The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1)

by Daniels, May Ellis

  “Closer than you know,” Gabriel said, smiling in a way that did not reach his eyes. “Now hurry. Purification begins soon.”

  I left, not satisfied but understanding the Truth contained answers I did not. I made my way through the Arc to where the rest of the Hopefuls were gathered. I stripped naked at the door, said a cleansing prayer, and joined my family kneeling in a circle in the center of the room.

  In the middle of the circle stood a small alter, and on that altar burned candles and incense around three pictures in simple wooden frames of people who looked just like me on the outside. A girl with sandy blonde hair walking in a place I can’t name but know is not the Arc. A man whose dark skin is covered in scars and strange black marks, screaming in a cage like the ones we sometimes keep the Absent the Priests capture in until they are Bled. And a third man, young and handsome, with soft, sorrowful brown eyes, taken in a place that looks like the learning room we have downstairs in the ship.

  The people in the photographs looked like me. But they weren’t. They were the many guises of Azazel, leader of angels, who returned to earth and lusted after the absent and deceitful women there, and so created the Land of the Absent in his lust.

  The Purification ceremony began. The Hopeful on my right, Harmony, whose turn it was to lead the ceremony, tied a yellow scarf around the upper arm of the girl on my left, a shy girl of twelve years named Gwen. Then Harmony retrieved a needle from a medical kit, drew yellow fluid into the needle from a bottle supplied by the Priests, and injected it into Gwen’s vein.

  Gwen slumped to the floor, her eyes far away.

  Harmony continued around the circle, injecting all twelve of us Hopefuls with the Divine Essence.

  I was to be last that day, and waiting for the Essence made my stomach churn. Cold beads of sweat broke on my brow. The Priests permitted us to receive Purification six times a day. Every four hours.

  But it was never enough.

  We Hopefuls faced the many Guises of Azazel as the Essence raced through our veins, making us immune to the monster’s power over the mind. One day we would face Azazel in one of his unholy guises, the Priests said, and return the fallen angel to his rightful place: Hell everlasting.

  Now, floating in the stormy night ocean, my body tells me it has been much longer than four hours since I last tasted the Essence. My bones ache, even though my skin is numb with cold, and my stomach feels like Azazel himself is stomping inside me.

  I close my eyes. I could do it now, I think. Drift underwater.

  I don’t want to be taken by the Land of the Absent.

  Don’t want to become one of Azazel’s human whores.

  Something brushes against my leg. I scream, believing the Beast of the Sea has risen to take me. But it’s only a floating piece of wood, and when I turn to brush it away I see something that terrifies me more than the thought of being consumed by the Beast.

  Land.

  The rocky shore is so close I’m afraid if I put my feet down they’ll sink into the accursed soil. I haven’t been this near to land since my Acceptance. The thought makes my breath come fast, and I swallow a bit of water and begin choking and coughing.

  I’ll swim back into the sea.

  I can’t be here. Not among the Absent.

  They’ll sense me, and they’ll know I was once a Guardian, and they’ll carry me to Azazel. He’ll violate me, force me to breed more Absent offspring for his unholy army.

  My bare feet tangle into something slippery and soft. Seaweed. I try and swim away but a powerful wave carries me close to the rocks, and when the water recedes I’m lying on my side on a jagged boulder, soaked and shivering in the night air.

  There was malicious intent in that wave, I realize.

  Azazel knows I’m here.

  He sent the cursed wave to carry me to His land.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AARON

  THE LATE U-turn is unplanned. We usually do a drive by of the Wilds to scope shit, make sure there’s no pigs nosing about, but then I see her and spend two blocks trying to make up my mind what to do, which is worrisome because the one thing I need to do, always, is act. Best way to waste a life is to worry and fret about what you should or shouldn’t do, or could or might have done. It’s also the best way to have your pack swarm over you as they fight for the privilege of killing their weak-assed former alpha.

  Act first and keep moving. Always.

  That’s the law of predation.

  I’ve got a fucking wolf inside me, for fuck sakes, with a survival instinct honed by a millennia on the hunt, and what do I do when I see the Skin bitch standing outside my door?

  I dither.

  Means we haven’t even met and she’s already under my skin.

