss off the receptionist—but also because the candies were damned fine. They were imported from Italy. She knew because she’d eaten them in Naples. Pinching the sweets always added a bounce to her step, partly from memories of the beautiful city of Napoli and partly from managing to irritate Patricia.
She didn’t bother saying goodbye, just pushed open the swank twelve-foot glass door and walked to the monument to the god of marble that was the vestibule. The silence in there was immense, almost oppressive, especially in comparison to the chaos of the city beyond.
Annette braced herself for the noise but still flinched when it hit her. She carried on down the main street, crunching hard on the mint chocolate candies, trying not to be scared by the noises around her.
The irony was, she hadn’t been frightened of anything over in the Sandbox. Blasts, explosions, death… She’d faced it all, somehow managing to control her responses to the madness around her. In a way, she’d desensitized herself to everything. But that was coming back to bite her on the ass, because now she was sensitive to everything, and it was driving her around the bend!
Her pace was swift, more of a jog than a walk, but it got her to her next appointment five minutes early. She took a seat in the small bar, more of a friendly joint than a hardcore drinking area. It was quite dark. Booths lined the walls, a pool table sat in the middle of the room opposite the bar itself, and a few tables were clustered here and there. Fishing memorabilia covered most of the walls, but interspersed among it all were biker artifacts—a picture of a Harley here, a cut with patches there. She squinted at the cut, curious at the name ‘Nomads.’ She’d never heard of them, and before she’d headed overseas, she’d done a couple of articles on a local biker gang who went around protecting victims of abuse before and during the court cases that were trying the victims’ attackers. Her research had taken her into forays best left forgotten, but she’d come to know a lot of the local gangs. The Nomads didn’t spring to mind.
After peering around, she headed to the bar. “Can I have a club soda please?”
The gnarled man behind the counter cocked a brow at her. “We don’t serve that.”
She reared back. “You don’t serve club soda?” Annette blinked. “What kind of bar is this anyway?”
“A bar that’s not open to your kind.”
Astonished, Annette felt her mouth drop open. “What kind is that?” Pissed off now, she narrowed her eyes at the guy. He looked to be in his late fifties, with grizzly hair that once looked to have been a shocking shade of red but was now mostly gray. His eyes were an icy blue, more white than anything, and they cut her to the quick. Because they made her want to shiver, it triggered her anger and she pointed a finger at him. “Yes, I have ovaries, but that doesn’t mean I can’t come into a goddamn bar.”
He frowned at her. “Ovaries?” His scowl popped up as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I think you misunderstand me, Missy.”
“Don’t call me Missy.”
“How about I call you Human?”
Annette froze. “This is a Shifter bar?”
“Yeah. And you and your folk aren’t welcome. Don’t even think about telling anyone of this place.” He bent down and casually, like he was putting a loaf of bread on the fucking counter, placed a shotgun right there—bang in the middle of the polished oak.
“I have an appointment,” she spat. “With a guy called Mundo. He told me to meet him here.”
The barkeep narrowed his eyes. “He give you another name?”
“Jimmy?” she asked, wondering if she needed a freakin’ password to buy a drink here.
Apparently, the name worked. He grunted. “Sit down. I’ll bring you your soda.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him she didn’t want his goddamn soda, but instead she kept her mouth shut and stalked off to the corner booth. With the knowledge this place was a Shifter hangout, one the bartender guarded with a fucking shotgun, she gawked around the place when ordinarily she’d have dragged out her cellphone and looked through her emails. Knowing she wouldn’t be allowed back in here, not without an escort, had her absorbing details she could garner from the memorabilia on the wall.
The Nomads… she had to wonder if they were a Shifter MC.
Not too unusual, well, not for the unusualness of Shifter gossip.
Rumor had it there were a couple of biker gangs manned by Shifters, but a lot of people figured those tales were urban legend. Annette had figured as much herself, but now, with the patch-filled cut right next to her—she’d chosen her seat for that reason alone—the urban legend looked to be true.
The barkeeper put down a club soda, and she placed a bill on the table. He shook his head. “Mundo will pay your tab.”
She wanted to ask if human money wasn’t good enough for this place, but again she managed to refrain herself. Being kicked out of here when things were getting interesting would have been sorely disappointing.
As the guy started to walk off, the door opened, and in walked a biker. He wore a cut that matched the one next to Annette and had a pair of scuffed up jeans on and a wife beater. His feet were covered by scarred but polished boots that went up to his shins. His jeans were haphazardly tucked into them.
