Voodoo (Royal Bastards MC: Ankeny IA)

by Kristine Allen

  “Tie him up,” the one with the eye patch said to his flunkies. Panic bubbled up in me at what they might do to him when he couldn’t defend himself. Not that the odds were great even if he wasn’t restrained.

  The rage flickered in his eyes like flames. The debris that littered the lot began to move as if a strong wind had picked up, but there was nothing. My hair was still except for the light breeze that had been there before.

  Startled, the bad guys, as I decided to call them, began to look around nervously. When several of the old windows shattered and the glass impaled a couple of them, they really got nervous.

  “What the fuck?” one of them shouted.

  The only one who wasn’t panicking was the man I believed to be Ogun’s father. When I glanced his way, he was staring at Ogun with a narrowed gaze.

  “It would seem you learned a few new tricks over the years,” murmured Gambler. “Either you stop, or I kill her. Because I really don’t need her. It’s you and those magic tricks of yours I’m after.”

  The cold steel against my head made me freeze, barely breathing. All of the trash and debris dropped to the ground. There were murmurs of disbelief around me from the other club. Ogun stood there, chest heaving.

  “If I go with you and don’t give you any trouble, you let her go,” he bargained.

  “No!” I reflexively cried out. In my heart, I hoped Venom and the rest would get there soon. I could’ve sworn I’d heard bikes before. Where are they?

  “Kira, please. I’ll be okay.”

  “Yeah, Kira. He’ll be okay,” Gambler said in a sarcastic, condescending manner.

  “Hurry up and get over here,” said the one with the eye patch whose cut said Mule. It was apparent that Ogun didn’t want to give in, but he was willing to sacrifice himself for me. I hated it.

  “Let her go,” Ogun demanded when he was halfway to them.

  “You think we’re stupid? Hell, no. Not until your ass is secured.” I think it was Scorpion-face that said that, but I couldn’t be sure.

  His jaw clenched and his eyes flashed, but he continued forward. With each step, I bit my lip harder until I tasted the coppery tang of blood. Each breath was painful and each heartbeat agony, as I knew he was walking closer to our end.

  Finally, he stood close enough I could smell a faint hint of his shower gel and the exhaust from the bike. More than anything, I wanted to reach out and touch him. Feel his arms wrapped around me. Hear him tell me he was going to get us out of this. Taste his lips on mine.

  “Turn around,” Gambler ordered. Ogun’s nostrils flared, and I could hear his teeth grind in tightly leashed anger. Still, he did what he was told, and I flinched as I heard the cable ties tighten. The gun dropped from my head, and I breathed a partial sigh of relief.

  As soon as they were tight, Ogun turned to face them. “Now let. Her. Go,” he said with bared teeth.

  Several of them laughed. My eyes darted around as Ogun’s jaw worked and his body tensed.

  “Now why would we do that?” Mule asked. “If we let her go, how will we keep you in line? Something tells me you’ll be a bit more amenable to our needs if me or one of my brothers has a cock about to go up her pretty little ass.” He laughed, as did the majority of the group.

  “You dirty motherfuckers!” he roared as he lunged at the nearest guy. It didn’t seem to matter to him that his hands were fastened behind his back. Mule didn’t hesitate for a second. He raised his hand and shot Ogun, who spun and fell to the ground as I screamed.

  “Shut her up!” Mule growled. Skid slapped me across the face so hard I saw stars, stunning me into silence.

  “What the fuck did you do that for?” Gambler yelled at Mule. Then he told another guy to get Ogun in the truck.

  Right as they were dragging Ogun toward the truck I’d been in, there was a quiet pop. The guy dragging him stopped, blood trailing from a hole in his head, and he dropped like a rag doll. The sound he made as he hit the cracked asphalt was one I’d likely never forget.

  The guy I’d noticed as out of character with the Bloody Scorpions pulled a gun and searched the area wildly. His nostrils flared as he swallowed hard and glanced in an oddly longing way at the guy with the blood pooling under his head. When he looked back up, our eyes locked and I noticed a shimmer in his that seemed almost animal-like. Without batting an eye, he shot one of his own guys who had started shooting wildly around them.