  I brake the Harley into a speed that’ll manage the u-turn, then crank the handlebars and lean so hard my shoulder nearly grazes the pavement and there’s about half inch of tire rubber keeping me locked into the road. A momentary pause while I crank the throttle back, and in that instant Mia tosses me a look that’s all slither and hiss.

  Thinks I’ve gone off the rails? Her womanly instinct all a-tingle?

  Fuck her.

  Fastest way to get a woman’s opinion is to not ask for it.

  I punch ahead of my crew. The Skin girl isn’t outside the bar anymore, and I wonder if I’ve lost her. It’s a damn unsettling thought.

  Not losing her…but that I even bother thinking she might be gone.

  She’s no knock-out. Wouldn’t have noticed her unless I was scoping the bar and ended up going for a quick eye-fuck of the black chick standing beside the cab.

  Then I saw this one, and I forgot all about the black chick.

  The one that caught my had rain flattened dirty-blonde hair and a baggy coat that showed zero chest bounce and a face that tended to plain in a smarmy, too-smart-for-her-own-good kind of way.

  But once I met her eyes? Yeah.

  There are moments we’re not given to understand. Moments when a life hangs by a thread, or balances on the head of a pin, and the slightest word or gesture or glance can alter everything.

  Call it fate if you’re a fool. It’s just the way things are.

  But I looked into that chick’s eyes and saw…no, felt…a future there.

  A future a whole hell of a lot different than the one I always imagined for myself.

  Which in all honesty is fucking ridiculous, because the last Skin I mated died in the ambulance on the way to the ER, and I can’t even remember if I got off with her.

  But it’s not some unlucky Skin’s eyes making me drive my bike past a slow-as-fuck old man sedan so close I tear the driver side window off with my handlebars.

  It’s her scent.

  Drawing my wolf in like a fly to a honeytrap flower. All consuming, pouring into my nose and making me flex my shoulders and arms in anticipation. My eyes sink back in their sockets and my grin widens and then I’m howling, a war-cry and love-song rolled into one, and the bitch better hope she didn’t flee into the bar, because if I find her there, in my bar, two flights of stairs away from a double-walled, soundproofed room with a set of handcuffs dangling from the ceiling…right?

  There are limits to a man’s self-control, even a remarkably disciplined motherfucker like me. Ha.

  Just for shits and giggles, or maybe because a little paranoia can go a long way to keeping me breathing, as I roll to the curb in front of The Wilds I sight into the future about as far as I can go, maybe fifteen seconds or so, to check what’s going on in the bar and see if she’s in there.

  But there’s nothing. Just darkness.

  Weird.

  I squint, rub my eyes, wipe the rain off my face and take a long, steadying breath. Must be more tired than I thought.

  My crew rolls to a stop beside me. Nash looks like shit and barely manages to cut his engine before toppling to the ground. A Skin prospect, some dumb bastard whose name I can’t remember and don’t need to, rushes from the door to help, but Sorry has Nash ov
er his shoulder before the fat Skin can see the burn wound on my boy’s arm.

  Sorry slips a key into a metal door beside the bar entrance that leads to the apartment above and then he and Nash are gone.

  Another Skin, a small reedy-looking twit wearing a ball cap and bomber jacket, hurries from the shadows beside the bar and snaps a few photos of me and Mia on his phone. I turn away, trying really hard to stop myself from gutting the twit on the sidewalk, and say to the prospect: “This what you call keeping an eye out?”

  The twit with the camera snaps some more photos.

  The dull-eyed prospect’s dull-assed face crumples. He stammers for a moment, then steels himself and says, “He’s outside. Public property.”

  Mia snickers.

  “Well then why don’t you invite him inside?” I say, not bothering to hide my sneer.

  I can almost hear the prospect’s gears grinding in his head. Finally his eyes brighten and he turns to the guy with the camera and says, “Hey dude. You wanna see in the club?”

  Camera-guy gives the prospect a suspicious glance. “People know I’m here,” he says, all sniveling.

  The prospect has the sense to laugh. Claps the guy on the back. “Good. C’mon then. This isn’t a private bar.”

  Camera guy flicks a glance between me and the prospect. I pretend to mess with my bike like I could care less. Then he lets the prospect lead him inside.