“Mundo, what the fuck are you doing inviting humans here?” —
The barkeeper tried to modulate his tone, but anger made it easier for her to hear. Though he was being reprimanded, the guy she was here to meet, Mundo, looked around the place for her. When he spotted her, he grinned, and a pulse of heat hit her bang in the center of her core.
The guy was handsome, even she’d admit that. He wore a few days’ worth of stubble and had blue eyes as bright as the b
arkeeper’s but with a warmth the other man was lacking.
He shrugged off the server’s annoyance, called out, “Bring a beer over, Judd,” and swaggered over to her. The swagger immediately cooled any attraction she felt, but she could still admire the view. When he took a seat opposite her, she murmured, “Annette Vogel.”
“I’m Mundo.” He grinned. “Thanks for coming.”
“I was almost kicked out,” she told him, a reprimand to her tone.
“Yeah, Judd doesn’t like humans.”
“I gathered as much.”
Her dry retort had Mundo grinning. When Judd slid a beer onto the table and then stalked off, he said, “I think he’s pissed off.”
“There’s no ‘think’ about it.” She took a sip of her own club soda, and deciding to get down to business said, “Your first call, well, I’ll admit, it made me do some digging.”
“I figured as much.”
“You gave me just enough information to get interested, but not enough to discover all that much.”
He shrugged. “I needed to see how interested you were.”
“Well, you’ve got my attention. Let’s put it that way. And my paper is interested too.” She tapped her nails against the table and said, “Why am I here, Mundo? What’s going on?”
He grimaced and took another sip of his beer. After he wiped off the foam that coated his upper lip—a move which should have been disgusting but was actually pretty cute—he grumbled, “It’s not really my place to talk to you about this.”
“It isn’t?” she asked, frowning at him.
“No.” He pursed his lips. “I’m pretty low in the pecking order—higher than the average member but nowhere near the top. I’m here because someone higher up isn’t happy with what we’re doing.”
She blinked. “Unhappy enough to get the press involved.”
Mundo ducked his head. “I figured if we scratched your back, you’d scratch ours.”
“You mean, I’d look upon you and your MC favorably in any piece I wrote?”
“Yeah. I hoped as much anyway.” He scraped a hand over his jaw, and his stubble made a rasping sound. “We’re no angels, and we’d be the first to admit as much, but the majority of us aren’t happy with what’s going down.”
“But the leader of your gang is?” Annette guessed, satisfied with her supposition that Mundo and whoever he was talking about were whistleblowers.
He nodded. “He’s new. Barged his way into the seat. The guy you’ll be talking to should be the Prez, but that’s neither here nor there for the minute.”
“What’s this guy’s name?”
“Mars.”
“You trust him?”
“With my life,” came the instant response.
“Why isn’t he here?”
“Because he can’t be seen to be associating with you.”
That had her scowling at him. “What do you mean?”
“No suspicion can fall on him. Not where this is concerned. If it does, it ruins a lot of things in the pipeline.”
She shook her head. “I’m confused. I figured we were just going to meet so you could give me some more details. Tell me how these traffickers operate.”
“Yeah. It’s not going to work like that.”
Annette peered at the bartender, who was minding his own business reading the paper. “You trust him?”
“Yeah. Wouldn’t have told you to meet me here otherwise. He’s Mars’ uncle. Like a dad to him.”
“Okay, so if you’re not going to give me information, why are we meeting?”
“I’m going to take you to Mars.”
She blinked at the phrasing and had to stop her lips from twitching. “Got a space rocket out there, do you?”
He snickered. “I like you. This is going to work out fine,” he told her, his tone cheerful.
“Well, I’m glad you think so.” Annette firmed her mouth. “You have to know, I’m not going to like going somewhere unknown with someone unknown.”
He shrugged. “Yeah. I figured. I’m not taking your cellphone away, and you can tell anyone where you are.” He took another sip of his beer. “But if you do, I’m not taking you to see Mars.”
So, she had the protection of her phone, but if she wanted the story, she wouldn’t be able to use it.
“How do I know I can trust you?”
Mundo snorted. “Lady, little do you know it, but I’ve just put mine, Mars’s, and Judd’s lives on the line. You tell the new Prez anything about this meeting, anything at all, we’re all fucked. Even Judd—who has nothing to do with this.” He let her process that as he finished his beer. “So, with all that in mind, you coming with me?”
When he put it like that, how could she say no?
* * *
The story continues in MARS, available now! http://www.amzn.com/B01MTA7IGQ
Growl (BBW Bear Shifter MC Romance) (MC Bear Mates Book 0) Page 4