Mundo’s steps were slow as they wandered into a small bike shop. The front of the store was a mass of tattoo-like designs tagged onto the walls. They were glossy though, not just painted on, which raised the standard up a notch. But when they walked in, she gasped at the number of bikes, the number of accessories, as well as the ‘shop’ part of the building. Workmen were working on bikes right next to the merchandise! There had to be thousands upon thousands of dollars’ worth of gear in this place.
“This is your shop, isn’t it?” she whispered, gawking around at all the shiny beasties before her. Her nose curled at the smell that was unique to workshops—motor oil, cold air, and that weird earthy tang that made no sense considering everything was most definitely man made in here.
“Yeah,” he replied, preening a little. His chest puffed out, making her hide a smile as he helped her past a line of Harleys that shone brighter than the small diamond studs in her ears and then onto a wall of different accessories. He took her down the bottom of the aisle and asked, “Which one do you like?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m going to look like a jelly bean.”
He snorted. “How do you reason that?”
“It’s shiny, and if I wear leathers or something, I’ll look shiny too. A big jelly bean.”
“If you wear leathers, we might not get out on the bike at all.” He waggled his eyebrows to show her he was joking, but she knew he wasn’t.
She curled her lips inward to hide her smile but failed, and that had his eyes widening in response.
“You would?” he asked, his tone close to scandalized.
“I would.” She waited a breath. “If I didn’t look like a living, breathing jelly bean.”
His grin was all ‘aw shucks,’ but it was adorable as hell. She reached up to cup his jaw, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him.
“Jimmy, boy!”
Mundo winked down at her, bussed her lips again then grinned. “Hank, you old sonuvabitch.” He turned his head, and Christie mimicked him, peering around Mundo’s back because he was too damned tall for her to see whose mother her mate was maligning.
“Who’s this?”
“I think you know who,” came the quick retort as a wizened old man trod down the aisle to join them.
“She must be damn special if you’ve brought her to your lair…”
Mundo rolled his eyes. “That’s great, Hank, let’s encourage my mate to think I’m either Batman or a serial killer.”
Hank stopped in his tracks. “Mate?” He sucked in a huge breath that had Christie fearing for his lungs. He bellowed out the breath in a huge roar, and with a great whack to his chest, strode forward and gave a similar pounding to Mundo’s back. The move would have felled a lesser man—i.e. any dude not a Shifter—but Mundo just rolled with the momentum-shifting hit and clapped Hank back. “Congratulations, son. Who’s the dam?”
Christie blinked at that. “Dam?” she asked quietly, her tone, she’d admit, a little dangerous.
Mundo squeezed her. “That’s just a female bear, sweetness. He means no harm by it.”
“No, I surely don’t,” Hank boomed, leaning down from his six-six height to smile at her. Were they all so damned tall? She wasn’t the shortest woman in the world, but she felt like a pixie around these guys. And no pixie had a butt as big as hers!
When he gingerly reached out a paw, and there was no other way to describe the huge hand, she took it, fully expecting her fingers to be crushed. Yet, Hank treated it with the utmost care. She barely realized he’d shaken her hand at all. He lifted her fingers to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
“It’s wonderful to meet you, missus.”
“Christie,” Mundo inserted helpfully.
“Christie. A beautiful name for a beautiful lady.” Hank beamed. “This calls for a celebration.”
“No, we don’t have time, Hank. The bond’s still unsettled, but Christie wanted to come out for a breath of fresh air.”
Hank frowned. “What the hell you talking about, boy? That makes no damn sense at all.”
Mundo grimaced. “I met her inside. She was the prison dentist.”
A hoot escaped the old bear. “Are you shitting me?” He blushed. “Sorry, ma’am.”
Before she could accept his apology, Mundo wafted it away. “We met a couple of weeks before I was due out.”
“Hell, you should be back in your den, not out here. The mating call must have been…” Hank pulled a face. “I can understand why you’ve been calling in sick now. Just thought you were getting a coupla months of jail time outta your system.” He clapped Mundo on the back again, and to Christie he said, “This boy’s like a son to me, ma’am. You’ll never find a better man than this one.” He ruffled a hand through Mundo’s hair and murmured, “You two want to be getting back home. Ain’t gonna do neither of you any good to be out and about when the bond isn’t in place.” He wrinkled his nose. “Although, I’d say it’s close. You both stink of each other.”
Christie flushed. “Is it obvious?” Was it possible to drown in mortification? She’d feared this kind of conversation when she’d been showering, and apparently, her instincts had been right on. Was this how Shifters talked all the time?
