I’d been prepared to tear into him for the way he’d manipulated me the night before. He’d had me so horny I couldn’t think straight, and then given me a choice between two nights. It wasn’t until I was in the shower after waking that I even realized there was a third choice — don’t go at all.
However, watching him with Nora that morning, I knew I had to go. The MC was his family. I had to make things right with his family.
I set the table and put the preserves and butter out before I went to check on the boys. They shower at night, so all they have to do in the morning is put clothes on, brush their teeth, comb their hair, eat, and grab their backpacks.
Which sounds simple, until you throw nine-year-old twin boys into the mix.
They were arguing over whether a shirt was dirty or clean when I walked into their bedroom. One twin doesn’t give a fuck about that sort of thing, the other gives way too many fucks for a nine-year-old. I settled the argument by smelling it and tossing it in the dirty-clothes bin before turning and walking out the door. “Breakfast in about five minutes. If you’re late, there won’t be any bacon left.”
Frost was cooking bacon and sausage, so they wouldn’t starve, but the boys love bacon.
We all left the house at the same time — the kids in my car and Frost in his truck. Seeing his truck reminded me again of the damned catnip. The kids had helped plant it, and had laughed the whole time.
Chapter Twenty
Frost
I went to two jobsites before I made it to the office. Someone had brought donuts, and I usually don’t want them, but they smelled good so I grabbed one. Turns out, it went well with my black coffee.
Most single men would’ve been freaked out after an evening and then morning of domesticity, but I’d loved every minute of it. I barely knew the kids, and I knew it wasn’t always going to be so happy and congenial, but that was okay. I liked all three kids, and I liked the prospect of stepping into the family.
I missed having kids in my life to spoil.
Matty emailed me a picture of a room done the way he’d described for my bedroom — with the bed in the middle of the room like a centerpiece. The room he sent had little sexy statues in the corners, and I had a feeling that was important.
I texted him to call me when he could talk, and he called five minutes later. He named a store at the mall I recognized and said they had a black rug, black curtains, and black oversized, super-filled comforter. Also, the sheets and bed skirt.
“Will it look right without the kinky statues in the corner?”
“The tree you got is all you need. The dresser takes up one wall, and the closet and bathroom doors are on the other wall. The grow-light you bought kicks ass, you just need to make sure you hang it right. I’ll send a drawing.”
Matty certainly knew what he was doing. “Thanks. She’ll be here tomorrow night. Can I, like, hang paddles and whips on a wall or something?”
“Are they black?”
“Floggers and whips are black. I have some wooden paddles.”
He chuckled. “Of course you do. Okay then, I assume you don’t have to worry about wall damage and screw holes. I’ll send some pictures of pretty black hangers for you to hang stuff on, and where you can buy them. Also, a few pictures of how to do it so it’ll work with the décor.”
He told me which wall to put them on, and let me go. I went to the mall, bought the shit he’d sent me pictures of, and went home to take a nap. Squatch and I weren’t leaving until midnight, so I set my alarm for eleven to give me time to eat.
We left our phones at home and took the burners Mad Dog gave us. He was running the control room.
Squatch and I walked seven blocks, keeping to the shadows. He knew which car we were lifting, and had the app on the burner ready for it. We neared the black nondescript sedan, he activated the app, and we opened the doors and got in. We wore black jeans, long sleeved black tees, flesh colored gloves, and we’d shaved our heads and showered.
The prospect was working patrol. His first time solo. Mad Dog let us know where he was, and we stopped and picked him up. He checked in with Mad Dog before leaving his station.
“Good job,” I told him when he got in. “Mad Dog knew, but it’s good you checked in. I need your earpiece. You don’t have anything else on you, right?”
He handed me his earpiece and said, “No. My phone’s at home. Protocol for patrol.”