  “What the fuck?” Mule shouted before he too was missing the back of his head and lying lifeless at my feet.

  Gambler grabbed my hair and pulled me in front of his body. He was using me as a human shield. My mouth fell open as another one of the guys dropped to the ground. Blood spurted from his neck wound. He tried to hold it for mere seconds before it was apparent he was gone.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Skid scaling the fence, but I was terrified to scream, because Gambler held his damn gun to my head.

  “Gambler. Let her go. It’s not worth it,” the guy tried to reason with him. I had no idea what his name was because his cut only said “prospect.”

  “Shut up, prospect! You killed one of our patches!” he screamed in my ear. The prospect guy tried to reason with Gambler.

  “He was going to bring the cops in. He was shooting erratically. Not to mention, innocent people could’ve been harmed as well. Chill out, Gambler. Let her go and let’s get out of here. She’s only going to slow us down.” His eyes held mine again, and I knew he was trying to get me to understand something. The problem was, I had no idea what.

  When he kept looking at me then down, I took a calculated risk, made myself dead weight, and dropped. My knees hit the hard asphalt, and I whimpered. He shot Gambler, causing him to stumble back from me. Because I had no way to catch myself, I fell forward and whacked my chin on the ground.

  Groaning, I rolled to my side.

  The prospect seemed to be the only one of the Bloody Scorpions still standing. He carefully sat me up. As he assessed me for damage, his hands framed my face. Then, his eyes shimmered again, and he leaned in. In shock, I sat there as his lips brushed mine and his tongue ran along my bleeding lip.

  Except, he definitely wasn’t kissing me. Because he then held his tongue under my chin where warm blood was continuing to drip.

  “If you don’t get your mouth off my woman’s face, I’ll peel your skin from your body.” It was said in a pained and growling tone, and I sucked in a startled breath as I saw Ogun struggling to sit up.

  The prospect pulled out a wicked-looking blade, and I paused. There wasn’t any need to be concerned, though. He only sliced the ties from around my wrists before moving over to do the same for Ogun.

  Except he hesitated. Then he said, “If I cut you loose, you can’t kill me.”

  Through gritted teeth, Ogun said, “You’re not in a position to barter. In case you didn’t notice, your club members are dead.”

  “They weren’t my club and they certainly aren’t my people,” the man spat in disgust as he cut Ogun free anyway. He even helped him sit up as Ogun groaned and winced in pain. When he brought the knife toward Ogun’s neck, I cried out.

  “Please don’t!” The man raised a brow at my outburst, gave me a half smile, and sliced through Ogun’s T-shirt. He did it again and pulled the pieces off to wad up and press to the wound on Ogun’s shoulder. Ogun flinched and nodded.

  “Thank you. I owe you.” Ogun held the man’s gaze, but I didn’t like his labored breathing, and I still wasn’t sure who had been doing the shooting. Nor did I know where they were. It was like they were ghosts.

  “Lay back,” he said to Ogun, who reluctantly obeyed. Gambler groaned behind me, and I whipped my head his direction. He wasn’t going anywhere, but I still scooted away from him.

  “Kira,” Ogun gasped out. I crawled over to him. “There’s a gun in the pocket of that jacket. Get it out.”

  Fumbling, I checked the pockets and found a small pistol. He nodded at me. I chambered a round and held the weapo
n pointed at Gambler. Brow furrowed, I glanced around. “I think Skid got away.”

  “Who the fuck is Skid?” Ogun grunted.

  “A Bloody Scorpions member. Piece of shit,” the guy muttered.

  “Why are you helping me?” Ogun asked as he stared up at the man who was holding pressure on his wound.

  “Because I hate them. I was only with them because I’ve been looking for a young girl who went missing. Everything I found pointed to them, so I was trying to get close to them to see what I could find out.” The guy’s breathing became labored, and he seemed pale to the point that he looked green.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him as worry furrowed my brow. “You really don’t look too good.”

  He swallowed with difficulty. “It’s all this blood,” he rasped. I took over with the compress as the guy fell back to his ass. We both looked up as we heard motorcycles closing in on us.