  “Should I count to ten?” Mia asks once they’re inside.

  “Fucking Soren,” I say, walking around the side of the building and down an alley to the back entrance. We busted out all the lights so it’s a nice little isolated spot, but it’s irritating shit like this that makes my head pound.

  Soren’s Prez of the L.A. chapter of the Pureblood Predators. He’s a glam little bitch who craves the attention and infamy being in an outlaw biker gang can bring. He’s also a true Pureblood and so therefore not really someone I can fuck with unless I challenge him directly. The thought of ripping Soren open makes my animal scream. Recently Soren’s been doing interviews. Letting cameras in his club. All sorts of stupid shit. Says it’s public relations.

  Sounds like Soren’s gone soft.

  The back door opens and the camera guy comes flying out, screaming holy hell. I slam the steel toe of a shit-kicker boot into his mouth while three prospects pile out of the bar and scope the alley for unwelcome eyes.

  Another kick and camera guy’s face is a bloody mess of shattered bone.

  His phone rattles across the wet pavement. I bring my heel down on it, then flick it into the stream of rainwater running against the curb.

  Camera guy’s on his side, spitting blood and teeth, mumbling that I can’t do this, it’s illegal, and so on.

  I lean over him, my back turned to the prospects, open my mouth to expose a full set of long, wickedly curving teeth, and whisper, “I am doing this.”

  Camera guy clamps his hands over his face and sobs.

  I lift him up by the scruff of his flimsy Skin neck and fling him into a cinderblock wall. I drop my claws and am about to tear his throat out when Mia lays a restraining hand on my shoulder. Fuck it. The wolf’s riding high tonight. Maybe it was watching Nash get burned by Minion blood or maybe it was scenting that Skin chick or maybe all the bullshit of leading is finally starting to wear on me, but either way Mia’s right: now isn’t the time.

  “Come here,” I growl to the camera guy.

  He whimpers, presses into the wall, keeps his gaze rooted at my feet.

  “Come here!”

  The guy staggers from the wall. I throw an arm over his shoulder. He flinches and whimpers and shies away like a whipped dog.

  Chickenshit motherfucker.

  I reach inside my jacket and pull out my phone. “Mind if I get a shot of the both of us?” I say. “For a friend?”

  I take the selfie, send it to Soren the attention-seeking princess, then tell the camera guy to piss off. After he’s gone the prospects make for the door, and before the dull guy from out front can slink inside I grip his shoulder, squeeze hard enough to pop his collarbone and say, “Not you, prospect. I see you around this club again…you need it spelled out?”

  The former prospect shakes his head no. He looks crushed. Dude’s probably wanted nothing more than to be a Predator since he took the training wheels off his first bike.

  Yeah, well. Tough shit.

  “You coming in?” I ask Mia once everyone’s fucked off.

  “If I don’t you’re alone.”

  “That a problem?”

  “You tell me.”

  I run my fingers across the raindrops gathered on my leather cut.

  They shimmer like diamonds. “Listen, you have something to say?”

  Silence, then: “Keep him inside, Aaron. Keep him locked up tight.”

  Suddenly I’m missing Blue. He’s been behind bars for nearly six years. I try and light a smoke but the rain seeps over my hands and it sputters and flames out. I flick the ruined smoke into the gutter and watch the filthy city water carry it away.

  The rain’s getting to me. Mia’s preaching is getting to me. The sick bastard Stricken that nearly killed my packmate is getting to me. But most of all the scent of that she-bitch lounging in my bar is getting to me.

  “You know, Mia,” I say, taking a step toward the door, “if I do break loose you’ll be the first bitch I mount.”

  “Promise?” she whispers, making sure I hear her needful hiss.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  LILY

  ALL RIGHT, SO the place stinks like a carpeted bathroom, the air is thick with all kinds of smoke, and when I settle onto a pleather-topped stool at a high round table my ass sticks. The music alternates between old-school rock like ACDC and newer sounding stuff sung by boys with Brit accents. The unifying theme is heavy guitar solos.