Mad Dog had surreptitiously wanded him to be sure he wasn’t wearing a tracker or listening device, but the prospect didn’t know that. We didn’t figure he’d be set up to record since it seemed they knew he wasn’t going to learn anything substantial until he was a full patch, but it’s always good to check.
We made our way through town over roads without traffic cams. Squatch had planned the route, with detours in case we saw too much activity. Thankfully, the roads were quiet.
“Where are we going?” the prospect finally asked from the back seat.
“Got a job to do. We’re gonna need a lookout.” Squatch took a deep breath. “You a nervous little pussy boy?”
“No. Just don’t like not knowing what’s going on.”
“Get used to it,” I told him. “Prospects don’t get a vote. You aren’t going to know much until you have the right to hear it in church. You don’t like it? You need to bow out.”
“No way. I want to be...” He sighed. “Fuck, man. I’m sorry. Just the middle of the night shit, and ya’ll with shaved heads. Seems like a big deal.”
“Then it probably is,” Squatch told him.
We didn’t have far to go, thankfully, and Squatch pulled off the road onto a dirt road. We followed it into the back of the park, which was closed. I didn’t see anyone when we got out, but I sensed her. Or, maybe it was my imagination.
Brooke seemed to appear out of nowhere. She glanced at the prospect with disdain and looked to Squatch with interest, but turned to me to ask, “Do you know why I enjoy hunting in parks?”
“No, ma’am.” I looked at her cheekbones, just under her eyes. It can be dangerous to meet a powerful vampire’s gaze. She was supposed to be an ally, but I was being cautious.
“In every generation, there are men who prefer kids. These, I enjoy drinking from the most. They think to use and abuse me? I make sure they never hurt another child.” Her voice was that of a child, her tone was not. My arms broke out in goose bumps and I suppressed a shudder.
Brooke was turned as a young girl, and she’s thousands of years old. It was easy to see her feeding on men who wanted to do evil things to the child they thought they saw.
She turned to the prospect. “As much as men who would brutalize a child disgust me, your kind is worse.”
“Werewolves?” he asked.
“Traitors. Turncoats.” She turned to Squatch. “He knows about the spa, but no details. Nothing he could offer as proof, though he tried. He doesn’t know about the underground rooms. His handlers told him about the girls at Blaze going next door, but he couldn’t confirm it. Keeping him at the bike shop kept him from finding out your secrets. His handlers don’t have anything substantial, yet.”
“Who are his handlers?”
She named off a half-dozen names, and ended it by telling us they were all with the FBI. Local LEO didn’t know about him. Meanwhile, the prospect looked like he wanted to bolt. I assumed Brooke had taken away his free will.
Squatch handed a burner phone to the prospect and looked at Brooke. The plan was for her to make him call his main handler and tell him he couldn’t do this anymore. The burner didn’t have GPS, which meant they’d only have triangulation available. In this area of town, they’d narrow it down to about a half-mile circle, but not the exact spot. Also, it takes the FBI longer to mobilize than the local cops. We had at least thirty minutes, probably an hour until they were in the area.
Sure enough, the prospect dialed a number, put the phone to his head, and then told someone, “I can’t do this anymore. It ain’t worth it. You can
take your demands and shove them right up your ass.”
Brooke worked him like a puppet. It was easy to tell, standing beside him, but his voice had sounded real enough.
Squatch took the phone from him while the man on the other side of the conversation was in mid-sentence, telling him he didn’t want to do this. Squatch ended the call, took the battery from the phone, and put the phone into a signal blocking bag. We’d destroy it before we returned to the clubhouse.
“You are going to kill him?” Brooke asked.
Squatch nodded. I smelled fear coming off the prospect, so thick I stepped upwind of him before I gagged. The other two must have smelled it much worse, but they stayed put.
Brooke turned her gaze on me, and I once again focused on her cheekbones.
“Your owl senses picked up on his duplicity when your brethren couldn’t smell it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Squatch walked to the car, leaned in, and pulled a backpack out. He opened it, retrieved two stacks of cash with rubber bands to keep them together. “Eight thousand dollars in twenties, Brooke. Thank you.”
