It happened anyway. As Destiny had just said aloud, what was done was done. They couldn’t tear apart a family.
The leader of Lethal Freedom, Brock Tremors, had been of a similar mind, which was surprising to Destiny because he knew the man well. And knew his brother even better, having had a failed romance with him.
Brock gave permission for Ralphie to stay with Cain. That should have been the end of it. Momentary peace in the form of disgruntled acceptance, followed by activity resuming as per usual.
What happened instead was that tensions continued to grow. No one was satisfied with the way things had turned out, no matter their opinion on the situation as a whole. Discontent grew, a foul brew of emotions passed around in a dingy mug. Everything only grew worse by the day.
It was Destiny’s hope that when Ralphie went home and the baby was out of sight, the equilibrium of things would restore itself.
“Yeah.”
He snapped out of his thoughts, back to the situation at hand. Ulysses resumed looking as dour as ever, his gaze disdainful of the world in general.
“Yeah,” Ulysses repeated. “Okay. I get you. It’s going to be shitty either way, so we might as well be the bigger man.”
I’d rather think I’m doing the right thing and not just the thing that makes me look better.
“Right,” Destiny agreed. “It’s just a game that we have to play. We’ll get our chance, as long as we all do our part. You going to do your part? Or should I bring up the fact that you still owe me a rent payment from six months ago?”
Ulysses flashed a grin, knowing he had already worked off that payment by doing favors for his leader. Destiny just liked to rib him about it. “Of course, I’ll do my part. Just say what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”
“Stop hanging around underneath the fucking staircase, then. Get some sleep for once. Go back to your own place if you can’t handle the baby.”
Ulysses raked his hand back through his hair. “I think I will go home. But hey, Dusty, I just remembered. Stiletto said she was looking for you when she passed by on her patrol. I think she was headed to your room.” The way he said it made it clear that he hadn’t actually forgotten this information at all and had just saved it for a time when he thought Destiny was deserving of it.
This actually made him smile, although ruefully. Being at the head of a gang could sometimes be almost boring. Like watching a chess match between two beginners, able to read every single move before it played out. And then there were moments like this, when a player left the textbook guidelines behind and did something clever on their own.
Moments like that made him proud. He would hate to be followed blindly, like a mother duck leading her brood. Better to be poked at, made fun of, or shoved around. It was, after all, what wolves did. Just part of their double existence as human and animal.
“Thanks, Lee. I’ll go see if I can find her. You be safe, okay?”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Ulysses replied, sounding almost friendly for once. Despite the fact that he hadn’t actually gotten any answers, or even accomplished anything through this meeting, the slender alpha walked away as if he was 50 pounds lighter. All his burdens were gone, and Destiny was the one carrying them.
This was what he signed up for. Leader, counselor, confidant. A man who wore many shoes, and a wolf with a thousand pelts.
Turning away from the window, Destiny saw that Ulysses had stopped only a few feet away. “Problem?”
“No problem,” the other wolf said. He stayed facing away, not wanting to reveal what his voice was showing already. His shoulders hunched up, as if in indecision, and then relaxed. “I wanted to say I really did mean what I said. Anything you need, I’m your man.”
Before Destiny could thank him, Ulysses strode off. Watching him go, Destiny felt his chest swell with pride and thanks. Even when things were rough, they were still good.
Abandoning his patrol of his domain, Destiny went in search of Stiletto. He caught faint whiffs of her sharp scent in the air, heading in the direction of his room. Once upon a time, that big area secluded off by itself to the rear of the garage was used as a general meeting area where any two wolves could talk in privacy without fear of being interrupted. It was the same if you were at college and found a sock on your roommate’s door. If the Do Not Disturb sign was hung up outside the meeting room, you didn’t go in or else you would find yourself in the middle of something awkward and potentially disgusting.
As time went on, the wolf everyone wanted to see most was, of course, Destiny. The room started to be called “Destiny’s Room” or “Destiny’s Office” or “The Boss’ Spot.” Some days, it felt like all he did was sit in there and listen to complaints, like he was some sort of lawyer. In some ways, he was. It was his job to care about all the petty shit no one else would spare a second thought for. Because it wasn’t just the bikers in his club that he had to think about. A motorcycle club was essentially a family, and since they were wolves in a pack, that was even more so in their case. His members had their own families, kids, spouses, parents, nieces, friends, enemies, and so on into infinity. If there were issues with any of those, he was the one the wolves came to for help. They were his wolves. His big, happy, complicated extended family.
Soon enough, he realized his constant presence at the garage was required. He made the arrangements, moved in, claimed his room, and the rest was history.
“Stacy?” Destiny called while pushing his door open. He was one of the few who called her Stacy, because he thought her nickname was cruel at worst, and unimaginative at best.
“Hi, Dusty!” she piped. The direction of her voice led his gaze to her, where she sat comfortably in the big chair behind his desk on the side of the room that was all office. The other half was a ramshackle, but comfortable, bedroom. The line between the two halves was a harsh boundary. Desk, shelves, and filing cabinets literally inches away from his bed and personal belongings. Up until the point he moved in to the garage, he’d been living in an apartment just about as big as this entire room. He’d upgraded by about a thousand percent and couldn’t have been more content.