Hank looked uneasy, seeming to realize he’d embarrassed her. “Now, there’s no need to be uncomfortable, ma’am. No need at all. It’s not a bad smell, just you two merged together, that’s all. And it’s nothing none of your kin would recognize. Just Mundo’s.”
Like that was supposed to make her feel better. Her mate’s friends and colleagues were all going to know her stink.
Great.
“I just came in to get her a helmet. That’s all. Want her to be safe on the hog.”
Hank peered at the selection and reached for a black helmet with a streak of blue lightning down the sides. “That will suit you.” He peered down at the sizing, looked at her head, nodded once, and then pulled off the packaging. Pushing it at her, he said, “You two drive safely, and don’t be coming back here until that bond is firmly fixed.” He shook his head a final time then grunted, “Only you could find your mate in a goddamn jail cell, Jimmy.”
He retreated down the aisle as Mundo set about adjusting the straps, and as she watched the enormous breadth of Hank’s back disappear, he hollered, “You’ll never fuckin’ guess? That rat bastard, Mundo has only gone and found himself a mate!”
There was a chorus of riotous cheers, which had Mundo grinning as he put the helmet on her head. When he was satisfied it was on right, he tugged her by the hand and lead her out of the store. Before he opened the door, he released a huge roar, one that shook her to her marrow. It was like Hank’s from earlier, and in response, there came another four or five bellows.
“What was that about?” she gasped when they were out on the street.
“They were happy for me.”
“That was them being happy for you?” Hell, they’d sounded more furious than happy!
He grinned. “It’s—,” he took a second to peer around then said, “a bear thing…” But his words trailed off and he frowned at something in the distance. She went to look over her shoulder, but there came a popping sound, and it distracted her. Mundo staggered back, drawing her attention to him, and as she studied him, wondering what was going on, she saw the explosion of red on his white shirt.
She reached for him as he fell flush against the wall, his eyes fluttering shut as she screamed out Hank’s name, terror flooding her. He was so white—already. She screamed Hank’s name again, but heard no bellow that told her he was coming. Before she could even drop to her knees and press her hands against the wound to stem the flow of blood, she was pulled back and away, lifted into some stranger’s arms.
Christie kicked and punched, wheeling her hands and feet, arms and legs, doing everything she damn could to get whoever was holding her to let her go, but the bastards were too strong. She screamed, hoping someone would come to her aid, but it was too late. A black van appeared i
n the periphery of her vision, and she was stuffed into it.
Before she could do more than scream once again, they slammed the door shut.
But she had enough time to look at her mate, to see his life blood spilling from his chest, and to know that he was dying—which surely meant she was too.
Chapter Eight
A roar of rage exploded from Mundo’s damaged chest. The agony doubled up, but it was what he needed to feel. The pain grounded him, helped him stay focused, awake.
As his clan helped him to his feet, shuffling him inside the shop, he yelled, “Where’s Christie?”
Hank’s tone was grim. “They took her.”
“Who the fuck is they?” he gasped, as they managed to carry him into the back. It wasn’t ideal, but the space was large enough to shift.
He had no choice but to shift, even though it would cause a shit storm in a tea cup. The bear knew his mate had been stolen, but the bear had to come out to play if Mundo was to stave off the bullet wound to his chest. Throw in the agony of shifting when he was injured, grievously so, and the creature was going to be pissed—with a capital P.
“Rory and Travis are chasing after the van. I came out in time to see it pulling out; the tires screeched like hell.”
“Who took her?” he bit off, grunting as the guys helped him strip. They all knew how precarious the next ten minutes were going to be—best not to exacerbate an injured, furious, heartbroken bear by making him dance around with too-tight human clothing digging into his limbs.
“The cartel. Who fucking else?” Hank snapped. “Now shift! You’re mated enough that if you die, she dies too. If that isn’t what you want, then shift!”
He froze, terror swilling through him at the idea Christie could die because of him, and he shifted.
His bear, once on terra firma, let out an enraged roar that had anything loose within the shop rattling. Considering sheet metal and tools were on nearly every surface, the din was cacophonous. Most of his brothers rammed their hands over their ears to absorb the sound, but still, it wasn’t enough. The noise even hurt Mundo’s ears, but the endless roar released some of his fear and pain, and it helped him think more clearly—clear enough that he knew he needed to shift back. Now.
The bear struggled, demanding to chase after its mate, uncaring that outside these walls was the city at its purest. Uncaring that traffic was heavy and pedestrians abounded. The creature wanted his mate and wanted to scream his fury until everyone knew of his wrath at having Christie snatched from him.