  A guy all in black was racing down the road toward us, carrying what looked like a musical instrument case. What the fuck is going on?

  Blinking in disbelief, I watched as familiar figures skidded to a stop near us and jumped off their bikes. They were much more graceful at it than I had been.

  Angel ran toward us and gently removed my hands. “I’ve got it, babe,” he said softly, and a tear slipped from my eye. I clasped Ogun’s hand in mine as I sniffled. Then I realized Phoenix was pointing his gun at the man who’d helped us, and I scrambled to get his attention.

  “Wait! Phoenix! He helped us! He’s a friend!” I spouted.

  Phoenix’s lip curled. “His cut says otherwise.”

  The guy was shaking his head, and if it was possible, he looked worse. Imagine my shock when he crawled over to Mule and bit him.

  No shit, he literally leaned over and bit his goddamn neck. He wasn’t there long before he sat back up but dropped his head. His back heaved as he breathed heavily. When he slowly raised his head and turn our direction, I gasped. There was blood all over his lips, and for a second I would’ve sworn I saw fucking fangs.

  “Uh, dude. You okay?” Squirrel asked with his eyes wide.

  “I think he’s a fucking vampire,” Ghost murmured.

  “What? Hell, no. There’s no such thing,” Squirrel argued.

  Chains chortled. “Listen to you, you dumb fuck. If you asked the average person out there, they wouldn’t believe the shit we can do.”

  “Enough,” Venom said. Then he turned to the guy in black. “Thanks, Reaper. You have no idea how glad I was to hear you were in town. I can’t thank you enough for helping out.”

  The guy in black shrugged and shook Venom’s hand. “Anytime. Hell, I was literally right down the road picking up a bike. You’re lucky I travel with my baby.” He raised the instrument case that obviously didn’t hold an instrument. Well, not a musical one, anyway.

  Through everything, my eyes were bouncing from person to person, and my bleeding chin was damn near dragging the ground. It was like I was stuck in the middle of a crazy dream.

  “Close your mouth before you catch flies.”

  My head swiveled to Ogun. My hand squeezed his, and I burst into tears. It was too much. Everything that had happened in such a short time was completely surreal.

  “Shh,” he said as he sat up with Angel’s help. Angel looked like he’d pulled an all-nighter. Where I’d been holding the wadded-up fabric was a slightly scarred spot. My hand unconsciously went to my neck where I had a thin line much like the small circle on Ogun’s shoulder.

  “I think I need a drink,” I whispered.

  “What I Live For”—Rob Bailey & The Hustle Standard

  “Jesus fucking Christ, I’ll be glad when shit settles down around here,” grumbled Chains as he took a long pull from his bottle.

  “You and me both.” I sighed as I did the same. Kira wiggled in my lap, and I swatted her ass playfully. “Sit still.”

  Drunk as a skunk, she giggled. There was no way I was getting pussy that night, and I didn’t need her teasing me like that. If she kept it up, I was heading to bed with blue balls. Big fucking blue balls.

  “I think I need another drink!” she cheerfully announced. “How about you, Calix?”

  The vamp sitting at the table with us made me a little uneasy. Not that he’d done anything wrong to us. In fact, I likely owed him more than I could ever repay. That’s why our club was about to do him a solid, and if he took us up on the offer, great—if not, so be it.

  “I’m good, thanks,” he said with a wry tip of his lips. I had yet to see fangs, so I wondered how that shit worked. Did he ever cut his own tongue or lips? A guy has questions about shit like that.

  “Hey, baby, why don’t you go up to the bar and have the prospect make you a Raging Gorilla? I think it’ll be just what you need.” The rest of the brothers tried to hide their grins and laughter. She was oblivious, thank fuck.

  “Is it good?” she asked with one squinted eye, her lips twisted to the side and one brow raised.

  “You’ll love it,” I solemnly promised.

  She smiled wide, stood up, and wobbled. My hands grabbed her hips to hold her steady. I gave her a questioning look, and she waved her hands at me. “I’m perferlectly fine,” she slurred a little as she stumbled over her words. She leaned toward Calix and actually touched his lip with her index finger. “You gotta show me those things before you go.”