Destiny went over to his desk, yanked out the chair and sat down. “What’s going on?” he asked. The question sounded familiar in his head, reminding him that he just asked Ulysses the exact same question.
If I find out I have a catchphrase, I’m going to lose my mind. I will not be that lame.
“What do you mean?”
“I was told that you wanted to see me?”
“Oh, right!” Stiletto slapped her forehead with her hand. Her fingerless leather gloves made a hard thwack sound where the material collided with her flesh. Destiny refrained from wincing. The force of the slap had been enough to make his brains rattle, and he wasn’t even the one who had hit himself. “Silly me! I just got a little distracted. I was doing my patrol, but I didn’t want to keep going and maybe just keep missing you, so I came here instead.”
“Right. And the reason for that, is?”
Her small fingers roamed worriedly, like twin albino spiders with a life of their own. They plucked at her sleeves, fluttered through the pages of a book on his desk before sliding up the sleeves of her leather jacket to press at the reddening spot on her forehead. White indentations rose from the pressure of her fingers. She was really pushing in, really going at it.
“Cain told me to tell you he wanted to talk to you.”
Destiny refrained the urge to pull her hands away from her face, since those roaming fingers of hers were now plucking out hair directly from her head. He could see the little white follicles on the end of each drifting strand, forming a wispy little pile on the desk in front of her.
“Thanks for finding me. I appreciate it. Do you know where he is right now?”
“He said he would be outside waiting for you. Said it was really important.”
Standing up, nearly knocking over his chair before grabbing it by the back and righting it, Destiny turned ba
ck to his door. Cain knew how things were run. Not everything was important. So, if Cain was saying it was important and had sent someone to find him and deliver this message, then it had to actually be something pertinent. News, information, or maybe something else not as good.
“Thanks, Stacy,” Destiny called over his shoulder. “Leave when you’re ready.”
“Bye, Dusty!”
Destiny headed outside, his thoughts torn between poor Stiletto and what Cain might have to say to him. He hated having to perform the sort of mental triage he often did, having to discard a lesser issue in favor of a bigger one. It wasn’t fair when both dilemmas might have merit. Unfortunately, it was a necessary evil. And besides, Stiletto’s problems were an ongoing thing that couldn’t be solved by simply making a decision. She was like a tree grown in bitter soil, a twisted thing that kept persevering no matter how many times she might be cut down. Her existence was a tortured one. If she was ever to be freed, her roots would need to be exposed and dug up and transplanted somewhere else. Unfortunately, those bad roots spread deep and far.
Destiny was digging for her, but right now the most he could do was keep watering her, keep pruning her, caring for her, until that day of freedom could come.
Stiletto Stacy was an amalgamation of personalities, which wasn’t to say she had multiples of them. She just didn’t seem to be the same person all the time, her moods spiraling crazily between extremes. Often chipper, she could darken to sullen and withdrawn, like someone had flipped a light switch in her mind. Sweetness and aggression vied within her.
This disparity showed even in the way she dressed. Nothing in her wardrobe matched. Right now, she had been wearing the jacket and the gloves, proper biker attire, but her hair was in pigtails secured with frilly pink bows, and she wore glittery shoes from Goodwill.
Stiletto Stacy was also a murderer, but that really wasn’t where her history began. That history in and of itself was a confusing thing, since she often told several different versions of it. The general consensus was she had run away from home when she was 15 years old. Though, no one could ever pinpoint if her home was somewhere in Florida or if it was Colorado, because she would say yes to both.
At 17, she married a much older man. A human. He professed to love her despite her shifting, which he called her “disability,” but he proved he felt no such thing by physically, mentally, and sexually abusing her for years on end. No doubt this, coupled with whatever cruel childhood had made her run away in the first place, was what contributed to or directly caused her many rampant mental issues.
Eventually, she broke down. Killed him with a bite to the neck. But in order to hide that the murder had been committed by a shifter, she stabbed him after he was dead. She used a stiletto.
Not the knife, but the shoe.
In all, she stabbed his body over 30 times. By the time she was done, there was no way to tell he’d died from a bite to the neck. He didn’t really have much of a neck at all anymore.
Her lawyer called this an act of self-defense.
The prosecution claimed it was a dangerous display of mindless violence.
Stiletto Stacy spent two years in a psychiatric hospital. When she emerged more of a wreck than she’d been at the start, Destiny was there to collect her.
He’d watched her case the entire time, and he knew he was the only one who would do anything for her. So, he took her in. She lived at the garage for free. Her days were better now. She was on government assistance, supplied with enough money for food, medication, and a twice-monthly trip to a therapist, and little else. She had her own bike, an ancient little thing with a basket that couldn’t go over 30 mph anymore. She patrolled vigilantly, did the best she could.
Progress, but not progress enough.
Destiny wanted more for her. She was no biker. This wasn’t the life for her.
I should look into getting her into an assisted living facility. If only we could get her aggressiveness in check.
He’d have to talk to her therapist, see how that was going.
“Hey.”