  But the crowd is interesting…or at least different than I imagined. I’d say it’s about one fifth die-hard drunks. They’re the ones slumped insensate in the dark corners. Maybe two fifth’s outlaw MC with heavy gangland ink clustered around a bar at the back. And the rest? Hipsters. Bearded, trucker-cap wearing, skinny-jean donning hipsters drinking PBR like it was discovered yesterday. Not my type by a long shot, but I have to admit there’s a few cute ones milling around tonight. Trish nods at a dude in a cardigan—yes, a cardigan—and gives me a questioning look.

  “Docks are gentrifying,” I say. “Prolly a few tech billionaires in here. Maybe an up-and-coming finance wizard or two.”

  “Yum,” Trish purrs, tracing her fingernail through the grime on the tabletop. “Because the only thing that could keep me in this dump beyond one drink would be a rich boy.”

  I laugh and wag my finger at her, but it’s nice to see Trish let her guard down a bit. So she has a weakness for dudes with coin. I’m glad. Explains a bit of her hostility toward Connor, and beside, perfect people creep me out.

  All I can think about when I’m with people who seem perfect is how fucked up their secret fault must be. And how skilled they are at hiding it.

  Our table is right beside a row of three burgundy pool tables. All three tables are occupied, and the crack of pool balls smacking into one another is oddly electric. It’s almost like a whip snapping against exposed skin. The thought makes me shiver, thinking about Connor.

  Sometimes it’s not love that keeps a girl coming back for more.

  A waitress saunters over, wearing fishnets and a torn acid-wash jean skirt and blue streaks in her bleached hair. Her style is a punk/hipster hybrid, or maybe she’s a girl who just likes doing her own thing, and suddenly I feel very awkward in my Gore-Tex jacket and cream skirt.

  The waitress gives us a quick once over as she drops two coasters on our table. “Get you?” she asks, wiping the edge of the table with a disgusting rag.

  We order two pale ales, and as the waitress is leaving I ask for a couple shots of bourbon.

  Trish purses her lips. “Are we still celebrating,” she asks, “or are we drinking to
forget?”

  “Celebrating. Definitely.”

  I try and smile in a way that lets her know I’m all right, but my smile falters half-formed and I’m left not really wanting to meet her eyes, and then I watch the pool balls slide across the table, wishing I was alone.

  Here, alone in this dive bar, drinking bourbon and chasing it with beer and waiting for exactly the wrong type of guy to take a seat beside me. The type of guy I’d be embarrassed for Trish or Connor to see me with. The type of guy that would make Lieutenant Roberts at work stop and make a mental note, because like it or not there’s a whole world out there that becomes off limits the moment you get a badge. Sure, the bulk of that world is made of dirtbags and thieves and liars and true-born scum not even a girl with a fucked-up craving like me would be interested in.

  But there’s a few. A few with decent hearts that were born into that world through no choice of their own and have had to carve out a life there. A damn hard life. I know they’re out there, those few fallen ones, because a while ago, in a different life my cop friends know nothing about…it was my world too.

  There’s a group of five college-looking guys at one of the pool tables. They’re dressed in expensive jeans, their designer shirts left untucked, clean-cut, smashing too aggressively at the cue ball, high-fiving and fist-bumping when they get lucky with a shot and making sure they flex and strut as they do. They might be my age but they seem much, much younger.

  Our drinks arrive. Trish and I clink glasses and slam the bourbon with the kind of authority that makes the meat-head college guys—who are now fully watching us—whoop and holler.

  The MC bikers huddled at the bar cast a few irritated glances at the college dudes, then to Trish and me…and suddenly I’m thinking it might be fun to see a fist fight. A good, old-fashioned, testosterone-fueled bar brawl. I shrug off my wet rain-jacket, take a sip of beer to wash the bourbon down and tell Trish I’m headed for the washroom.

  I’m walking toward the back of the bar, getting a feel for the place, still shaken by that fucking…creature that accosted me out in the street but now well on the road to convincing myself I imagined the whole thing. I nod and dodge as a drunk in a stained jean jacket stumbles by, mumbling something incoherent. There’s a haze of blue in the room from all the smoke. The walls are lined in dark paneled wood and there are a few beer posters scattered around and thankfully no blaring TV’s. I can see why the hipsters like this place. It’s got a casual, unpretentious grit that’s a nice change from the usual club preening and posturing.