She looked at the money without moving to accept it, and I worried he’d offended her by so casually using her name. She was an old one, and most of them were big on formality and respect. However, she didn’t seem upset when she met his gaze.
“I have need of him. If you’ll give him to me, I won’t charge you.”
Squatch shook his head. “I’m sorry, but we can’t risk that he’ll be seen. He’s a loose end we need to tie up.”
“I’ll have him out of the country within hours, as I plan to trade him for someone in Europe I wish to free. You have my word, he’ll never show up on anyone’s radar. The vampire I’m offering him to will play with him a few weeks before forcing the coward to fight. My former husband runs a werewolf fight club, where your young wolf will fight to the death in animal form. I don’t expect he’ll last long before he dies.”
No, I didn’t expect he would.
“Remove his memories of us and his handlers,” Squatch told her. “Don’t be gentle. Do this, and we’ll keep our money, plus you’ll think of us as friends of your organization.”
She nodded. “I already consider the bikers to be friends.”
The prospect fell to his knees, his mouth open in a silent scream. Everything about his movements told me he was in excruciating pain. His arms wrapped around his head, and I smelled blood.
He seemed to pass out, and I stooped to look at him. Blood came out his ears. His body was in shock.
“Wake him, please.” I tried to make it sound like a request, but we needed to be certain.
He came to with a gasp, and then started crying. I heard Brooke in my head. He doesn’t know he’s a werewolf. Doesn’t know he can change. This is necessary, so he can’t heal himself.
This told me she wasn’t as strong as Gavin. He could alter memories that wouldn’t come back even if the wolf changed right after. I tried to keep the thought out of my head, but if she was looking at my thoughts, she likely picked up on it.
“Where are you?” I asked the prospect.
He looked around, confused. “The woods. Who are you?”
“What did you do today?”
“I, umm. I guess I went to...” he looked around again. “Why am I not in jail? I don’t remember breaking out.”
Squatch asked some questions, and nodded to Brooke. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, ma’am.”
“It has.” She turned her gaze to me. “A member of my organization will contact you next week. It’s time I rebuilt Club Renaissance.”
The club had been destroyed during the rioting and looting after the battle. “I look forward to speaking with your representative, and I look forward to working with you.”
She tilted her head. “You mean that.” She sounded surprised.
“I look forward to helping you bring your vision to life, ma’am.”
“You may call me Brooke, Frost.”
I’ve been trained in a royal court and I understood this was important, so I bowed at the waist a few inches, looked down a second, to her shoes, showing trust, and then stood and looked just below her eyes again. “Thank you, Brooke.”
“You impress me, young owl.”
And then, just like that, she and the prospect were gone. I looked at Squatch and rolled my eyes. “Let’s clean the interior and get out of here.” He nodded and handed me the handheld vacuum. I leaned into the back and ran it over every square inch of the seat, floor, and the backs and sides and fronts of our seats. If everything went as expected, crime scene techs would never have reason to go over it, but you can’t be too careful.
The FBI was going to come looking for the prospect. They wouldn’t identify themselves as FBI, but they’d come. We’d tell them he told us he wasn’t a good fit and he was leaving town, but no hard feelings.
Squatch wouldn’t be able to sponsor anyone for at least a year, maybe longer, and he’d have to pay a huge fine. He may or may not get a beatdown. We’d have to see how the club voted.
“You were looking forward to torturing him,” Squatch said as we cleaned up.
“Yeah. It’s been a while.”
Only a few of my brothers understood it isn’t just that I don’t have a problem torturing people, it’s that I enjoy it. I need it. All we needed to do was kill him and dispose of the body so it wasn’t found, but I’d planned to torture the fuck out of him before we killed him.