Clamping his hand over his heart, Destiny spun around to find Cain looking at him from the shadows by the entrance of the building. Regretting to do it, Destiny put thoughts of Stacy from his mind. “You scared the hell out of me.”
Cain grinned a little. “I’ll have to mark the occasion down on my calendar. It’s not every day I get the advantage on you.”
“I was just thinking about Stacy.” There was no one else in the world he would have admitted that to. The rest of the pack tended to either feel bad for her or tolerate her, though they had too many of their own things to deal with to really spare her much thought. Some cared for her, watched over her, but Cain was the only one who understood the full situation.
“How was she when you found her?”
“She seemed to be in a pretty good mood. But I have to tell you, that was quite the wild goose chase I was on for a bit there. You told Stacy to find me, Stacy told Ulysses to keep an eye out for me.”
Cain’s expression suddenly fell. He assumed his thinking face, one eyebrow up and the other quirked down. His eyes, already dark green, darkened even further from behind the shaggy tufts of hair hanging in his face. “I saw the way he looked at me earlier. I have a feeling I know what he wanted to talk to you about.”
“We straightened it out.” In a way, at least. “What did you want to see me for, Cain? Shouldn’t you be with Ralphie? How is he, by the way? I haven’t been down to visit him recently.”
Destiny hadn’t been to visit Ralphie at all, though he was witness to the birth. It all happened so suddenly. They thought there had been more time until the baby was due, though these things could be so difficult to predict when shifters were involved. The biology of each and every shifter seemed to be just slightly different, even between members of the same species. By virtue of the butterfly effect, these tiny differences could lead to some huge results. A pregnancy could take anywhere between two to ten months.
When Ralphie gave birth, he was just outside the parking garage. It had been a terrifying affair, and everyone was relieved when it was over. They hadn’t wanted to call an ambulance because there was no telling if they would get paramedics who knew how to deal with shifters. Instead, they sent someone from the pack to the hospital to alert them of what was going on. An ambulance arrived after that, but the paramedics hadn’t wanted to move Ralphie until the child had been delivered.
The child, little Knox, was only slightly premature. He would suffer no lasting, long-term effects.
Ralphie, on the other hand, had an extremely tough time of it. His slim body made it difficult to deliver Knox. While he, too, would suffer no lasting effects, he was very tired and needed to recover. The hospital had allowed him to go home on the terms that he be on bed rest for as long as necessary. Frequent doctor visits were recommended. Insisted upon, really.
He would stay here with the pack, at the garage, where he could be monitored and taken care of.
Cain’s eyes lit up, glittering at the mention of his mate. “He’s doing so much better. He was walking around today. Complained when I told him to go back to bed. You can tell when he’s feeling good because he starts getting grouchy about being still all the time.”
“That’s good.” It gave him hope that his goal would be accomplished soon, of sending Ralphie and the baby home to get them out of the public eye. “And Knox?”
Now Cain’s expression softened, gaining a sort of gentleness Destiny had never seen from him before. “He’s so wonderful. So precious. He keeps trying to shift already.”
Shifter children usually discovered their abilities when they were toddlers, like stretching a new limb they had just become aware of. As with all things though, there really was no standard. Some pups discovered the other part of themselves at a later age, while others were turning into animals in the nursery.
“Can’t manage it quite yet, huh?”
“When he tries, he gets fang
s. They’re so cute and sharp.” Cain lifted his hand, proudly displaying a scab on the back of his hand. “And when he turns back, he doesn’t have any teeth at all. Too young. I love him so much.”
Destiny found himself smiling in response to this declaration. “I know that you do. Now, why are you here bugging me instead of spending time with him?”
“I was just out buying some supplies to replace what we’ve been using from the infirmary. While I was doing that, I saw some members of LF clustered around the edge of our territory. I don’t like the way they were looking around, like they were plotting something.”
A chill brushed down Destiny’s spine, like damp from the deepest corners of the garage. “You think they might be about to attack.”
“Or working up to it.” Cain nodded, looking grim. “I was thinking that we should strike back. Or do something to discourage them from whatever they’re planning.”
Destiny sighed. This was exactly the sort of thing he’d been hoping to avoid. “Great. I’m sure that’s going to help.”
“You could just let them attack us, let them think they can keep doing that. I’m sure that’s going to be even more helpful in the long run.”
“I hate it when you’re right.” Destiny shook his head, then clenched his fist and looked up. “But, you are right. I’m going to go do something about this right now.”
“Let me come with you.”
The offer surprised Destiny. He wasn’t sure it should have. Cain was the most badass biker he had ever known. No one else in the world seemed to fit the lifestyle as perfectly as he did, like he had been born to tear up the road.
Maybe it’s because he’s been so preoccupied with Ralphie and Knox lately. It made me almost forget how much he used to live for this pack. How much he still does. I shouldn’t doubt him.
All the same, he had to ask, “Why?”
Cain looked at him, seeming offended at the question. “Because I’m part of the reason that all this is happening. It’s my responsibility, maybe even more than yours. I’ve been with this pack just as long as you, and I would do anything to protect it from harm. Especially from those stuffy fuckers.”
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