  “Sorry, man,” I apologized, but he smiled and gave a good-natured shrug.

  “It’s no problem.”

  Once I knew she could walk without falling over, I let her go.

  “Bro, that’s fucked-up. You know that’s a nonalcoholic drink, right?” Angel asked with a smirk as he sipped his whiskey neat.

  “Duh,” I said incredulously. “Did she look like she needs more?”

  “Aww, give her a break. She’s had her mind blown over the past week.” Phoenix chuckled as he played with a lighter. He bounced the flame from the lighter, then along his fingertips and back to the lighter. Our new friend stared in awe.

  I chuckled. “You have mystical teeth and drink blood, but you’re amazed by his magic tricks?”

  Calix laughed. “I guess so.”

  “Fuck off. It’s not magic tricks,” muttered Phoenix. Then he sent the flame over to the top of my drink, where it flared before I blew it out.

  “Asshole.”

  Everyone laughed.

  Venom raised his drink and studied our new friend for a minute before he spoke. “Look, Calix. I’m not sure if you have, um, people here, or what your plans are, but I had an idea.”

  Sweet Jesus. Please don’t let him have people around here.

  He sighed heavily and ran a hand over his face before dropping it to the tabletop. “No. No people. They’re all up in Alaska. I’d rather not discuss my circumstances, but I’m definitely here alone.”

  Thank fuck for small favors.

  Venom continued. “Well, then this might work out well for you. It might be something that would interest you, since you said you only… uh… dine… on shitbags.” We’d had a pretty extensive conversation on the way back to the clubhouse about why he’d hooked up with the Bloody Scorpions.

  Venom, Raptor, and I were the only ones who knew about the Tennessee chapter’s members because they kept things extremely quiet. The only reason we knew at all was because of one of my visions.

  He drew in a deep breath. “So we have this chapter in Rock Bottom, Tennessee. They do some crazy shit to help kids that are in bad situations. They’re your kind of people.”

  It was by far one of the most bizarre conversations I’d ever witnessed. That’s saying a lot, because I lived and worked with guys that could do some pretty amazing shit.

  He raised a dark brow and gave me a sardonic smirk. “My kind of people as in vampires?”

  “Dude. I didn’t mean anything by it,” I offered. He slouched back in his chair and dropped his head.

  “I understand. Sorry, I’m not exactly used to people welcoming me with open
arms when they find out what the fuck I am. Trust me, I didn’t ask for this life. Anyway, so you think they’d want dick shit to do with me if they find out I was a prospect for those assholes?” His head lifted and his eyes held mine.

  “Only one way to find out. We can give them a call tomorrow. In the meantime, I have a drunk-ass woman to put to bed and business to tend to before I can go to bed.” My gaze found Kira where she was leaning on the bar, talking animatedly with Raptor. Finishing my drink, I shoved away from the table.

  “I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping,” offered Angel. “Wait. You guys do sleep, right?”

  Calix laughed. “Yeah, man. We sleep.”

  Angel raised his glass to Calix. “Cool. Cheers.” Calix raised his drink, and they both finished. I stood to collect my woman.

  “I’ll meet you all back out here as soon as I get her settled.” Phoenix and Chains nodded.

  “We can wait until tomorrow night if you want.” Venom offered as he stopped at the table.

  A chill shot through me. “No. The sooner the better.”

  Venom nodded and pulled up a seat at the table. He was talking quietly with Calix as I wove through the scattered tables to get to Kira.

  My hands slid around her and palmed her flat stomach. Pulling her snug to my front, I kissed the side of her neck.

  “Mmm, hey, sexy. I was just enjoying that drink you said I’d like.” Her eyes got comically wide as she looked over her shoulder at me. “It’s sooooo good,” she groaned. My lips quirked.

  “Well, by all means, finish it up and then let’s go to bed.”

  She gave me a deeply satisfied look, and I laughed. “Sleep.”

  Pouting, she turned in my arms and looked up at me. “We were supposed to be at your house tonight. In your giant bed. The least you could do is give me a little something to make up for us having to crash in the dinky bed.”