Everything went back into the backpack when we finished cleaning, we drove the car back where we found it, and Squatch squeezed the cellphone in the bag until I heard it break into pieces. He opened it to be sure it wasn’t useable, and tossed it in a garbage can at the end of someone’s driveway, waiting for garbage pickup in a few hours.
I crushed my burner phone directly into a different garbage can two blocks over, and the two of us made our way into the back of the complex, through a hidden door only a few of us knew about. We separated and went to our rooms. Job done.
I was wired when I got back, so I put the huge round throw rug down, and centered the bed on it. Even without the black stuff on the bed, it didn’t look half bad. I’d get the hanger things the next day and put them up when I put new sheets on the bed. They’d need to be washed before I slept on them. I could wash the clothes I’d worn tonight while I was at it.
Instead of showering, I went upstairs and grabbed meat from the fridge, made a notation of what I’d got, went back to my room, changed to my owl, ate the meat, and slept as the owl.
The next morning was hectic. I dropped the sheets and a large bag of clothes off at the laundromat, went to buy the hangers, and then went into the office a few hours to put fires out. I doublechecked to make sure the automatic paycheck deposits had all gone through the night before, and I picked my clean sheets and clothes up from the laundromat.
I thought about running by Daffodil’s for a haircut, but decided against it. Changing had gotten rid of the bald look, but now I was scruffy. I decided that was okay.
It took two hours to get my bedroom looking like Matty wanted it. I propped a laptop up so he could see what I was doing during the final ten minutes, and he helped me decide where everything went on the hangers. When I’d put everything on, it’d looked all helter-skelter, but he had me rearrange the whole wall, and it looked right. I had no idea why, nor did I care.
“If you want this room to be about sex and kink, you’ve succeeded,” he told me when we finished.
I thanked him again, and then transferred two hundred dollars to Razor via the RTMC app and told him it was for Matty’s help. Matty hadn’t even mentioned charging me, but he’d more than earned the money, and I didn’t want to take advantage of him.
I secured Cheyenne’s helmet onto my bike, and left in time to pick her up at six.
Mad Dog said he’d have everyone there at six thirty.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cheyenne
I was a
nervous wreck when I heard Frost’s motorcycle stop at the gate while he input his code. Each child now had their own individual code into the house and yard, and Frost had his. I’d changed the master code to something else random that no one could possibly guess. Frost said the Fibonacci series wasn’t secure, so I’d come up with something random but memorable for the master code.
I met him on the front porch instead of making him ring the bell.
“We have about ten minutes before we leave,” he told me, and he stepped past me and pushed the code to open the door. “I’m going to edge you before we go. You need to be horny before you get on my bike, and then, while we ride to the clubhouse, you need to think about what happens after you’ve been belted tonight.”
To keep from having to pull my jeans down, I’d worn a clingy cotton dress. Not tight, because the cotton was stretchy. It would be easy to lift and then would fall back down on its own when I stood. I wore a flesh-colored thong under it. I’d also packed a bag with another outfit, and with clothes to wear home the next morning.
To my surprise, he went in, sat in the armless chair in my foyer, and ordered me over his knee.
And before I could think about what I was doing, I’d bent over his lap.
Frost has this voice he uses when he orders me to orgasm. He only uses it when we’re doing sex stuff, and I always obey him when he uses it.
So now, even though I wanted to argue about bending over his lap, my body just did it.
And then screamed and squealed, my heart a rapid drumbeat in my chest, because he spanked my ass hard.
So hard, I fought and tried to stand, but he held me down and spanked harder, and harder, until I finally remembered he’d only stop when I accepted what he was doing.
He’d spanked me a lot in the past three weeks, and so long as I could be still and accept the spanking, he’d given me tons of orgasms after.
But today, I didn’t get an orgasm.
“Good girl. Twenty more, and you’ll be still. Put your hands on the floor and don’t lift them. Keep your toes on the floor, too.”
Frost (Rolling Thunder MC Birmingham Book 3) Page 14