His chest heaved with the rattling breaths he took, the agony of the bullet wound registered by his body but not his mind as the bear processed the fact his other half had been stolen. He didn’t care that only the magic of the shift was knitting torn muscle, ripped sinew, and shredded veins and arteries together. All it cared was that Christie was no longer at his side and that she’d yet to touch the bear—to pat his head and run her fingers along his snout.
“Mundo, shift back now, son. Come on, you can do it.” Hank’s voice was loaded with concern, but it was well hidden as he urged Mundo back to his skin. “She needs you, boy, not your bear.”
An enraged growl escaped the beast, but seconds later, the creature allowed Mundo to reappear. He collapsed to his knees, the blow of the bullet and the magic and energy required to heal the wound more than his human form could stand. He screamed out the agony, smashed his fist against the ground in distress, then as he controlled it, contained it, he forced it inside himself and slammed the pain away, putting it in storage until he had time to process it.
“Call Mars,” he gritted out, head bowed. “And pass me my pants.”
Hank snorted but shoved the jeans into Mundo’s hands. “Already called Mars; he’s on his way.”
“That will take what, forty minutes to get into town?”
“Nah, he was downtown. Shouldn’t take too long. Haven’t heard from Travis yet, but they wouldn’t call unless they’d stopped. Fucking Martinez cartel… Those bastards are pure shit. Should have figured out that the old ladies and bunnies weren’t safe—not after what we saw in their warehouse.”
Mundo firmed his jaw then arched his back as a wave of agony slipped free of the constraints he’d placed on his body. “I’ll kill them all if they hurt her. I’ll raze their fucking clubs and warehouses to the ground.” His voice was a rasp, but it was loaded with a deadly earnestness that didn’t bode well for the cartel.
Hank bent down, rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently. “We’ll get her back.”
“They’re going to hurt her,” Mundo bit off. “I’ve only just found her, and they’re going to hurt her. The fucking bastards.” He wheezed as terror swamped him. The myriad ways in which they could and would hurt her blitzed through his mind until he swayed forward, only come to a halt when his forehead rested against the ground in a pose that could be considered supplicating.
He’d pray to any God, any Goddess, and say whatever, so long as he got his mate back.
Outside, the rumble of several V-twin engines made themselves known. They rasped through the shop, seeming to set the ground to vibrating before there came a sudden silence. The doors to the store opened then came the sound of stomping of heavy boots.
“Why the fuck is Mundo naked?”
It was Kiko, The Nomads’ second in command.
“He shifted, dumb ass,” Mars grunted, his irritation obvious at the stupid question. “What the fuck’s going on?”
Hank hesitated then carefully stated, “Mundo’s mate has been snatched.”
Quiet strummed through the workshop until a brittle sound escaped Mundo. It was pain and misery, sorrow and wrath combined.
“Who took her?” Mars’ voice was like silk.
“The cartel. It has to be,” Mundo whispered. “Who else could it be? We don’t have that many enemies.”
“We’ve been making them ever since we went rogue.”
For most MCs, going rogue would involve more hardcore dealings in the underworld. For The Nomads, ever since Mars had taken over as Prez and had found himself a mate, that involved fewer illegal transactions.
The Nomads were more likely to help than hinder then cops nowadays.
It was a fact that pissed some brothers off but appeased many more, and considering the MC had over four thousand members across the state, that was no small feat.
“It’s payback. For what I did to their soldier.” Mundo felt like sobbing. Retribution should have fallen on him, on his shoulders, not on his mate. It didn’t matter that he’d been shot, that if he’d been human as the cartel believed him to be, he’d have died. He wasn’t dying. He was a Shifter, and therefore could survive, so the injury was negligible in the face of what Christie was going to have to endure because of him and his actions.
Guilt speared him, lancing the wound on his chest only to gouge deeper into it, making him shudder with the pain of it. If they hurt her, if they did anything to her… Mundo gulped. He didn’t know what he’d do. Razing their shit to the ground was too small a punishment.
“We’ll get her back, Mundo,” Mars promised. He got to his knees beside Mundo then hissed, “Shit, what’s with all the blood?”
Hank grunted. “They shot him and snatched the girl. I sent Riley and Travis after the van. I just managed to see them stuffing her into it before the sped off, so I’m hoping they don’t lose track.”
“Travis is one of our best trackers,” Kiko asserted, confidence oozing from his voice. “We’ll get her back before nightfall, Mundo.”
Kenny (Shifter Football League Book 2) Page 66